By Caleb Faires
Rudyard Kipling, inspired by Samuel Stone’s “The Church’s One Foundation,” wrote a hymn of his own called “Hymn Before Action.” It can be sung to the same tune, but I must warn you that its content is radically different from Stone’s. Kipling invokes God’s aid to support blatantly imperial aims.
Kipling’s message may hit a little closer to home than we’d like to admit. Have you ever sought God’s help for something that was really just a selfish wish? I have. We are naturally inclined to think opportunistically of our relationship with God. We have our own ideas about what we want and how God should help us fulfill our wishes. I am grateful that God is both faithful and gracious, dealing patiently even with my presumptuous and petty ways.
Unlike Kipling, Stone’s theme is not about the imperial aims of man, but the kingdom of God. It is part of a series of hymns which expound on the declarations of the Apostle’s Creed. In this hymn, Stone addresses the theme of the Church universal, and the communion of the saints.
This hymn is a reminder of what our forgetful hearts need to hear again and again: Christ is our all. He is the one foundation.
How often we build our lives on false hopes, false foundations, and the lure of worldly success. We seek to build the church on false visions of success—like size, numbers, facilities, and programs—while neglecting the preeminence of Christ. Our hearts are inclined to supplant Jesus and replace Him with our own designs.
It is precisely this “do-it-yourself” kind of faith that Christ confounds. Psalm 127:1 says, “Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I think I read this verse over a thousand times before I noticed that God Himself was the builder. Somehow, I always read this and thought it meant that I should build on my own, after getting some architectural direction from God.
That’s not what the verse says. God is the builder. He has established the church. He builds it. And my communion with Him and with the saints is not rooted in what I have done, but in what He has done. Indeed, Peter declares that we are “living Stones” (1 Peter 2:5). Our chief duty is to rest in Christ and rest upon the foundation He has laid.
Any activity we invest in that is not fixed upon Christ is vanity. Any program we concoct, any relationship we foster, any prayer we utter is vain labor apart from Him.
Stone reminds us that only in Christ do we find peace, sustenance, hope, joy, life, beauty, glory, reconciliation, love, salvation, identity, comfort, endurance, strength, and grace. Christ alone fills all in all (Ephesians 1:23).
Written By Caleb Faires
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! You can find the complete HRT Hymns Playlist here, or listen to the first track on the player below. Enjoy!
145 thoughts on "The Church’s One Foundation"
-
Andrew C says:
That part of the good new of Jesus Christ is we can find rest and freedom and all these things in Him and be rooted deeply with Him. Having security.
-
Share this message with others, and take into account and know that when Satan tells me I’m supposed to make my own foundation of which to stand, that he’s lying and God is the only one who should build my foundation of which to stand.
-
Joel Selby says:
I will respond by submitting everything in my life—good and bad—to His guidance, and I will seek His blessing in everything I choose to do, from the huge decisions to the mundane everyday ones.
-
God is jealous; He wants me to be in Him and in Him alone. Yet He is gracious, gently confounding my vanity in order to teach me and draw me to Him.
-
The good news is that in God’s church, I find abundant life. I have died to my old self and united myself to Christ, and thereby have gained access to my Heavenly Father and the full life He intended for me.
-
Man was created to be a part of God, and to do nothing apart from Him. He intends for us to live abundantly in this world He created, but abundance is found only in Him.
-
Lord, thwart my every attempt to live for myself and by my own strength. Draw me closer to you daily; bind my wandering heart to you.
-
Jonny says:
To me, this points out how God is always there. Through every valley and storm that life may throw my way. That no matter what, I need to bring everything before Him and let Him be in control. Even though at times I may be distracted by the world and what it has to offer, it is all temporary. Whereas, God in all His love and mercies- is eternal.
-
I’ll respond to what I’ve read by trying to remain steadfast in prayer. I find myself coming to God more with my problems than my rejoicing. I need to include Him and share with Him all the moments of my life. I want to acknowledge Him in every area and aspect of my life.
-
Jesus, please renew and instill in me a heart of thankfulness. Thankfulness for what you’ve gotten me through, what you’re getting me through, and what I will have gone through. You are so gracious and loving to me. I pray I would remember to constantly pray to you in all areas and moments of my life. The good, the bad..the happy, the sad. I pray a blessing over myself that you would heal me and renew my faith daily. That I would always choose you first before anything. In Jesus’ Holy and Powerful name, amen.
-
That we can tend to be selfish and caught up in our own ways. We can fail to realize how trivial things can be in the moment. We ask for what we need when we need it..but, do we still come to Jesus in faith when things aren’t tumultuous?
-
Peter MacDiarmid says:
He is the foundation to all things and we shouldn’t do anything apart from him
-
We try to do things in our own strength, we were created for relationship with God, God has an overarching plan of salvation
-
It is a timeless plan that will see Christ with his bride for eternity
-
Braden Mcalister says:
I will make God the foundation of my life, and live everyday to his demise
-
That man is weak without God. Also that anything we do to not glorify God is vain.
-
This teaches me that God is the supreme being and should always have a stable base in my heart.
-
This teaches me that I must make God the Rock of my heart and that Jesus allowed me to do this through his death
-
I will pray for hope and joy throughout my day.
And that my attitude stay on the right path -
Isaac Jones says:
Man is a holy temple and citizen of the kingdom. We are no longer strangers, but sons in the household. We cannot build ourselves, for all our labor will be in vain.
Comments are closed.
Post Comments (145)