I Believe: The Holy Catholic Church (Ephesians 2:11-22)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

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Local artist Patty Bowman Kingsley will lead us in creating our own painted works of art.

Physically distanced art stations will be set up outdoors with all necessary painting supplies provided.

There will be three sessions, each with different artwork chosen to accommodate different ages and skill levels for kids, for youth, for adults.

You can find more information on our website, newsongportperry.ca.

Today we continue our sermon series, I believe, the Apostles' Creed in the Christian Life, with the Holy Catholic Church.

Well, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.

This is where we find ourselves in our journey through the Apostles' Creed this morning.

What is the Church?

Well, famously it said the church is, well, not a building, it's the people.

And it's rightly said as well.

The church is the ecclesia, the gathering, the assembly of God's people.

So as far as it goes, that's true, the church is not the building, it's the people.

But if that's as far as we go, we still have the question of what do we understand about God's people?

How are we supposed to understand what it is to assemble as God's people?

And this is where some of our illustrations and images start to come up to illumine different parts of what it means to be God's people.

Ask me a couple of years ago what it means to be the church, and I might liken the church to something like a gym.

You can tell from my Olympian frame I frequent the gym very, very much.

The gym is a place you go to build up your strengths, to get built up, so to speak.

And Christians come to church to get built up, at least serious Christians do.

Others might say the church is something like a voluntary association.

We all have a common interest together.

We all know this guy named Jesus.

And hey, it might be a good idea for us to get together and be about Jesus together.

That's true as far as it goes.

Another illustration might be something like a like a volunteer society, something like community service.

Jesus tells us to serve, so why don't we organize ourselves and do that together?

All of these things are partly true.

The church should be a place where we are upbuilt and edified by God's word.

The church certainly should be a place where we hold in common our Lord Jesus Christ.

And the church certainly should be a place where we recognize how generously we've received from God in Christ, and so we seek to serve others with that same spirit of humility.

But I want to suggest that these images, helpful in some parts they may be, don't quite go far enough.

If we want to really ask this question, what is the church?

We need to go to God's Word to see what it says.

And here in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul is working through this question of what does it mean to be the church?

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

This is broadly true for the whole letter to this church in Ephesus, this kind of great epistle, this great letter, all about the unity we share in Christ.

Paul is wrestling in this passage in particular with what it means to be the church.

In verses 11 to 18, Paul wants to establish that part of what it means to be the church is to share a foundational, fundamental unity as God's people.

He's wrestling with a question that we wouldn't really wrestle with in 2021 Canada.

He's wrestling with what does it mean to be a people of Jews who've inherited God's covenant promises from the Old Testament and Gentiles who were a people that were meant to be blessed through God's covenant people, but themselves, it seemed, were far off from God's covenant promises.

Paul is reckoning with the fact that now at the foot of the cross we all stand as those who share a common Savior.

All of us have been reconciled together.

We live as one people of God.

And so our creed rightly says that we have, we believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Christ has brought unity to his people.

He's made them one.

But it's verses 19 to 22 that I want to zoom in on in particular.

It's verses 19 to 22 that Paul gives us images for how we're to understand the church in a positive light, not just as a solution to disunity, but how is it that we're reckoned with the church and our imaginations and the illumined imaginations of our hearts?

I want to suggest that Paul has three images for us to consider this morning.

If we want to consider this question, what does it mean to be the church?

Let's consider these three images that Paul's inspired to write.

The church is God's kingdom.

We are fellow citizens with the saints.

The church is God's family.

We are members of the Father's households.

And the church is God's temple.

It's where God's spirit dwells.

So for us, this is good news.

It's good news because understanding the church, working through this question of what is the church, brings us an understanding of who we are at New Song in 2021.

Who are we?

We're citizens, citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

We're children, children of a generous and loving Heavenly Father.

And we together, believe it or not, are dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.

So, new song.

Let's find ourselves in this text, and rightly so.

What does it mean to be the church?

It means to be God's kingdom.

As the church, we are citizen ambassadors of our heavenly king.

And I see this right at the beginning of verse 19.

Paul is addressing Gentiles here, those who are non-Jews.

You then are no longer aliens, he says, but are fellow citizens with the saints.

That is God's holy people.

He's saying, you were once far off from God's covenant promises, but now in Christ you've been brought into the kingdom.

You share a citizenship with God's holy people, the saints.

Citizenship is a big deal in this first century Roman context.

We can see that in Acts chapter 22 and Paul's own experience.

Acts 22 · chapter mention

Citizenship remains a big deal.

If you've ever lived in a foreign country, or maybe you've immigrated to Canada, you know what a big deal and perhaps what a headache citizenship and immigration can be.

There are privileges and responsibilities and rights that belong to citizens.

This is what Rachel and I discovered when we moved down to Texas a few months after getting married.

I brought with me a binder that was about four or five inches thick, full of my immigration documents, which were carefully scrutinized.

Rachel handed them a simple American passport, having been born in Maryland, and she got a welcome home.

I mean, it's a remarkable thing to be a citizen.

It's the difference between being a foreigner and a countryman, being an alien and belonging to a people because you share a common allegiance.

See, Gentiles were formerly aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, God's people.

And whereas the Old Testament people, God's people of Israel, were a divinely appointed kingdom of priests, of saints, of God's holy people.

We see that calling in Leviticus 19, be holy, for I am holy.

They're meant to reflect God's holiness out among the nations and draw nations to this holy Creator God.

They're not called out from among the nations despite the nations.

They're called out for the sake of the nations, to be a blessing, to be a kingdom of priests.

And so in Christ, this former national kingdom of Israel is now being made into an international reality, a transnational.

It crosses borders, it crosses cultures, it's drawing all people to God in Christ.

This is why pastor and preacher John Stott can write that the kingdom of God is neither a territorial jurisdiction nor even a spiritual structure, which I think he takes to say it's just kind of an ethereal out there in the ether sphere kind of reality.

Rather, God's kingdom is God ruling his people and bestowing upon them all the privileges and responsibilities which his rule implies.

It means being citizens, citizens with the saints, citizens who gather together with a common allegiance to our heavenly King Jesus.

This is why Paul can write to the Philippians in Philippians 3.20 that our citizenship is in heaven.

Paul is calling the Philippians to a complete humble obedience and dependence to Christ.

He's calling them to allegiance.

Remember who your king really is.

It's not Caesar, it's not whoever's printed on your dollar bills, it's Christ, who rules over all things everywhere.

And because that's the case of this heavenly kingdom, we can rightly call the church Catholic.

This word Catholic is sometimes a tricky word.

It's not synonymous with Roman Catholicism, though that is one branch of our Christian family.

This word Catholic means universal or belonging to the whole.

See, ambassadors are meant to represent their head of state well.

Their character is meant to be in accordance with the values and character of their head of state.

They go into a foreign country and they don't compromise or acquiesce to the country that surrounds them.

Rather, they go and they represent their home country and their allegiance to their head of state.

But neither do they despise their surroundings.

Neither do they just want nothing to do with things outside of the walls of the embassy.

Rather, they want to mobilize the resources and the culture that they bring with them to see the culture around them flourish.

This is who we're called to be in our neighborhood, New Song.

We're called to be fellow citizens with the saints, citizen ambassadors of the kingdom right here in our little sliver of Port Perry.

This is who we're called to be in our workplaces, in our families, in our neighborhoods.

And so we gather as citizens to pledge our allegiance to our heavenly king.

This is a political image, a kingship image.

Paul just as quickly moves into something that's very tender, very familial.

We are citizens in God's kingdom, it's true, but we are members of God's family.

We see this in verse 19 as well.

Paul says, So you are no longer strangers.

He goes on to say, but you are members of the household of God.

You're part of the family.

Have you ever had someone say that to you?

Maybe you've been away at college that first semester feeling kind of homesick, missing a good home-cooked meal.

Maybe you had a family come alongside you and just seem to adopt you as your own, as their own.

Just bring you into the house.

Remember that first Thanksgiving when I was away studying in the States.

Thanksgiving is a very big deal in the States.

It's a big deal here, but it's a very big deal in the States.

So very quickly I found myself getting kind of homesick.

And my roommate and his family, they just as quickly, well, they just adopted me for the weekend.

Whatever you need, make yourself at home.

It makes the difference, doesn't it?

I mean, multiply that by an infinite amount.

This is just a taste of what it means to be brought into the family of God in Christ.

Paul begins the letter to the Ephesians writing this: In love, the Father predestined us, he chose us, he claimed us, he calls us for adoption to himself as sons, that is, children with full privileges and full inheritance rights through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, which is a huge thing to say, I think.

Because sometimes we wrestle with what's God's will for me?

Here's one of those scripture verses we need to go back to.

God's will for us in Christ is that we know his fatherly tenderness and compassion.

The kind of tenderness and compassion that takes strangers and says, You are now part of my family.

You belong here.

You are welcome here.

You are accepted here.

It is God's will for us in Christ that we know him as our Father.

So in Christ, we've been refamilied.

We share this in common with one another.

We share a heavenly father together in Christ.

Now we share a siblinghood together.

I'm looking at my brothers and sisters right now.

I'm an only child biologically, but in a very real way, in a realer way, I am not left without brothers and sisters.

We can look to the left and we can look to the right right now, and we will see brothers and sisters in Christ.

Let that land on you for a second.

What does it mean to be brothers and sisters?

What would it look like to be a community?

A little outpost of the kingdom that represented this kind of family love for one another.

What kind of a difference could that make?

Christ's promise to his disciples is that in his father's house there are many rooms.

Sometimes, well, at least the old hymn goes, you know, mansion up in glory.

I'm not convinced that's the best way to translate that verse.

I think it's a I think the way to translate it, this word room, gives us a picture that at the reunion we come to our Heavenly Father's presence.

The room is made up.

He's ready to receive us.

In fact, he's eager to receive us and receive us together.

We are children of a loving and generous Heavenly Father, and we share in this identity as one worldwide family of God in Christ, in whom we know the love of the Father.

So, new song, we are not strangers.

We're not strangers to one another.

Maybe we're just learning someone's name today, but we are not strangers in Christ.

We share a savior.

We are brothers and sisters, and we can rightly call each other such.

We are adopted children of a loving heavenly Father.

Friends, we are citizens of God's kingdom.

We are children in God's family.

We are God's temple.

Let's look at verses 20 to 22.

Just as quickly as Paul says we are citizens of the kingdom, just as quickly as we are family members, Paul goes on to say that we are 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.

So where do we begin there?

Maybe the first question we want to ask is this What is a temple?

Well, it's the cool place where Indian and Jones gets his stuff.

Well, that's partly true.

A temple is, it's understood as a place where the creaturely meets the Creator.

It's a place where the earthly meets the divine.

It's a place where heaven and earth meet.

They overlap in one sense or another.

So the Old Testament temple in Jerusalem, first Solomon's, then Zerebbables, then Herod's, becomes a focal point of God's people, Israel's worship, precisely because it's the place where God has promised to make his presence and promises known.

This is where he's going to make his dwelling place with his people.

Not that God has been trapped in a box.

I mean, Solomon recognizes that in 2 Samuel.

You can't be contained with walls made by hands.

Nevertheless, God wants to make his presence known amongst his people, so that he's known as a God who is for his people.

Israel was a national kingdom called to bless and show forth God's love and character to the nations.

But now in Christ those barriers have been demolished.

Now all people from all nations are being called to share in a common family identity.

So now God's presence is no longer contained in a particular building at a particular place and in a particular time.

Rather, God's presence is known amongst and in his people.

God dwells with his holy people.

By his Holy Spirit, we become a holy temple to the Lord.

We together, saints, become a place where heaven and earth meet.

Where God's Holy Spirit dwells and moves within us and among us.

We are a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

And at this point, if you know your New Testament, you might say something like, Well, hold on, Creighton.

I thought it was an individual believer in whom the Spirit dwelt, not the church corporately.

And insofar as it goes, that's true.

God does dwell in the hearts of individual believers when we receive Christ.

But it's not an either-or for Paul, which I find so fascinating.

This isn't a, is it individual or corporate?

This is a this is a both and.

It's why Paul can write in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, do you not know that you, plural, y'all, to use my Texas, are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in y'all.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

For God's temple is holy, and y'all are that temple.

New song, y'all, are that temple.

Man, you're gonna wish I never went to Texas, one of these.

Anyway.

Does God dwell in the individual of the church?

Yes.

Both and God dwells with us when we gather together, where two or three are gathered, Christ promises disciples.

There I am among them.

When we gather as his church, we gather as those to whom Christ has promised to make his presence known.

And he makes his presence known by his Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit dwells with us, we can rightly call the church holy.

He is sanctifying us.

He sanctifies us by his word of truth that we read about in John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

Now the church is holy because God dwells there.

But is the church infallible?

Can it never make a mistake?

Let me rephrase that.

Can the church never make serious error?

Fall into grievous and harmful sin.

We know from recent history, friends, that the church can and does fall into grievous sin.

The church has to reckon with its past and repent of failures and continually yield itself to the word and Holy Spirit.

We're not gonna play around like we're infallible.

But we neither can we deny that the church is indispensable.

If God promised to make his dwelling place amongst his church, then we need to take that for what it is.

That's a very high calling, saints.

That's a calling on each of us to yield ourselves to the word and spirit and to do so together.

It means there's no such thing as a lone wolf Christian, a Christian who decides to kind of just take their Bible and do it on their own.

To live out a calling as a Christian is to do this together, as brothers and sisters.

Sharing in what it means to be God's temple together, this temple that is built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, verse 20.

That is, it's founded upon the inspired teaching that we receive from those authorized to proclaim the good news of the gospel, from the apostles and the prophets.

And if we want to know where we find that in Port Perry in 2021, we go to the apostles' own teaching in Scripture, where God is inspired.

The church cannot overstep or understep that foundation.

We are called to live into that teaching that we've received, that preaches and proclaims Jesus.

It's why we read Scripture each and every Sunday, and not just some self-help book, right?

Reading from characteristics of highly effective people or something.

No, it's we go to the foundation built up by God's holy word in Scripture.

Christ Jesus Himself is our cornerstone, Paul says in verse 20.

Christ holds the whole structure of the church together in his very person.

So that we can say we're two or three gathered, he is there among us, binding us together, holding us together, drawing us to himself by his Holy Spirit who dwells with us.

So when we gather, new song, we gather as a temple, a holy temple, being built together, joined together in Christ.

A temple where God's own spirit dwells.

Let that settle for a second.

Do we come here ready to encounter God by his Holy Spirit?

In his word and in his sacrament?

That's where God promises to meet us.

And he meets us here when we gather together.

That's what it means to be the church.

We are called to hold holy communion in holy things.

We do that by God's word.

And we'll do that by the table.

When we gather by the table, the Holy Spirit impresses upon our hearts the very promises of salvation, the very promise that God is for you.

It points us towards that banquet that we will share when our heavenly King comes in glory on the last day.

It points us to the fact that God is our Heavenly Father, who spreads out a bountiful feast for his children and invites us to enjoy his generosity.

Friends, this is holy communion.

And the Holy Spirit will draw us to our Lord Jesus Christ by his word and by the sacraments.

So, friends, what does it mean to be the church?

We know it's not the building.

What does it mean to be the one holy Catholic and apostolic church?

It's to be God's kingdom.

It's to be the people where who exalt a good king and are his joyful subjects.

The church is God's family, where a loving Father is enjoyed by his children.

And to be the church is to be God's temple, where a holy God dwells with his people and makes them holy.

May it be so.

Heavenly Father, we pray that we would live into the reality of what it means to be your church in this place.

For the flourishing of poor Perry, may we be your faithful citizens, your adoring children, and your holy temple.

And in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.