Kingdom, Household, & Temple (Ephesians 2:11-22)

Good morning everyone. Welcome to Vita Springs.

My name is Tony Rand Vessel and the lead pastor here.

As the lead pastor, one of my jobs is to bring order and

sanity back to the church. That's why I'm wearing what I'm

wearing. You can disregard Gordon and

everything he just said. We're going to be re evaluating

his employment here. Josh, you too.

You can't hide. I'm just messing.

Fun game last night. I hope you didn't stay up to the

end because then you'd be super tired.

But and after it's 41 to nothing, it's like you can just

go to bed. You know how this thing's going

to end. So all right, seriously though,

why don't you take out your Bibles?

We're going to be in the book of Ephesians today.

We're taking a break from our preaching series through the

book of John. We've been in the book of John

for months now. We're taking a seven week

hiatus. We're going to be teaching

through a series called Church Anatomy One O 1.

So the human body is, it is an amazing thing.

You probably didn't know this, but you have in your body

somewhere around 30 to 40 trillion cells, not billion

trillion cells, 600 muscles, 206 bones, 78 to 80 organs.

People are, they don't know if this is an organ or not.

So there's a little range there and 11 organ systems.

So a lot of different parts, many different parts and pieces

and they all do different things, but they all work

together in harmony so that you can live, so that you can grow,

so that you can function and so that you can flourish.

Now, when a part of your body, even if it's a small part of

your body is not working, right, it's off it's sick, it gets

hurt, that negatively affects the whole, right?

You've experienced that. I had a little, some kind of a

little virus this week, not sure what it was.

I told my wife I felt like I had a cup of water sloshing around

in my head all week long, right? And it just, I felt off because

of that. You know this, if you've ever

gotten up to go to the bathroom at night, you decide you're not

going to turn the lights on and you kick the dresser with your

pinky toe, right? I mean, that will like ruin your

life for a while. And it's just your pinky toe.

But a part of the body got hurt and now the whole body is

suffering. So in this series, we're going

to be talking about the, as I said, the the body, but not the

physical body. We're going to be talking about

the body of Christ. This is one of the most frequent

images used in the Bible to describe the church.

We are the body of Jesus Christ here on planet earth.

The church body is composed of parts, and those parts are

people. They're me.

They're you. They're Christians.

Every Christian is a part of the body.

We all do different things. We all have different

responsibilities when we work together, the church functions

properly, the church grows, the church lives, the church

flourishes. And likewise, when part of the

body is off or sick or hurt or not doing its job, then the

whole body actually suffers, it's affected.

So we're going to be in this series for seven weeks.

It's going to be kind of a two-part series.

The first three weeks we're going to be focusing a lot on

our identity and our purpose as the church, as the body of

Christ. So today we're going to be

talking about our identity, how we are a Kingdom, we are a

household, we are a temple. These are some images that the

apostle uses to describe what the church is.

Next week we'll be talking about how we are a holy people.

Then we'll talk about how we have to be a missional

community, right? A community that is on mission

together. And then for the four weeks

after that, we'll be talking some about church membership,

how all the parts are necessary, church discipline and church

accountability in the midst of membership.

What is your job as members? And then how as members we have

spiritual leadership that is a gift from God.

So that's where we're going to be going for the next 7 weeks as

we really unpack this series. And our hopes are very simple.

We want to help us understand the identity and the purpose of

the church. It's important.

The church is the hope of the world.

The church has been entrusted with the gospel.

We have a very important job to do.

And so it helps when we know what are we and how are we

supposed to be doing this together.

And we're going to talk a bit about your need for becoming a

member of a local church, how that really is important.

That is something that every Christian should be pursuing.

And then we're actually going to be launching our new membership

series in October. So we'll be talking about that

as that gets closer. But as far as today goes, in

Ephesians chapter 2, let me kind of Orient us a little bit before

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

we dive in. We're going to be looking at

verses 11 through 22, the verses previous chapter 2, verses one

through 10. The apostle Paul has been

sharing the gospel message with the Ephesians, reminding them of

this powerful, powerful truth that all of us are born dead in

our sins, but God in love, by his grace through faith in

Jesus, makes us alive together in Christ, right?

This gospel truth. And then in the following verses

11 through 22, he he shares some of the implications of our

salvation, including these three very vivid images describing our

identity together. And so when Jesus saves you, you

were born again and you become a Christian.

We actually become citizens of God's Kingdom.

We become members of his household or his family, and we

become stones in His holy temple.

OK, so three very good, powerful images we're going to be

unpacking today. Before I read the text, I want

to give us a brief moment of quiet just so you can take a

minute and gather yourself and clear your head and focus your

heart on Jesus. Open yourself up.

We're about to hear from God through His scriptures.

This is a very, very important moment.

I would say this is the most important time of our week

together as a body that we hear from God together.

And so let me give us about 15 or 20 minutes, seconds, not

minutes of silence. And then we'll just go home

after that, no seconds. And then I'll pray for us.

I'll read the text and then I'll I'll pray for us.

So let's take a moment. Ephesians chapter 2 starting in

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

verse 11, Apostle Paul writes, He says, 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 once were 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 law of 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 then 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

the 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. Let's pray, Father, help us to

get this. We live in a nation and in a

world that glorifies independence.

I, I am my own man. I could do what I want and leave

me alone and that. But that's not what you call us

to as Christians. You rescue us from sin and

death, and you place us in this body, this precious temple, this

household, this Kingdom that you yourself are building.

And Lord, we want to play our part and so help us and teach us

this morning and over the next seven weeks.

And I pray for a great strength of unity here at Veda Springs

Church that you would be pleased to bless us and to dwell among

us. And so we give you this time and

we pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.

OK, so in this text, starting in verse 11, we see Paul is telling

the Ephesian believers what they were before Christ.

And so as we hear this, we are hearing here's what we were

before Jesus saved us. Very simply stated, we were

separated from God and we were separated from God's people.

That is very, very bad news, OK? He says in verse 11 it says

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, pause there.

So he is speaking to Gentile believers.

So in this day there were two major people groups or people

divisions. There were Jews and there were

Gentiles. The Jews were God's people,

God's chosen people that he was in covenant with.

And the Gentiles were pagans. They didn't worship the God of

the Bible. You could call them spiritual

outsiders. OK.

The Jews are God's chosen. The males had the mark of

circumcision. So when you were a little boy,

you were born when you were eight days old, mom and dad

would bring it to the temple and you were physically marked with

the mark of circumcision. And that was a kind of a

physical marker that showed a spiritual reality, OK?

It shows that you and your offspring, hence the location,

are in covenant with God, OK. The new mark of circumcision is

baptism. OK, That's what it is in the New

Testament. You go into the water, you come

out of the water. That is the marker that you are

now in covenant with God. So what are the covenants, very

briefly to the biggies in the Old Testament or the covenant

that God made with Abraham first, way back in Genesis, that

God would give him a land, He would give him many descendants,

many offspring, and that the whole world would be blessed

through Abraham. There's God makes a covenant

with Moses, and the essence of the covenant was with Moses is

that if the Jewish people would follow the laws, would follow

the commands of God, they would be blessed by God.

He also makes a covenant with David.

He tells David that there would always be a descendant of David

who would rule as king over God's people.

OK, so if you're a Jew, you are circumcised.

It shows you're in covenant with that God who made those

promises. The Gentiles were uncircumcised.

They're called the uncircumcision, right?

It's a derogatory term. They're not in covenant with

God. They're worshipping false gods.

The New Testament tells us they're actually demons.

They're cut off from the one true God and from his people and

from his promises. OK, so that is not good.

He rubs this in verse 12. He highlights this, emphasizes

this, reminds them of this. He says, 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.

So as a Gentile, you had no Christ, you had no people of God

who were in your corner. You had no promises to rest in.

You had no hope. You had no true God.

And this is as bad as it gets. If we're thinking soberly,

spiritually, this is as bad as it gets.

This is worse than losing your job.

This is worse than getting dumped by your boyfriend or your

girlfriend. This is worse than getting a

cancer diagnosis. To be separated from God, His

promises, His people, and His hope is the worst news possible.

He's reminding them of their previously spiritually hopeless

condition before God rescued them in Christ.

If it feels like a downer, it's because it is, right?

It's a huge downer. The good news of the gospel

starts with bad news, and that bad news is that apart from

Jesus, we're hopeless. We're hopeless.

We have no hope, we have no future, we have no people, we

have no God. That's as bad as it gets.

And I'll just a kind of a minor point of application here,

because we're getting into the good news.

The good news starts with bad news, right?

The gospel is good news. It starts with this bad news.

If you go to a church and all they tell you is God loves you

and he wants to make you happy and he wants to make you rich,

and that's why God exists. It's for your happiness and for

your joy. But they never talk about sin.

They never talk about separation from God because of sin.

They never talk about the reality of hell.

They're not actually telling you the good news.

They're giving you a little bit of the good news, but they're

not giving you the whole story. The gospel good news starts

with, not us. It starts with God, right?

God is holy. God is just.

We are not. We are unrighteous.

We are sinners, Romans tells us. No one is righteous, not even

one, because we have sinned against our holy God.

We have earned right punishment, right judgment, because of our

sin. To be right with God, you either

need to follow the law perfectly, which nobody can do,

or you have to have your sin, your crimes atoned for by a

sacrifice so that you can be forgiven.

And if you've ever read through the Old Testament, there's a lot

of blood in that book. There's a lot of dying, there's

a lot of animals being sacrificed because you know why?

There's a lot of sin among God's people and that sin must be

atoned for. It must be paid for, that there

would be justice. So the good news actually starts

with very bad news, all of sin and fall short of the glory of

God. The wages of sin is death.

This is where every human being, whether you are a Jew or a

Gentile, finds ourselves because of our sin.

This is very bad news. We're not right with God.

But again, it's not where the gospel ends, thank goodness,

because then we're all depressed.

We leave. We have no hope.

The gospel doesn't stop with the bad news.

We see in the next verse in verse 13 this beautiful glorious

reversal. Look at verse 13.

Now we see what God has done. He says.

But now turning point in the text, this is what you were, but

now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, IE you

Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

So people who were separated from God because of their sin

have now been reconciled to God, brought back into right

relationship with God through the blood of Jesus, through

faith in Jesus. So the sin that earned us our

condemnation and our separation from God is forgiven.

It's paid for, it's atoned for. The unholiness that we lived in

is cleansed. This is why I say we are

cleansed by the blood of Christ. Jesus became our substitute.

He followed and fulfilled the law of God perfectly, what we

were supposed to do, but we never could.

And then He died on the cross in our place.

That's where we were supposed to be for our crimes against God.

Jesus swaps places with us and He gives us as a gift His

righteousness and he takes upon himself our sin and our shame,

and he is judged by God in our place on the cross.

That's why the cross is the center of our faith and our life

as Christians. It's where this exchange happens

and we are made right with God. He goes on in verse 14 through

18 and let me just kind of read this whole text and then just

give a couple thoughts about it. He says for He himself he's

talking about Jesus is our peace, who has made us both one

and has broken down in his flesh.

The dividing wall of hostility, that wall that used to be there

separating Jew and Gentile, has been ripped down.

He did this by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in

ordinances that He might create in himself. 1 Newman in place of

the two, so making peace and verse 16 and might reconcile us

both to God in one body. There's that image. 1 body

through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

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

That's the Gentiles, and peace to those who were near.

That's the Jews who grew up with the word of God.

Verse 18 For through him we both have access in one spirit to the

Father. So this wonderful image of unity

and reconciliation that Paul is unpacking here, that he has made

US1 Jew and Gentile, the, the the insiders and the outsiders

have been brought together. The wall has been ripped down

between us. People who were separated from

each other by their religious differences are now reconciled

to one another. It's no longer the law keeping

Jews and the Pagan Gentiles. The wall of the law that

separated them is now fulfilled in Jesus.

Through faith in Jesus. We have peace with God because

our sin is forgiven. It's wiped away.

It's cleansed. We have peace with one another

because now we're in the same spiritual family.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

You know, the image that kept coming to my mind this week as I

was reading this text and studying this text is Jesus

coming to his world that he created and seeing all of these

broken people separated from God because of their sin, separated

from one another because of their sin, or different races.

There's all this division and it's like Jesus comes and to

those who believe Jew and Gentile both, it's like he, he

wraps his arms around them and he squishes them together.

You ever like when you were a kid, if you had siblings, did

your dad ever like grab you and squish you together with your

siblings? And it's like, and then he lifts

and then he lifts us up to God, right?

That's what he's doing with his people.

He comes and he, he, he just squishes us together.

And he says, now you're mine. You're my family, you're my

body, You're reconciled to one another.

We're going to do this together. And then he lifts us up to God

and reconciles us to God, right? This beautiful image of unity

and love and togetherness. This is what God came to do.

This is what Jesus lived for and died for.

This message is for all people, no matter what your background

is, no matter what your previous lifestyle was, no matter what

country you came from, no matter what color your skin is, no

matter what political affiliation you have, no matter

your education level, your income level.

Jesus came and he died for sinners, and if you trust in

him, you will be reconciled to God first foremost and

reconciled to his people as well.

He came to build a family. If you put your trust in him,

this can be true of you. This can be true for you.

And now as Christians, just a just a quick point of

encouragement for those of you who are in Christ and you've

trusted Jesus and you're following Jesus.

Please realize in Christ you have been linked with God and

his people forever, OK? You have been linked with God

and his people forever. You have become a part of his

body. You have been adopted, right?

Paperwork has been signed, lawyer stamped it.

It's legal, it's good, it's done.

You have been reunited. Roman says We've been grafted in

like a branch. We've been grafted into the

tree. We've been attached to him.

We're bound to him and his people forever.

And that's true of you when you're doing really well.

As a Christian, you'd say I'm on fire right now, I'm waking up,

I'm reading my Bible, I'm praying, I'm serving, I'm not

sinning as much as I usually do. You know, I'm doing good.

And it's also true of you when you're struggling.

And we all go through seasons, right?

There are times when you're more on fire and there are times when

you're not so on fire, but if you are truly in Christ by

faith, you are always a part of His family.

You belong to Him. You will not be left behind.

You will not be cast aside. In John chapter 10 verses 27

John 10:27–29

through 29, Jesus says my sheep hear my voice and I know them

and they follow me. I give them eternal life and

they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my

hand. My Father who has given them to

me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out

of the Father's hand. Those are strong words of

security for you if you are in Christ through faith.

God is a gracious, loving, patient Father, and He loves us

as His children, whether we're doing amazing spiritually or

whether we're struggling spiritually.

He accepts you. He loves you because this is a

great news about grace. His love for you is not based on

your performance. You know, you're kind of

Christian spiritual metrics. His love for you is based upon

himself. And he is perfect in love,

abounding in steadfast love. And so even when you're

struggling, you don't have to worry.

Oh no, Is God mad at me? Am I out of the family?

No, you're part of the family. You've been saved by grace

through faith. And once you're a part of the

body, you will never not be a part of the body.

So stop striving to earn His love and His favor.

It has been given to you, poured out for you in Christ.

So this is what God has done. He squished us together and He

lifted us up, reconciled us to God.

Now because of this, we have a new identity, OK?

We have a new identity and this is what we are now.

So look at verse 19. So then he's drawing us to a

conclusion with his language. So then you are no longer

strangers and aliens. Stop there.

At one time they were strangers from God and strangers from God,

people, God's people. They were aliens.

They they were not natives, but God rescued them from that.

And he's making you into something beautiful, says you're

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, in Christ you also are being built together into a

dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

So we have these three images of our new identity.

We're citizens of a Kingdom, we're members of a household,

and we are stones in a holy temple.

I think the Bible gives different images because they

help us understand different aspects of our new identity in

Christ. What are the benefits?

What are the responsibilities of of those things?

And you know, pictures worth 1000 words, right?

And so God gives us some pictures, some images to help us

understand, to visualize what it actually means to be a part of

the church. First, let me list a few

features, if you will, of these images that I we just saw in

that in that passage. And then I'm going to unpack

each of those images individually.

So first, some features. Number one, in all three of

them, God is building them. OK, God is building them.

These are the church is not a man made institution that will

eventually be corrupted and fail because God is building it.

It will endure forever because what God builds will endure

forever. He's the perfect master builder.

You know, you think about permanence, right?

And there, there are some things that feel very permanent to us,

but in the grand scope of history, they're actually not

very permanent. Like Paul is writing this to,

to, to Christians who are ruled over by Rome.

And in that day, I mean, it was like Rome.

I mean, Rome was everything. Rome was almighty.

I mean, Caesar was viewed as a God.

Nobody ever thought Rome was going anywhere.

What happened to Rome? Rome fell.

What happened to Egypt? In Egypt?

This world power that somehow however many thousands of years

ago could build those pyramids. I mean, the kind of ingenuity

and technology and wealth and power of of that society.

And then you like what happened? Things that feel very permanent

to us are actually not very permanent.

Countries rise and fall. You know, businesses, they are

born and then they close down. Anybody remember Blockbuster

videos? You know, I mean, I'm born in

the 70s, child of the 80s. It was like there's a

Blockbuster Video on every single corner.

Those of you who are millennials and beyond, you actually had to

go to a video store. If you wanted to watch a movie,

you had to drive to a video store, you had to buy this

clunky plastic bot rectangle and you had to bring it home with

you just stick it in a box that had wires that went to your

television and you'd hit play and then it was always like, you

know, then the thing gets all like the film gets all messed up

and you got to rewind it. It's like so inconvenient.

We have streaming. This is this is a whole business

was built around videos and now is there.

I mean, I don't even think it exists anymore.

There's no blockbusters. It came, it went rise and fall.

I think about my own last name, the renvestal name.

You know, there's not a lot of us.

There's a few in Chicago, there's a handful in

Gainesville, and then the rest of us are in Sicily.

I'm trying to keep my name alive.

I have 5 kids, you know, trying to pass pass it along.

I have three sons. So there's some hope.

But there could very well be a day, in fact anyway, that the

Rand Vestal name ceases to exist.

Same for you, for your your last name like it's but what God

builds. You realize this is going to go

on forever, forever and ever and ever.

This Kingdom, this household, this temple is going to go on

forever because God is building it #2 verse 20.

He says they're built on the foundation of the apostles and

the prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the

cornerstone. So these images are actually

built on the Scriptures. That is the foundation of the

apostles and the prophets, right?

So this is how we know what to do, how this all works.

We go back to the Bible. God has spoken to us about His

church. Jesus is the cornerstone, the

most important stone, the anchor stone that sets the course for

the whole thing. It's built on Scripture.

This is why every time we gather, we open this book

because we need God to tell us what to do, what not to do, and

how to do it. And then finally, verse 22, He

says in Him you also are being built together.

So only those who are in him, who are in Christ through faith,

are a part of this Kingdom, this household, this temple.

The church is not the building, OK?

It's not the walls around us. The church is not even all of

the people who are in the building on a Sunday.

OK, that's not quite accurate. The church is actually verse 19.

The Saints. Who are the Saints who Jane's

like I am The believers you are. You're one of them.

Saints are the Christians. So isn't it strange to think

that just because we're you're sitting in this building right

now, if you're not in Christ, you're actually not a part of

the church. You're in the church building

and we're very, very glad for that for you.

But the church is actually the believers, right?

The body of Christ is those who are in Christ by faith, those

who've been made righteous through faith.

So now let's unpack these images.

We start with citizens of a Kingdom, verse 19.

You're no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow

citizens with the Saints. As Christians, we belong to an

eternal Kingdom that God is building.

OK, we belong to an eternal Kingdom that God is building.

There's a story in Daniel chapter 2, and this will be up

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

on the screen for you. A few verses the Babylonian king

Nebuchadnezzar has a very disturbing dream and Daniel is a

prophet. He tells Nebuchadnezzar what his

dream is, which is impressive and then he interprets the dream

for him and listen to so listen to this story.

First is the dream that Daniel is telling Nebuchadnezzar.

He says as you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand and

it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them

into pieces. That image was this kind of

statue that represents all the kingdoms of the world, right?

All the different rulers and leaders and nations.

So this stone is cut out by supernatural hands.

It strikes the image and it breaks those kingdoms into

pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the

bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken in

pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors,

right when you separate the wheat from the husk, and the

husk just blows away. And the wind carried them away

so that not a trace of them could be found.

But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain

and filled the whole earth. So that's the dream that

Nebuchadnezzar has. And now Daniel goes on, and he

interprets what this actually means in verse 44.

He says, And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven

will set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall

the Kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to

an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a

stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke

in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the

gold. A great God has made, noted, has

made known to the king what shall be after this.

The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure.

He is saying the kingdoms of the world are going to fall, even

the strongest, most mighty among them.

But the Kingdom that God is building will never be

destroyed. Can you believe it?

At some point, at some point in the future, the United States of

America will no longer exist. Does that feel impossible?

It's like we're so big, we're so mighty, we're so stable.

We have so much land and so many soldiers and so much money, so

much debt, right? But but a day, there will be a

day where there is no more United States of America, that

Kingdom is going to fall. But the Kingdom of God is never,

ever, ever going to fall. As Christians, you become a

citizen of that Kingdom. When you trust in Jesus, you

become a citizen of that Kingdom, that that Kingdom

becomes your homeland. And it comes with a lot of

benefits. And just like living in our

nation, there's benefits to living in our nation.

Being in a Kingdom of God, there's benefits.

You get to be ruled by a wise, compassionate, powerful, just

king, King Jesus. He will lead you.

He will provide for you. He will protect you from evil.

He gives you an identity, He gives you a homeland, and as a

citizen of a Kingdom, He gives you eternal security.

Those are benefits of being in His Kingdom.

We also have responsibilities, though, just like as citizens of

the United States of America or of Florida or of Alachua County

or of Gainesville, there are responsibilities that come with

citizenship. As citizens, we are to submit to

his rule, right? Humble ourselves and put

ourselves under his rulership. We're to contribute to his

Kingdom, right in the city. It's like to be a citizen of

this country, It's like I got to, I got to work a job, I got

to pay my taxes, right? Because I'm, it's not just about

me, it's about helping the whole, I have a responsibility

to, to vote, right, to help choose leaders.

If you ever get called into jury duty, anybody ever get called

into jury duty, you can't say no to that one.

You know, it's just part of your responsibility as a citizen.

We help with arbitration, with making those decisions.

As citizens, one of our responsibilities is to live and

work together in peace, right? To maintain peace, to be good

ambassadors. There are responsibilities that

come with being a part of the Kingdom.

Same with the church, God's people, right?

It's not just about me. It's not just about you.

We, we serve together, we give together.

We, we maintain peace with one another as much as we are able.

We seek to be good ambassadors, good representatives of King

Jesus who rules over us right now.

This Kingdom that Jesus is building is a spiritual Kingdom.

It's a spiritual Kingdom. But a day is coming when Jesus

will return. He and he will establish his

rule and his reign on the earth as it is in heaven.

OK, that day is coming. In Revelation we see a glimpse

of that chapter 21. This will be up on the screen as

well. The apostle John has this vision

of this new city, a heavenly Jerusalem where King Jesus rules

and reigns. He says I saw a new heaven and a

new earth for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away

and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, a new

Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a

bride adorned for her husband. So this city coming down from

the sky and planting itself on on the earth.

And I heard a loud voice from where the throne where the king

is, He says, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with

man. He will dwell with them, and

they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as

their God. He will wipe away every tear

from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain, for the

former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the

throne said, Behold, I am making all things new also.

He said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and

true. And I love verse 6.

And this is where we get our name for Vita springs from.

And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the Omega,

the beginning and the end to the thirsty.

I will give from the spring of the water of Vita without

payment. The one who conquers will have

this heritage and I will be as God and he will be my son.

It's Christians. That's our Kingdom.

Now. Jesus is our king and that is

the Kingdom that we are citizens of.

We should seek to represent our king well as we live in this

Kingdom now. I love that he ends with he

shall be my son because that kind of segues us into the next

image that Paul gives us in in Ephesians in chapter 19, he says

you're going to be members of the household of God.

OK, We're going to be members of the household of God.

So it's Christians. We belong to a new household, or

you could say a new family where Jesus is our head.

First John chapter 3 verse 1, John says, see what kind of love

1 John 3:1

the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of

God. And so we are, we have been

adopted into his family. So the church is a household

that has a perfect father full of members, brothers and

sisters. Who are learning to love, to

serve, to forgive. Who are growing together in

maturity and grace. There are great benefits to

being a part of this household and this family.

We get to share loving relationships with one another.

Care, support, affection, help, encouragement, companionship,

belonging. We get to have fun together.

We had a group of people praying before the service for the

service and we, the first few minutes were just laughing

together. And then someone said the first

prayer was thank you, God that we get to be a part of a family

where we have fun together, right?

We just, we just love each other and we love doing this together.

We get to bring discipline into one another's lives.

Just like in a family, there's loving accountability from our

Heavenly Father and from one another.

We get the benefit of shared wisdom.

We get a big family and lots of joy.

There's a lot of benefits that come with being a member of the

household of God. You know, Vita, there's, there's

I think we excel at loving community.

There's just so much interchange that happens between our people.

This is not a church where you just come on Sunday morning and

you're just an anonymous person in the seat.

I mean, people really get into each other's lives and help each

other and share time and energy and money and resources.

And you know, Kurt just started this tools and stuff GroupMe for

guys. So guys, if you need tools and

stuff, talk to Kurt and you'll be added to the list.

And then we can share our tools and our stuff with each other,

right? Because sometimes you need some

tools and you need some stuff and you're like, I don't have

it. And there's got to be a guy in

the church who does. You know, if you move from this

house to that house, this apartment to that apartment,

there will be people who show up on moving day to help you move.

If you have a baby, you will be fed, OK.

We will have an army of people bringing you food.

There's great benefits to being part of the body.

There's also responsibilities. There's also responsibilities.

We're to care for one another and it's, please hear me, it's

not the pastors are supposed to care for all the people.

We can't. There's just four of us, but we

are to care for one another. That's going to be what we're

talking about in our small groups this fall.

We're going to be getting into the many one another versus in

the New Testament, learning. What does it mean for us to do

this for one another to one another?

We have to share responsibility for the homestead.

You know, in my family we have a chore chart and everybody's got

their weekly responsibility because everybody's got to

contribute so that our household can function well.

It's the same thing in the church.

We all do our part. We serve somewhere so that we

together can function well. We have a responsibility to live

in harmony, to know other people and be known by other people, to

love one another and be loved by one another.

We give up our freedoms for the sake of one another.

We speak the truth in love to one another that we might grow

up into our head who is Christ. You know, one of the greatest

blessings in my life regarding the church has been the family

that the church has become for me and my family through the

years. You know, we live 900 miles away

from my parents, my brothers and Sarah's parents and her brother

and sister. That's a long ways away.

It's an annoyingly long drive and, and especially when our

kids were were smaller and you know, you need child care,

something comes up, you need support.

We couldn't, we couldn't rely on them for that.

But the church stepped up big time.

The church became our family. The church is our family.

We have been so blessed by God's people, his family.

Sometimes the bonds in our church family actually go deeper

than the bonds in our earthly family because we have been

united in this spiritual family under one head who is Jesus, and

then bless you. And then the third image, it

says in verse 21, So this structure is being joined

together and it grows into a holy temple.

It's a holy temple, which in verse 22 is a dwelling place for

God by the Spirit. So we are stones in a holy

temple as Christians. We are being built into a temple

where Jesus is worshipped and glorified.

First Peter chapter 2, he says you yourselves, like living

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy

priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God

through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, to worship

God, you had to physically go to a temple.

The temple was where the sacrifices were offered to God

through the priests, and that's where God manifested his

presence among his people. Now it's not the same.

Now the church is the temple. Now when God's people gather

together, we offer a sacrifice, not of a lamb or a goat or a

dove, but we offer him a sacrifice of worship.

We offer him the sacrifice of our lives.

And when we do so together, it's wonderful.

God is with us. We're two or more gathered

there. I am with them.

He manifests his presence, his love, his power in the church

body as we gather together. There's great benefits to being

a part of the temple. You get to be a part of a place

where God is worshipped. That's amazing.

The God, God Almighty is worship week in and week out and you get

to partake in that. Don't forget what a privilege

and an honor that that is that we can do what we do and lift

our voices together and offer our lives together as worship to

Him week in, week out as a part of His temple.

You get a front row seat to the goodness and the glory of God.

You get to watch Him save and transform other people as they

come into His family. You get to enjoy His presence.

Isn't it sweet when we're together and we're especially

when we're singing and it feels like, oh, God is among us in a

unique way, in a powerful way, You get to use your life to

build something big and beautiful and lasting, far more

lasting than your own little personal Kingdom.

But you are a living stone. I am a living stone in that

temple. We have responsibilities as

well. Basic responsibility is to show

up and be in your spot, right? I would say that is the most

fundamental calling of the Christian is just to show up, to

be at church, to to be at small group, to be there for God's

people just show up. There are problems.

If you think of the physical building, there are problems

when there's a brick missing, right?

You start to have problems like the weather gets in the the

cockroaches get in when there's a brick missing.

Can you imagine if there's a whole course of bricks missing,

There's 10 or 12 or 14 or 20 bricks missing.

Now that wall has just lost stability, and that wall might

come down, right? It's actually very important

that as a stone, you take your place.

Now, it doesn't mean I got to be at church every single Sunday.

I mean, vacation happens, sickness happens.

I understand that. But by and large, see it as your

responsibility as a Christian. I'm going to show up.

I'm going to be there. They can count on me.

We have a responsibility to be as strong of a stone as we can

possibly be, to stay linked with the stones next to us, right?

God is building a temple. I want to show you a few

pictures as I get ready to close here.

And this is from Westminster Abbey in London.

I actually got to visit Westminster Abbey back and I

think it's 2004, so it's been a while now, but I was just

absolutely floored by the beauty and the glory of this temple.

And there's the one of the the main entry way that, you know,

just you look and it's just astounding.

It just eats like it envelops you go to the next photo, a

couple of the outside. I mean, just absolutely

breathtakingly beautiful. You know, it's cool.

All these old cathedrals are in the shape of a cross too, and

the altars right in the center. And they did that very, very on

purpose. This is where we go to meet with

God. But do you realize that temple

is nothing apart from the stones that build it?

You start pulling stones out and that thing, like any other

building, will just fall to pieces.

It requires that the stones are present, the living stones.

Please understand, you are a living stone in God's temple.

You have a place, and I would just encourage you and urge you

to step up and take your place in this temple of worship that

God is building for His glory. Jesus died so that these things

could be true of us, that we could share this new identity.

Sinful humans separated from God and one another are now brought

back together again into a Kingdom, a family, and a temple.

We have a new identity. We have a new purpose.

We have a wonderful future. He's going to build it.

It's not going to fail. So I want to encourage you to

pursue being a part of Jesus Church with all of your energy.

It's worth it. Don't just quote, go to church.

Anybody can just sit in a building on a Sunday.

Be the church. Step into the role that God has

called you to as a citizen, as a family member, as a stone, and

be a part of what God is doing with his people.

It's a wonderful privilege. We're going to worship God

together. Now why don't you stand up with

me? Worship team, come on forward.

One of the key ways we worship Him is through song, lifting our

voices together in unity. We're singing the same words.

This is not just your own kind of private little worship

session and you just happen to be in a room with a bunch of

other people. This is we're doing something

together this morning. We're lifting our voices

together in unity to worship the God who has unified us to

himself and to one another. Keep that in mind as we're

singing. Let me pray for us.

And then we'll worship with the band, and then we'll have a time

for prayer at the very end of our service.

So, Lord, we just thank you so much for your gift of grace.

Jesus, we thank you that you willingly went to the cross and

willingly suffered and died so that we could be forgiven of our

sin, so that we could be made righteous through faith in You,

so that we could become a part of your Kingdom and your family

and your temple. And so I pray Lord, you would

help us to live that calling out as well as we possibly can.

Let there be a great strength of unity here at Vita Springs

Church, and I pray as this particular local church, we

would represent you very, very well.

And now, Lord, as we lift our voices to you together, I pray

that you would be pleased, that you would be blessed, that you

would be glorified, and that you would also encourage us.

We love you, King Jesus, and we pray all these things in your

name, Amen.