A Dwelling Place for God by the Spirit: Ephesians 2:11-22

The sermon text this morning comes from Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Be reading verses 11 to 22 in the text.

The Apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus about God's masterful work in building his church.

Hear the word of God.

Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the laws of the law of the commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father, so that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, and errant word.

Let's pray for the Spirit's work in us this morning.

Father, we thank you for your vision for your church.

We thank you for the privilege of being part of your church.

Lord, we ask now by your spirit, open us up.

Our minds, our hearts, our wills, our emotions.

Lord, we have so much that gets shut down in the course of a day, in the course of a week.

Lord, we pray that we will be present, engaged, ready to receive whatever you have to give us now.

In Jesus' name, amen.

It wasn't in this beautiful new sanctuary.

It was on the parking lot of Delray Baptist Church.

You remember?

And uh it was in the fall, so we didn't all have our winter coats on.

And those are interesting days when you were all bundled up in the winter and your faces were all covered, and as I preached, guessing who I was preaching to, this is much better, isn't it?

But we talked that morning from this text about the church that Jesus Christ is building, his temple, his building.

Not this building.

As beautiful as it is, this building is not nearly as beautiful as the building he's talking about in this chapter.

We talked about, there was so much to do.

It took about five years to be on this journey to get here today where we are.

Over a hundred members on committees of this church.

Building committees, furnishing committees, so much work that had to be done.

And yet he did it.

But we were reminding ourselves, and did you notice this word that I read in verse 12?

Paul says, to remember.

Oftentimes the scriptures call us back to remember.

You know why.

We are so prone to forget.

So much good that God has done in our lives.

We were reminding us at that time on that parking lot, that as busy as that time was in preparing to build, that God wanted us to keep the main thing, the main thing.

And the main thing is never a building.

The main thing is the building of the body of Christ, his church.

And that's what we're talking about this morning.

We're coming back to that this morning.

The building itself, some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world have not housed vibrant worship for decades, if not centuries.

I've seen some of them.

You've seen some of them.

Gorgeous cathedrals that just sit empty.

There's no life in them.

There might be an organ recital every once in a while, but there's not vibrant worship.

That's not the church.

That's not the body of Christ.

This is the body of Christ.

And we know the truth is that we could be meeting on that parking lot.

And we would still be worshiping.

We would be the family of God.

We're talking this morning about the true church building.

Not made of brick and mortar, but made by the Holy Spirit as we are connected to Jesus Christ.

This is the church that He's building.

And Christ Himself is the cornerstone.

The cornerstone is the most important part of the building in ancient days, certainly.

It had to be strong enough to support the building.

Every other part of the building was oriented to it.

It was part of an essential to the foundation.

It was the rock upon which the weight of the entire structure would rest.

So we're looking at the church building of Christ.

The first point is simple.

It's clear, Christ alone is the cornerstone.

The Apostle Paul uses three different metaphors, word pictures, to describe how Jesus is building his church.

The first one he says is we are citizens of a kingdom.

We're citizens of a different world.

Bible says your citizenship is not here, Christian.

Don't live for this world.

Your citizenship is in heaven, secured by the blood of Christ.

We don't live for this world.

I like the way Martin Lloyd Jones put it.

We no longer are living on a passport in this world.

We really do belong.

We really do have a birth certificate in heaven.

We've been raised with Christ.

We are with him by faith in heaven.

I know it's pretty incredible, isn't it?

We forget that a lot.

And when we forget that, we live for this world, which is just foolish.

Many of us know this is a traveling church, right?

This is a traveling church.

Most of us have our passports.

You need to take your passport if you're going to travel.

There's all kinds of things that can come up when you do travel to another country.

What if you have a serious health concern?

Are you going to be able to get the medical help that you need out of country?

What if you get into legal trouble?

Are you going to be safe?

Are you going to be protected?

There's so many things that come up in this world among our own nations, but the Apostle Paul is saying, wait a minute.

I'm talking about putting your passport down.

You're not bound by, you're not living for the customs of a particular country.

We're talking about being members of a nation of Christ.

But then he moves on to talk about a family.

It becomes more personal, more intimate.

He says we're members of a family.

And there's a lot of advantages.

We all know something about being members of a family.

We share the same blood, we share the same customs and culture in many respects, the same building, the same food.

There's so much that we have in common with our membership of a family.

The Greek language actually says the house ones, the ones who share the same space, members of one family.

Yes.

Intimacy, access to each other.

But then he tells us, it's in an ascending order, believe it or not.

He says, not only are you members of a kingdom, a nation, not only are you members of a family, but you are all building blocks in the church that Jesus Christ is building.

Now you might say, well, how can that be more intimate than being in a family?

Well, family members can have following out.

Family members can pull away from each other.

Family members can stop talking to each other.

Family members can just kind of lose their family closeness.

You can't do this with a building.

And you can't have one brick over there and another brick over there and serve the purpose.

That would be useless.

A building is a good building only when the bricks come together or the blocks.

They come together.

And the fact is, Christian, that when you came to Jesus Christ, and Paul says, remember?

Remember, because you didn't used to be.

As the scripture was read, as Suzanne read that Suzanne read the chapter 2, 1 through 10, there was a lot of remembering.

Remember, God said his love on you.

Remember, God chose you to be in his family before he created this world.

Is that what it says?

That's what it says.

A lot of churches don't seem to understand that.

No, God thought about you.

He knew you.

He chose you.

He brought you into his family before there was one blade of grass on this earth.

Before there was one body of water created.

Isn't that what he says in Ephesians chapter 1?

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, he adopted us into his family.

We can forget these things.

We can forget the mess we were in.

We can forget the mess we were before Jesus saved us.

Paul says, I don't want you to forget.

Your bricks.

Oh, the bricks in this building, they were placed together well.

I would watch every day as I live across the street.

I would just come and watch the construction as much as I could.

I marveled at how expertly they laid the foundation, the building to see it rise up.

Let me tell you something, friends.

The church building that Paul was thinking about is much more beautiful than this building.

It's made up of men and women, boys and girls who have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, who have been changed, who have been given new hearts.

Jesus said, You must be born again.

You understand these new members that stood up here this morning.

Joining this church doesn't save them.

They know that.

Joining a church doesn't save you.

Trying to be a good person doesn't save you.

There's only one way to be saved.

And that's trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, if you confess with your tongue that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

It's a beautiful building that Jesus is building.

Building blocks in God's temple.

We can't be off on our own.

To miss that, you miss the whole illustration.

For the person today that says, no, I'm a Christian.

I'm a Christian.

I just don't like to go to church.

I'm a Christian.

I just do my own thing.

I don't really need the body of Christ.

Paul says, What?

What are you reading?

Where are you reading?

The Bible is so clear that we need each other.

We were placed together, not of our own, not randomly.

Who placed you in that building?

Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.

He put you in this glorious building.

And it was laid by the apostles and prophets.

Jesus Christ Himself, the cornerstone.

Can you imagine how big the real building is right now?

There's no skyscraper in this country that can match that.

I mean, look, everyone in this room, we came into the building 20 centuries, right?

After Christ came.

I love the beauty, I love the diversity of the body, the building that Jesus is about.

God Himself is the expert building.

Oh, how he puts it together beautifully, one block at a time.

Again, one isolated block can't do it.

Jesus is the chief cornerstone.

The unity and the growth of the church depends on him.

John Stott put it like this: as a building depends for both its cohesion and its development on being tied securely to its cornerstone, so Christ, the cornerstone, is indispensable to the church's unity and to the church's growth.

That's true.

Paul's audience, when he wrote to the Ephesians in the city of Ephesus, if you talked about a temple, you know what they would have thought, right?

The temple of Artemis, considered one of the seven wonders of the world.

They would have said, now that's a temple.

Paul's saying, that's no temple.

You want to see a temple?

You don't go down the road to look at the temple of Artemis or the ruins.

First of all, because God didn't dwell there.

A real temple is only where God dwells.

Secondly, it's nothing.

That was made by men.

This temple that Jesus is building is a glorious temple.

And God is the expert building.

Builder.

Do you see what he did to purchase you, to place you in this temple?

Again, Ephesians 2, 1 to 10.

Do you want to see the beautiful mosaic that he's building?

That word mosaic, it's a good word for this.

A picture or pattern produced by arranging together small pieces of stone, tile, glass, or something like that.

It's a combination of these diverse elements that form a coherent whole.

Something that's beautiful, right?

I mean, some of you have mosaics in your home.

Maybe it's cloth, or maybe again it's stone or whatever put together.

That highlights God's love for diversity.

God is not beholding to any nation, any country.

You know, God doesn't have favorites.

God loves all the nations.

God loves the people all over the earth.

We're not going to tie our wagon to any political party.

We're not going to tie our wagon to anything else but Jesus Christ to show us how to really live and to walk in faith and to be this beautiful mosaic.

One of the things I love about this church is I love to see the diversity within this church.

A lot of you were not born in this country.

A lot of you were born in other countries.

You speak other languages.

But God says in Revelation, one day we're going to all praise Him, people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation.

And that's going to be fantastic.

Ought we not to be enjoying the diversity now, here?

Preparing for heaven itself.

This mosaic.

What's the next preposition?

By the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has a lot of work he has to do.

In each of us.

You see, whenever we feel superior to other people, that's not of God.

We have a lot of pride to repent of, don't we?

Particularly, it seems like more and more, even Christians get so argumentative on things that ought not to divide us.

I mean, we can fight over anything, or maybe everything, but that doesn't bring God glory.

He's talking in this passage about how he brought down, Jesus brought down the wall of hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles.

Do you know at the time that he wrote this, it was on the penalty of death if a Gentile would go into the court of the Jews.

They had to remain in their own court of the Gentiles.

To go in would be death.

A lot of them hated each other.

They thought they were superior to each other.

You know, like today.

We can't have those attitudes.

And to really understand what it means to be a part of this church body.

Jesus tore down the wall of hostility when he was crucified on the cross to make Jew and Gentile one.

To make us all in Christ one.

So here's my question for you.

Are you building little walls of hostility?

We do that.

When we shut people down, when we close people off, when we say, I don't want to have anything to do with that person.

Aren't we doing that?

Jesus said, I brought that wall down.

What are you doing?

Building another one.

That's just crazy.

That's crazy.

You know what the Holy Spirit wants to do when we do that?

He says, He wants to convict us of that sin.

That's not okay.

It's not alright to be building our own walls.

It's not alright for us to consider ourselves superior to other people.

To freeze them out.

To just leave them out.

Do you see what this is saying?

This is the gospel.

Jesus said, I finished my work to bring my people together to live as the body of Christ, to live as a family, to live as people connected to each other.

We need Each other.

Amen.

Oh, if everybody would believe that, it would be a different church.

It would be a different witness to our city if we believe that.

Oh, this building God is building.

God is the expert, builder.

He knows what to do with each piece.

He knows exactly what to do.

And then we've already talked about thirdly, the Holy Spirit's empowering us to be the holy temple.

In Christ, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God.

Do you know what that means?

Not for us, primarily.

The reason that we are commanded to live this way is for God.

Did you hear that?

Ultimately, this is not about you or me.

But we can live like that.

That's why the walls come down.

That's why we have to remember what Jesus has done for us.

Be salt and light to this city.

People notice.

People notice.

Oh my goodness, as I was just talking with my sister, I alluded to earlier in prayer.

Her trial was this past Wednesday in Alexandria.

And one of our deacons was there with her, and I think four of our sisters were there with her.

It did not escape the notice of the judge.

Evidently, the judge was quite surprised and encouraged that Christians would do this for each other.

Take off work and come together to support people in need.

That's what the body does.

We were called by the Spirit, enabled by the Spirit, made alive by the Spirit, saved as the Spirit pointed us to Christ.

But the Holy Spirit still has more work to do with these building blocks, doesn't he?

What would the Spirit say to you this morning as you worship?

What would the Holy Spirit say to you this morning?

Leave that.

Drop that.

Stop holding on to this.

What would the Holy Spirit say to you?

I've been asking the Holy Spirit to show me in preparation for this sermon.

What is it that we're clutching?

What is it that we're holding to that makes us feel superior to others?

Where is our pride?

The Holy Spirit would say, that's not for you.

The Holy Spirit would say, it's time to confess that, it's time to drop that, it's time to forsake that.

You're part of the body of Christ.

Oh, may we see with new eyes.

He's preparing to use us by filling us with the Holy Spirit.

We are being built together.

We are also indwelt by his Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has his tool belt on.

The tools are not in the tool shed for the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's got the tools.

We are the materials that he uses.

And me.

And us.

There's a story I shared on the parking lot three years ago.

Carlo, you might remember this one.

Alex, you may remember this one.

It was the, I think that was the week that uh we brought a Lego set up front.

Do you guys remember that?

Big old Lego set?

And we were just looking at how the pieces were connected.

This is called the parable of the contractor.

A certain wealthy man summoned a building contractor and told him he wanted to enlist his services in building a home.

This was to be no ordinary home.

He said, I have all the plans, as the rich man unrolled the blueprints.

I know exactly what I want.

As he laid out his blueprints, the contractor studied them in amazement.

This wasn't just a house, not even a mansion, it was a palace.

No expense would be spared.

The rich man started to explain what he was going to do with this, how the foundation was going to be much deeper and stronger than the contractor would have thought possible or necessary for that matter.

Great stones had been quarried and fit tightly together deep below ground so that there would be neither settling nor seepage.

Nothing would ever undermine or shake this house.

But when the rich man began to describe the materials he wanted, the contractor was astonished.

There was no mention of marble or mahogany, of rich tapestries or gold decoration.

This incredibly wealthy man who clearly wanted the best of everything required that his house be built from bricks of mud and straw, that the woodwork be of driftwood and salvaged lumber, that the carpets be of woven rags, and the windows crafted from broken glass.

Those bricks will crumble under the weight, the contractor said.

The wood will be impossible to work with.

Every mantle and cornice and tapestry will look cheap and they won't last.

And those windows won't let in enough light.

But the rich man wouldn't hear it.

He explained how he planned for the mud brick walls to be several courses deep to hold the weight.

He showed the beautiful carvings he wanted worked from the wood, the rich patterns he had in mind for the rag rugs, and the glorious stained glass windows he envisioned from the broken glass, not so much to let the light in as it turned out, but to the light out.

Just build with the materials I give you.

Follow my plans, and my house will look like no other.

Man, I love that story.

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people.

You are also members of his household.

In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

And in Christ, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.

We're the driftwood.

We're the broken glass.

We're the materials that nobody else would use.

But you give yourself to Jesus.

You become part of his building plan.

And you don't know how beautiful you look to him.

You don't know how glorious you look to the world as he places you and me in his building, in his temple, brick, block by block, together, connected.

That's a strong building.

That'll protect against the elements of weather and other dangers.

We are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Just as God's first earthly tabernacle was crafted from what Israel plundered from the Egyptians, so we can craft the house of God with all the materials He gives us.

Do you believe this?

Do you?

Are you letting the Holy Spirit speak to you this morning?

Can you thank God for inserting you into his building?

Can you thank God this morning for letting the Holy Spirit indwell you?

Can you thank Jesus this morning for giving everything he had to tear down the wall of hostility in this world?

Let his peace grow in you, in me.

Let's be the very church that the city of Alexandria, the city of Washington needs to see.

That's us, by the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Would you pray with me?

Oh Father, as we read your word, we have much to confess.

This morning, we would confess our pride.

We would profess our coldness to you and to other Christians.

We would ask for your forgiveness.

May we not feel superior to anybody.

Take away our arrogance.

Take away our unbelief.

Take away our feelings of superiority.

Oh God, I pray that you would give us humble hearts.

That we would be thankful that Jesus, you died for us, that you died for me.

Father, that you called us.

You chose us before you even created this world.

How can this not humble us?

Holy Spirit, please speak.

Show us.

Help us to remember the things that you want us to remember this morning.

Help us to give ourselves anew this week.

Oh Father, would you continue to add to your structure here at this church?

Thank you for Ariel this morning coming and being baptized.

One more brick.

Oh God, thank you.

May there be many more bricks.

Stones inserted into your glorious temple through this ministry.

To your glory.

And around the city, would you bless the work of other gospel churches in this city and this world?

All to your glory.

We pray.

Amen.