James de Costobadie preaches on the church as God's building, ahead of Latimer Church's move to a new site
A sermon by James de Costobadie, Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, delivered on the last Sunday before the congregation moves to their new building.
Summary
James de Costobadie preaches from Ephesians chapter 2 on the eve of Latimer Church's move to a new building, arguing that the physical building is merely a resource and base for gospel work — not the destination. He identifies a specific danger he calls "spiritual malaise," warning that churches which have completed major building projects often experience a spiritual collapse once the construction effort is over. Drawing on five truths from Ephesians 2, he argues that God's real building is his people, founded on the apostles and prophets, centred on Christ as cornerstone, indwelt by the Spirit, and destined for eternal completion. He challenges the congregation to ask what they are personally doing to invest in eternity rather than in the things of this world.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The danger of spiritual malaise after a building project
James de Costobadie: Today, on our last Sunday before moving to the new site, it's very fitting to consider the church as a building. Because as we read the Bible, it turns out that we're not the only ones engaged in a building project. God himself has been busy in this regard for a long time, as he builds a building that spans the world and lasts down the ages. His building, as we've thought about, is his people, his church. It's a church that he is building one brick at a time, as individuals come to believe in Jesus and are built up together.
As we get ready to move this week ahead, I must admit I'm unusually excited, because we have an opportunity ahead to reset our sights and to focus — to reset our focus on loving the church family, building up the people of God, and on reaching new people with the gospel. And that's how the building metaphor works. Think of a building, one brick at a time, like a brick building. We add in new bricks at the top as people come to believe in Jesus. But you don't want to play Jenga, where you've got bricks popping out of the wall at the same time. That's not the idea. You don't want people falling away from Christ. You want to love each other, build up the body as we add new people in.
That's what this is about. It's a great opportunity ahead and we want to seize that opportunity, but we need to be aware there's a danger ahead at the same time. There's a danger ahead which people — other churches — have spoken to us about: that a spiritual malaise can so easily set in around building projects. I don't know what Majestic's experience has been like, I hope it's not been like this, but a number of churches have commented on this, and I think we can understand why that might be the case.
It's 16 years since the old St John's building — that you saw on the screen — fell over, and we've met in a variety of locations as you've heard. We've had a lot of setting up and packing down. Ian McCartney, who did the reading tonight, for years and years used to get to Maraehoe High School at 7:30 in the morning and spend a couple of hours setting up the speaker system. Massive effort over many, many years, as many people put in. Then finally you arrive at the new building. And it's so easy for the shoulders to sag down and think, excellent, we've arrived. You know, Thursday we'll cut the metaphorical ribbon, and the temptation perhaps is just to relax as we collapse in a state of physical, spiritual, and financial exhaustion — perhaps hoping that the new building will do its work for us.
Whereas really we need to remember and remind each other that on Thursday we're not at the finishing tape, we're at the starting line. That's what this is about. This is about a new chapter, doing what we've always been committed to doing — that is, seeing our amazing God reach people for Christ and build his building.
Five truths from Ephesians 2
So as we think about the church as the building of God, I want to do so by offering five truths this evening from that wonderful passage in Ephesians chapter 2 — five truths that will help us combat spiritual malaise.
Truth one: the building comprises God's people
First truth: the building comprises God's people. There's nothing new here, nothing new under the sun. On Thursday, when we meet together at the new building, understandably most of our attention is probably on the new building. It's very exciting to get there. It's taken a lot of time and effort. It'll be absolutely fantastic to see it. But as we do so, we shouldn't forget the words that Tim said to us before. We shouldn't forget that God's real work is his people. His building is made up of people — people who themselves are richly privileged.
Now interestingly — take this as you will — even the builders who built the building, the ones who've been engaged these last couple of years, who by and large are non-Christian, even they realise that buildings are not about the building. They're coming on Thursday because they've already seen the building — they've finished it. They want to see the people who are in the building. That's actually what excites them: seeing a building used for the purpose for which it was built. How much more for us, as we think of God's building made up of people — people who are richly blessed.
Have a look at verse 19. Consequently, says the apostle Paul, "you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household."
Paul here is writing to the church in Ephesus, made up of Jews and Gentiles — and here particularly he's addressing the Gentiles, that is, everyone who's not Jewish by background. We can relate to the Gentiles because most of us are Gentile non-Jews ourselves. And Paul reminds them of their humble origins, the origins from which they've come. So for example, back in verse 12 he says to them, "remember that at that time, before Jesus, you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world."
He reminds them of their humble origins from which they've come. They didn't know the Bible. They hadn't been given the Old Testament. They didn't know the promises of God. They didn't have the knowledge of God at their fingertips. They weren't like the Jews. They'd not been blessed in that way. And then look at what has changed. Verse 13: "but now in Christ Jesus," God has richly blessed them. Verse 19: you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household.
Once upon a time, they were looking at a godless eternity. There is nothing worse, and so many people around us are facing that. They were without hope and without God in the world. They were on the outside. And then Jesus Christ, in love, was propelled out of heaven by his love into this world to come and save them. And in coming to know him, they were brought to the inside. In verse 19, they became fellow citizens and members of God's household.
Just think about those two things — what God has done for them, and what God has done for you and for all of his people. Fellow citizens: that is, they have now become people who are heading to a heavenly home. Their eternity has been transformed. And we shouldn't lose sight of what a massive change God has brought about through the gospel.
Some years ago, Teresa and I went to a citizenship ceremony, having lived in New Zealand for a number of years. For us, it was a great privilege, without a doubt, and we were very pleased to be there. But what was striking to me was who else was there. There was a person from Somalia, there was a person from Iraq, there was a family from Afghanistan. For Teresa and me, it was a privilege, but for these people, it was life-changing. Some of them punched the air as they walked across the stage, because they had come from countries that were frankly awful to live in. And they'd come into New Zealand. And for them and their children and their children's children, this was a whole new chapter. The joy that was written on their faces, the excitement looking to the future — this was a massive change.
And for Christians, how much more? Now citizens of heaven, once heading into the tunnel of death, now brought out into an eternity of light, forever and ever, our futures transformed in a way that words can hardly convey. We should be the ones punching the air every morning, pinching ourselves that God has done such a great thing for us.
But we're not alone. Citizenship is one picture, verse 19. Members of God's household — in other words, members of his family. We're here together. It was so heartwarming as the microphone was passed around, and many of those comments had to do with brothers and sisters that people have met here. Members of the family. And that's us in terms of belonging to the family of God across the world, and actually down the ages as well — people who we will spend eternity with, people that we get alongside and put our arms around on the way to heaven, to encourage each other within this life. Yes, there are difficulties. Yes, there are humps and bumps in this world, but we have each other to help get us through. And we have each other because God has provided a family to get us through.
Here are the privileges for us, and we should never forget them. We have been given a hope, a certainty, a direction, a home, and a family to help us get there.
Yesterday we had this incredible working bee — over 200 people, as Tim said. Someone texted me afterwards and said: "Today's praise is to be part of such a wonderful church family. We are so very, very lucky. I feel so grateful tonight." Now, isn't that wonderful? And it's not just a comment about Latimer, but the fact that God has brought us into his family. We should never forget the privileges he has given to us.
Truth two: the building is founded on the apostles and prophets
Second truth to combat spiritual malaise: the building is founded on the apostles and prophets. Every building needs a solid foundation, and we in Canterbury know that better than most. I don't know if you ever saw the pictures of the piles that went into the foundations for our new building — 88 of these monsters, 18 metres deep each one of them, to provide a solid foundation. And now you can't see any of them because the building covers the whole lot.
Well, the church requires a solid foundation as well, and that's what it's been given. It is built on a rock-solid foundation. That comes in verse 20: "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." And I'm taking the prophets there as also coming in chapter 3, verse 5: "through God's holy apostles and prophets" — meaning they're not Old Testament prophets but the New Testament prophets who taught what the apostles had passed down to them. Verse 6 of chapter 3: "that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body."
There were two criteria to be an apostle in the early church. One needed to have witnessed the resurrection, and secondly needed to have been set apart by God as his official messengers. And the Spirit, having set the apostles apart, then spoke through them, giving them the words that he wanted them to have, which they then wrote down — the Spirit-inspired words that are now here with us, preserved by God, the Spirit-inspired words for us and for every Christian in every generation to read and to learn, so that God today speaks through the words of the apostles as he has always spoken. It is his living and active word to us. The apostles have given us words that are perfectly true, perfectly good, and therefore perfectly trustworthy. And a church is therefore genuine only to the extent that it continues to be built on this foundation.
Now imagine for a second a house that has moved off its foundation. One or two of you may not have to imagine that — perhaps you owned one of those at one point. It might look all right for a time, but there will come a day not too far down the track when the problems begin to show themselves. And so with a church. A church can move off its foundation. It's a tragedy when that happens — when it moves away from the teaching of the apostles and the prophets who taught what the apostles had laid down. A church may look the same for a time — yes, in its buildings, yes, in its numbers maybe, in its external measurables — but if it moves off the foundation, it lives on borrowed time.
How does that happen? I pray that it doesn't happen to us. Let me suggest a few different ways it can happen that we ought to be aware of.
First of all, the philosophies of the world can take us away from this foundation — that is, the cultural pressures that we're under. We should know about that in the history of Latimer, because we were set up as a church in 2018. When we moved from St John's, we felt the need — decided — to leave the previous diocese, because we decided the diocese had moved off the foundations of the gospel. That was why we felt the need to separate and to become a separate church in that year. The philosophies of the world can easily come into the church, those cultural pressures, and when they do, every church has to make a decision: do I go with what the culture is saying, or do I go with what the Bible says? Going with the Bible means you stand out like a healthy thumb from the world around.
Second thing that can take us away — oddly — is the evangelistic desire of Christians. It might seem surprising. You think, well, it's good to reach the world, it's essential to reach the world. Not just good, but not at the expense of watering down the gospel which we have been taught. Theological liberalism began, let us not forget, as an evangelistic movement. That is, it came from a desire to see more people reached for the gospel. But when more people didn't respond to the gospel but were antagonistic, Christians — and I'm talking about the second half of the 19th century here — watered down the gospel to make it more acceptable, to bring more people into the churches. People said, at a time of rationalism, it's the age of the Enlightenment, can't believe in miracles. So the church went along with that: oh yeah, well, I suppose the miracles are very hard to believe in. So they began to suggest — that is, the churches began to suggest — that the miracles in the New Testament didn't actually happen, that they're more like allegories, more like metaphors. They watered down the message, and it caused a fatal flaw in the churches in the decades that followed. They moved off the foundation.
Now you say, well, that's a bit of history, and so it is. But it's history that threatens to repeat itself in every generation. Because have you never felt under pressure when someone asks you an inconvenient question? Sometimes we feel the heat coming on us. Well, what about someone who's never heard about Jesus? What happens to them? And we can easily find ourselves saying, well, you know, we don't really know what happens to those people. When the Bible is very clear — we do know what happens to people who haven't heard about Jesus. They remain under the judgment of God. That's why missionaries have been under impetus to go and take the message across the world. We know exactly what will happen. We know they need the gospel, and that's why we go out. But under that moment, when the spotlight comes on us, we can feel under that kind of pressure. So the evangelistic desire of Christians can lead us unwittingly to move off the foundation.
Or thirdly, and perhaps most likely of all, the complacency of Christians — that is, simply, we think we know what the Bible says, so we no longer listen to it. Or at the point where we have something going on in our own life, we no longer obey what it clearly says. In other words, we don't listen to it, we don't believe it, we don't contend for it. We can easily have an assumption within Latimer that this will always be a Bible church. You know, you pick up a Bible there, and there are 200 Bibles there, and you feel we're a Bible church. We're not a Bible church because we have Bibles outside. We are only a Bible church to the extent that we actually read what is on the page — that in growth groups we read what is there in black and white, that we open a Bible for ourselves at home and we read it, listen to it, believe it, trust it, and obey it. Those are people, and those are churches, that are Bible churches, that are built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
Now if we do that, that will combat spiritual malaise. But easier said than done, and many Christians finer than us have stopped those habits or never got into them, and churches have wandered away from what is written on the page. We need to make sure we remain on the foundation.
Truth three: the building is centred on Christ Jesus
Then thirdly, the third truth: the building is to be centred on Christ Jesus. Verse 20 again: "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
Of the foundation, the most important element is the cornerstone. Here is the physical and structural starting point for the entire building. Historically, builders measured all subsequent walls and angles and levels directly from the cornerstone. If the cornerstone is out of position, the rest of the foundation and the building are under threat. And in the Christian scheme, that cornerstone is, as it's said here, Christ Jesus — that is, he is the theme, the dominant theme, of what the apostles wrote down and the apostles and prophets taught.
Think of him. Christ Jesus. That is, the Christ, the long-awaited Saviour King, promised for centuries in the Old Testament to come and set his people free. He came to rescue his people from exile — an exile away from God because of our sins. That was what the Christ came to do. And who is that Christ? The man, the God-man Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfilled those Old Testament expectations, who in his resurrection fulfilled, for example, Psalm 16 — by his resurrection from the dead he fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah, showing himself to be that Saviour King. And so it is Jesus who is the centre of God's plans and Jesus who is the fulfilment of God's promises. It is Jesus who is the new Adam, Jesus who is the new humanity, Jesus who is the better covenant with a better set of promises, Jesus who is the better high priest who can grant permanent access to God, Jesus who is the better temple — which is his body — who offered the better sacrifice as he sacrificed himself on the cross, by which people could have their sins forgiven, paid once for all. Jesus who is higher than all and greater than all and whose kingdom lasts longer than all. He is the one and only, the God-man who is the Lord of the world and the Saviour of all who believe.
Now, to avoid spiritual malaise and to keep the church where it ought to be, our focus should be on him. Not on a physical building, but on Jesus, who himself is the temple, and into whom we are incorporated as we believe in him. Christians should always look up — look up to Jesus. Individually, as salvation comes from him, our chief joy and our contentment are found in him. And often a Christian's joy diminishes when their eyes drop down onto the things of this world — either the worries and anxieties or the opportunities of this world — whereas really we should be looking up by faith to Jesus. And for a church to keep Jesus as the main theme, as a church we should speak of Jesus much and preach of Jesus much. We want people to hear about him. It is Jesus who makes the difference.
So let me ask you a question. Is Jesus the theme of your life? Is he the centre of your life? Is he your number one in this life? Is he your soul-filler, your companion, your prayer partner, the one you praise, the one you thank, the one you turn to morning, noon and night? He's to be our captain, he's to be our leader, he's to be our shepherd, our prophet, priest and king — individually and as a church. We should speak of Jesus often.
And I need to get my own lines in order here, because we're going to have a lot of people visit the building and make comments about the building, and we need to translate that into helping them see Jesus — which is the purpose for building the building. Fixing our eyes on him helps combat spiritual malaise.
Truth four: the building is indwelt by the Spirit
Then fourthly, the building is indwelt by the Spirit. Here is this incredible truth. Where do you find God today? According to these verses, you find God not in a building, but in people. Have a look down at verse 21: "In him, Jesus, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." And verse 22: "And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
In the Old Testament, it was first the tabernacle and then the temple where God dwelt. And then you remember how Jesus described his own body as the temple. Here is where God dwells in this world. And as we come to believe in him, united by his Spirit to Christ through faith, he actually dwells in us. The living God who made this world, this universe, every star in the sky — the God who is unapproachable, holy, holy, holy, the God who is greater than all, the creator who flung stars into space — dwells in the person sitting next to you tonight.
Now there are implications here — implications for the way we see each other. By ourselves, we're just an ordinary group of people, and that's a good thing. It means we can welcome ordinary people into Latimer Church. But there's another side to that: every person who is a Christian is unbelievably precious. Precious to God. Every person matters to God. And that's why every person should matter to us as well. And that's why it matters that we're here tonight. And it matters that we're here next week — not here, sorry, that we are at a different place next week at 6 o'clock and not 7 o'clock. Because every person matters.
Now every person matters in life anyway because God made them all, but doubly so when they have the Spirit of God within them. And if you ever think it doesn't matter whether I'm at church, no one will miss me anyway — we should think again. That thought only comes from the devil, who would want us to think that, who tries to break the unity of Christians, whereas God is building the unity of his body, the unity of the building, by the work of his Spirit and the work of the gospel.
And that's why when you get to chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians, just look how chapter 4 begins: "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you received. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Everything that you and I do to keep the unity of the Spirit — that is, to meet up together, to encourage other Christians, to spend time together, to pray for each other, to love each other with acts of service, to text, to be in touch, to encourage, to send a verse, to do everything we can — is never time that is wasted. We are building up the people of God, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And every time we restrain our natural impulses, and as verse 2 says, we are completely humble and gentle, being patient and bearing with one another in love, we do the same thing. We help keep the unity of the body.
Now I hope when you come up on Thursday to the commissioning service, you enjoy being there and it's a fantastic building. But I should say, although the building is finished, the site certainly isn't finished, and things within the building are not finished. There is still — basically because we ran out of money, okay — so we'll get there. We'll get there in the years ahead, but there's still plenty of things to be done. At least let's be grateful for the amazing thing that God has brought about, rather than to point out the things that could be better or whatever, which are undoubtedly true. More than that, as we learn to operate within the building, there'll be different ways of doing things and better ways than the way we first do it. Of course there are, because you grow into doing it. You learn from your mistakes and all of that. So as you have comments and thoughts and ideas, fantastic. On the side of the building, on bits of paper, you'll see when you get there a QR code, and you send in those comments and we would love to hear them. But as you do, spare a thought for the few people who've been absolutely working to get this thing ready, and just remember verse 2: be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.
That's the aim here. Because our words have great potential for goodness. Our words bring life and healing. Our words bring the gospel. Our words have the potential to love others. And our words can also cut like a sword. Our words can destroy like a bullet. Or in the words of the New Testament, our words can burn like a flamethrower, and people can be scorched by what we choose to say. So as Christian people, I appeal to you — those who are Christians here — to love one another in this way, to remember that we have the unity of the Spirit and to make every effort to keep that unity.
More than that, as we thought a bit about last week, as we think about keeping the unity of the Spirit, we want to think about meeting together. It's quite popular these days to say, oh, I church at home, or to say you don't have to be part of a local church to be a Christian. Well, technically that is quite correct. And sometimes it might be the case that someone can't be part of a local church — for example, they're in a retirement home and they can't get out, or that sort of thing. But when we have a choice, when we're able to be part of a local church, and when you think of church as a building where we're connected together by his Spirit, it's very odd to think that the stones would choose not to be connected to each other.
The preacher Charles Spurgeon put it this way:
Charles Spurgeon: "I know there are some who say, 'Well, I've given myself to the Lord, but I don't intend to give myself to any church.' Now, why not, I ask. And they reply, 'Because I can be a Christian without it.'"
James de Costobadie: To which Spurgeon replies:
Charles Spurgeon: "Are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord's command as by obedience? There is a brick. What is it made for? To help build a house. It is no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be next to other bricks in a house. It is a good-for-nothing brick. So you rolling stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live, and are much to blame for the injury you do to others as well as to yourself."
James de Costobadie: I think we get the general point that Spurgeon was making there. By the Spirit of God we are united, so we should give expression to that. And every time you choose to meet with others, you do give expression to it. It helps us to remember how precious other Christians are. That helps us to combat spiritual malaise.
Truth five: the church will be fulfilled in eternity
And then fifthly, the church will be fulfilled in eternity. Some building projects take a long time. We aimed for between two and five years. We got there in seven. But spare a thought for those involved in cathedral projects. Good news for those in Barcelona, because their cathedral — the famous Sagrada Família — was finished this year in February, after 144 years. It's a shame that Gaudí wasn't around to see it, but people enjoyed it this year.
Well, so it is with God's project. It takes a while. In fact, his project will only be completed on the day when Christ returns. I want to just look forward here to chapter 3, verses 10 and 11. Have a look down: "God's intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."
God has a big purpose, an eternal purpose. The eternal purpose is to bring everything under the rule of Jesus Christ. And the evidence that one day God will bring that to fruition, to completion, is that already he's doing it in the local church. In the local church you have a group of Christians who have submitted to the Lordship of Christ. So the evidence that one day everything and everyone will submit to Christ is already what is happening in ordinary churches all around the world as they meet together. At Latimer we're pretty ordinary as we meet together. It's evidence that one day God will fulfil his great promise, his eternal promise.
Which means that we should do as much as we can to work for that day. So much of what we do in life is restricted — the benefits of it are restricted to this life. It doesn't mean that it's a waste of time, but it does mean that the benefit of it is limited to this world. Think of work. You go to work, you have a job. There's a value to what people do — whether someone's an engineer or a medical professional or a dustman or a cleaner, whatever it is. There's a value. It helps in the running of this world. It helps the people they serve. And it puts food on our own tables. There's a value. But remember this: the value is limited. It is limited to this world.
Whereas the building that God is building will last forever and ever. And that's why elsewhere Paul the Apostle says, "always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain." Everything else is ultimately transient. It's only for a limited time. You have to understand in life what is temporary and what is eternal. And the things that are eternal are the things that we should invest in as much as we possibly can.
And that's why Paul says, give yourself fully, always, to the work of the Lord. The work he's talking about is building this building — what a great aim for us. To do everything we can to add in more bricks up at the top, by praying to God that he would bring about the salvation of many people, and for us to be bold and share the gospel with our friends and colleagues and neighbours and family, but also with the new area that we're moving to around there. We want to pray that God would save people, as he has been doing these last 2,000 years. And then as we love each other, are committed to each other, as we forsake our own preferences for the sake of each other, we give ourselves to building up the body. Our job is to commit ourselves to encouraging others in their faith.
A challenge to invest in eternity
As we finish now, and finish here, and have an opportunity for a reset and a restart, I want to encourage us — but perhaps also challenge us. What are you doing to invest in eternity? We have one short life in this world. What are you doing to use your life for the benefit of the gospel in eternity? Everything around us is screaming at us to invest in this world, to plunge into this world, to put our anchor into this world. Will we step out of line from our contemporaries and have a clearer spiritual vision for the life of the world to come?
The building that has been built for us up in Belfast Northwood is there as a resource, as a base — but a base for gospel work. What will you do? What will we do to use that? And maybe not just use that, but go out from there, make a change in our own life — for some of us, to go perhaps to distant places to take that same gospel, to reach people for the gospel and to build up God's people. Because God's building is the building that will last forever. And through that building, his church, he'll be glorified forever. What are we doing to invest in it? That's what will help us combat spiritual malaise.
Closing prayer
Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, I want to pray this evening that you would lay onto each of our hearts the privilege that you've given to us — the special nature of each Christian — but especially, Lord, that you would open our eyes to the needs of the world around for the gospel, and the opportunity that we have to invest in eternity. We pray, Lord, that as we move to this new building, that you would help us to be heavenly-minded, to have a great burden for you and your glory, great confidence in the gospel, a great love for people, that you would use us in the building of your building. For any of you who are here tonight who don't yet know Christ as their Lord and Saviour, we pray that you would have mercy upon them and open their eyes and bring them to a personal knowledge of you. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.