Ephesians 2:11-22

The speaker discusses the second chapter of Ephesians, emphasizing the significance of the book. They read verses 11-22, which describe the life of Gentiles before Christ and how they have been brought near to God through Christ. The speaker explains that the purpose of God's plan is to unite Gentiles and Jews and show the world His greatness. They also highlight the divisions and hostilities that arise from pride and prejudice, particularly between Jews and Gentiles. The speaker emphasizes the importance of Christ in providing hope and salvation, contrasting a life with and without God. Well, good to see you this morning, and we're going to try to finish up the second chapter of Ephesians. We might not, but I just looked at our notes that you have, and if we don't get to the end of it, you can read the last few paragraphs, because every week people ask me, what's your favorite scripture? It happens to be the one I'm studying right now is my favorite, but Ephesians is really incredible. It's one of the most remarkable books in the New Testament and deserves our attention. I'm going to go ahead and read the last verses. We're looking at verses 11 through 22 here of chapter 2, so let me just read it so we'll be reminded of what's in it, and we'll see how far we can get. So then remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcised by those called by the circumcised, which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the children of Israel, citizenship of Israel, foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in this world. That's a pretty extensive description, isn't it? Paul makes every effort to describe what life was like without Christ in very detailed terms, because we often forget how far we've come, and so he's reminding them, this is what you were. You were without anything worthwhile, without hope and without God, but now in Christ Jesus you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace who made both groups, both Gentile and Jews, one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility in his flesh. Oh, in his flesh he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. Now, redemption doesn't mean Gentiles become Jews or Jews become Gentiles, it means God creates a whole new man. So it's a whole new creation he's talking about. Out of the two great enemies, Jews and Gentiles hated each other intentionally. I'll say a few words about that in a moment, but he removed all of that and created one new man and created in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so he might reconcile both to God and one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away 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 foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple of the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit. Now the focus in this passage is the Gentiles. How can Gentiles be brought into God's kingdom? The first ten verses deal with sinners in general. Now he focuses on the Gentiles, so we're looking at the Gentiles. Most of the converts in Ephesus were Gentiles. The call of Abraham set Gentiles and Jews apart. The law was given to the Jews, and they were given to the Jews because God's grace was intended that all the nations of the world would be blessed because of God's relationship to the Jews. It was not that they were just to be chosen, they were actually to be the vessel. Remember last week we talked about we are God's show and tell. He's going to show through us the world what he's like. That's the intent that he is bringing Gentile and Jew together so that all people will see what a great God he is. He set the Jews apart to be a channel of his love for the Gentiles and a revelation of that love. The Israel maintained a different national and ritual culture from the Gentile neighbors. They weren't morally different. That was the big problem. Israel became like the lost nations around them and had much greater sin than the Gentiles because the Jews knew better, and so judgment is going to be very harsh. We look at several things. First two verses here, he presents the Gentile dilemma. First is the bitter divisions between Gentile and Jew. It was a bitter situation. Israel was intended to be the vessel through whom the world would see the greatness of God and they misunderstood what being chosen meant. They created barriers rather than fulfilling the purpose for which God created them. That attitude of the Jews is the cause of the worldwide divisions and turmoil in the world today. Everything we can see falling apart in the world today goes all the way back to the bitter dispute between Jew and Gentile, Arab versus Israel, East versus West, ethnic hostilities. The same is true of the chaotic divisions within nations, class differences, prejudice, racial prejudice, civil wars, chaos and hatred abounds in our world. Same is true in the Christian community. We're divided six ways from Sunday. Different denominations, different beliefs, it's a hard thing for us. It's kind of interesting. I'm not a charismatic, but some of my dearest friends for 60 years have been charismatics. They're good people. Do I disagree with them? Yes. Would I join them in a doctrine to agree on doctrine? Would I cooperate in a Billy Graham crusade with them? Absolutely. They're great people. But divisions, we're in a world that is divided in many ways, and we're seeing extreme now. Divisions between male and female, look what's happened to that. We've got the whole transgender issue that's up is because of hostility that began many, many years ago. And by the way, next Sunday I won't be in here. I'll be upstairs doing my lesson on transgenderism that I did back earlier in February, so doing that with another department. But all of these civil wars, racial prejudice, class prejudice, chaos, the hatred that abounds goes all the way back to the division, the bitter division between the Jews and the Gentiles. The ultimate reason for it is pride and prejudice. The Jews were convinced that there was nothing good that ever dwelt in the Gentiles. They were just worthless. That's a source of the obstacles that we see in the world today and the hostilities in the world today. Now, to the Jew, the sign of their covenant with God was circumcision, and they made that a reason for judging other people. The external sign came to mean everything to the Jews. They completely misunderstood the purpose and spirit of circumcision. Listen to what Paul said in Romans 2, for a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the spirit and not the letter. In Romans 3, that was Romans 2, Romans 3 he says, so what advantage does the Jew have? What's the benefit of circumcision? The Jews made it mean everything, and if you were not circumcised, you were bitterly despised. He describes in these verses, they looked upon the Gentiles as being without Christ because before they were saved, they were separated without Christ, and he said, that's the way you were, that's the way Gentiles are. They're without citizenship of Israel in the covenant, they're excluded from the citizenship of Israel and partners in the covenants of the promise. All of this was those who were without Christ and without citizenship and part of the covenant. God just reminds us that Jew and Gentile, the distinction between them was for the purpose of showing the greatness of salvation for both of them. You just think about it. He overcomes all the barriers that existed between Jew and Gentile. Remember Ephesians 1, 8, that Paul's prayer for them was that they would have understanding, and he's talking about that you'd understand what a great salvation we have received. What a great salvation that can save an arrogant Jew and a detached Gentile with all the bitterness. That's all encompassed and accomplished through Jesus Christ. Without Christ, we're without hope. There's no hope in the world without Christ. I thought it was interesting the other day, Warren Buffett, I assume that name has some recollection to you, a very wealthy man, gave $30.7 billion to build Melinda Gates Foundation. Billion now, $37 billion. Now that's easy to say, but it's inconceivable. If you had $1 billion invested when Jesus was here and you lost $1,000 every day, you would still have $900,000 to go before you'd be bankrupt today. I mean, that's just $1 billion, $30 billion. Here's what he said, there's more than one way to heaven, but this is a great way. Well, 45% of Americans believe there are many ways to heaven. 71% believe that one must do something to help get saved. But without Christ, there's no hope in life, there's no hope in the world, and there's no hope in eternity without Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. Without God in the world, verse 12 says, that's the worst thing of all, without God. Just think, it happens every time somebody dies. We just had a good friend pass away within the last week, Dr. Chuck Kelly's wife, Rhonda, who was president of New Orleans University for 25 years, died here about a week or two ago. And coming out of that, someone said, what in the world would we do at a time like this without Christ? When you stand by an open gasket, you think, I can't go through this. But we do. Imagine how people try to go through it without Christ. No hope. I'll never forget as a young pastor, I'd only done one or two funerals, and about the third funeral I did was with a 96-year-old atheist. What do you say at a funeral for a 96-year-old atheist? The hardest thing I ever did. As a young man, I probably didn't say some of the things I should, but there's no hope without God in the world. In this world, without God, this passing world is under condemnation, under the wrath of God and destined to be destroyed. So the Gentile dilemma is seen, but the dilemma is solved because verses 13 to 18 tell us that the problem is addressed. Verse 13 says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. The dilemma is real, but so is the solution. Now the temple area, to get this, talk about being far away, the temple area is divided into many parts. The outermost part is called the court of the Gentiles. That's way away from the heart of the Gentiles, and the Gentiles could go no further than that. Ordinary Jews were not allowed to go where the priests went, and even the priests couldn't go where the chief high priest did once a year in the Holy of Holies. They were, you were closer, you were far away, and the Gentiles were far away, and the Jews, he said, that's the way you used to be. The furthest away were the Gentiles, but now they've been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1, 7 says simply, it's through his blood. The gospel is a gospel of blood. It's kind of interesting. Liberals today will not accept the reality of the necessity of blood. They don't want to hear about the wrath of God. It's just unthinkable to them, but the gospel is a gospel about blood, and it's very important And Hebrews 9 tells us, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. This speaks of our redemption through the blood of Christ. The blood speaks, the passage in Hebrews chapter 9 speaks of the coming of the city of the living God to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkle of blood which says better things than the blood of Abel. The reference to Abel is from Genesis chapter 4, verse 10, where God tells Cain, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. The blood speaks, and peace is revealed through the blood, verse 14, for he is our peace. That's connected to the immediate past comment. You were like this, but now you've come to Christ, and in him there is peace. The one by whose blood we've been brought near is our peace. Hebrews 13, 20 and 21 speak of this. The God of peace makes peace when he tore down the dividing wall of hostility in his flesh. This is the essence of salvation. Our sin produces death. His blood produces peace. Christ alone is our peace, and there is no peace in the world without Christ. There is no ultimate solution outside of Christ for the divisions and the chaos and the wars that take place in the world today. There's never going to be peace in the Middle East until Jesus returns. There's something like 40 or 50 civil wars going on right now around the world. This is a war-torn world, and divisions and hostilities exist. Think about how that impacts your life. I grew up, I'll tell you how old I am, I grew up at a time when you left your keys in your car unlocked at night. I grew up when we didn't lock the doors at night. But I doubt if there's one of you here that last night before you went to bed didn't lock your doors. Why do you lock your doors? Because we're in a hostile, angry, chaotic time, and you never know what may happen. But peace is revealed. He is our peace. And by the way, peace is not just the absence of hostility. We like to think, okay, they're not fighting, so they've got peace. No, they don't have peace because they're not fighting. We actually embrace each other and love one another when you have the peace that God gives. It is amazing what God does when he comes into our hearts. We had, when I was pastor here, two young Muslim men saved. One was from Israel. His name was Homron, as he said, you pronounce it, it's O-M-R-A-N, but just call it Homron. He was Homron Kawasaki. Now, if you've ever been to Israel, you have seen Kawasaki buses all over Israel. That was his family. And his parents were members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But when Carol Ann and I were in Tel Aviv on one of our trips, we went over and had a meal with his family. Treated us graciously, delicious meal. It was an amazing thing for so different people getting together, and it was all because Christ made that possible. The other young man was from Istanbul, Turkey. Now, in our church, we've had a lot of pilots. Charlie wasn't the first, but you may remember Wayne Sanderlin. Some of you old-timers remember Wayne Sanderlin. He was a Delta pilot. Well, Carol Ann and I were in Istanbul, and we were down in the bazaar. Now, let me simply define the bazaar. It is a shopping center underground, and it's like a honeycomb. I mean, you could get lost in there, and they might not ever find you again. I mean, it's just incredible. We're down in the bazaar underground, and we turn around, and Carol Ann runs right into Wayne Sanderlin. She said, what are you doing here? He said, well, what are you doing here? But they had become friends with the young Muslim man from Istanbul, and they had flown to Istanbul to be with him and to meet his family. Only in Christ can that kind of thing happen. I mean, the hostility, think of the hostility between Jews and Arabs today, between Jews and Gentiles back then, between Christians and Muslims today. These are almost insurmountable problems that we face in the world today. And so he did this, according to verse 15, Christ did, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. Jews and Gentiles brought together by the power of God. That's an incredible reality. No longer two separate people, now one new individual. Christ makes peace between God and man, but he also makes peace between man and man, between individuals. New creation is both individual and corporate. It speaks of the individual and the church. He created it himself. That's something absolutely new. Our miracle of redemption is that we actually become a new kind of person, a new creation. And we don't often think about that. I'm going to, probably when we get to chapter 4, I said earlier that basically the first three chapters in Ephesians are theological, doctrinal, the last three are practical. So when we get to the practical part, the bottom line is, whatever you believe, whatever those first three chapters tell you is doctrinal, ought to make a difference in how you live. And especially remembering that God chose the Jews and sent Jesus so that he could create a new man for all mankind, a new person for all mankind. So I'm going to wait until chapter 4, but I'll bring you, Dr. Terry and I received a gift from one of our church members this week, Eric Metaxas' book on Letter to the American Church. It's a great book. And I'm going to read you a portion of that introduction to that book where he talks about the absolute need for the church to be the church and not just in name only. And I'll back up just a little bit. Metaxas has written some great historical materials. He wrote a biography of Martin Luther. He wrote a biography of Bonhoeffer. And what he does in this book, he shows that there was an active church in Germany at the time of Hitler. And he shows the mistakes that the church made in the 1930s and shows how we are eerily close to the same type situation in the church today. It's serious business. When you can have people who profess to be Christians who don't give any evidence of it, when you can have churches that are active and aggressive and empty of meaning. People ask me what I think about the church in America. My one-word description is apathetic. We just take everything for granted like God owes all this to us. And that was kind of the attitude of the church, the Lutheran church in Germany. Anyway, Metaxas said it's applying to us the warning of where we're headed if we don't change what we're doing. So God did this. Jesus did what he did so he could put us past that and bring us a new man in Jesus Christ. The Jews and Gentiles brought together. Verses 16 and 17 speak of the reconciliation that he completes. Man is reconciled to God. Men are reconciled and individuals are reconciled to each other. It's not that the Gentile becomes a Jew to become Christian, but the Jew is to admit that he's a sinner like the Gentile. See Romans 6 talks about that. The same law that separated the Jew and the Gentile also separates man from God. Christ brought complete reconciliation. Christ is our peace. Verse 14, he is our peace. Verse 15, he made peace. Verse 17, he preached peace. He could have declared war, but his grace and his grace he proclaimed peace. Access from God to God was provided. That's the ultimate objective. This is the grand climax of everything Paul is talking about. This is the conclusion of our faith. We have access to God. Each step that Paul talks about gets higher and higher and now we stand at the top because now we have access to God. What's greater than that? We have access to God through the Holy Spirit. Verse 18 declares, through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Both Jew and Gentile, all mankind, have access to God through Jesus Christ. What a wonderful, wonderful truth. And we'll only comment briefly, the Godhead is seen in this passage that we are looking at. The Godhead is seen. It's through the Son, by the Spirit, and to the Father. Three persons of the Godhead did this for us. There is no access to God but through him. And here the little word for is reaching back into the past and forward into the future. Christ is our mediator to bring us to have access to God. We can never get over the fact that we have access to God. I've met a lot of famous people. I've had private conversations with the President of Kenya, President Moy, with Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, Prime Minister of Israel. It's nice to meet famous people. I sat down with Ronald Reagan before he got the nomination to be the Republican candidate for President back in about 1980. It's interesting to meet those kind of people. But God makes it possible for us to have a personal relationship with him. Amazing that we have access to God. And yet how many of us think about that? Or how many of us even acknowledge that reality? How many of us live with an awareness that in him we live and move and have our being? That's the way the New Testament describes it. It's access to God. And so the solution is provided, but a solid foundation is established. In verses 19 and 20 he says, So then ye are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Paul was anxious that the Ephesians would grasp the idea that they should ever become Christians. Only then would they begin to understand the greatness of God's power. When we receive Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul says we receive three distinct and remarkable blessings. First, we have the privilege of citizenship in the kingdom of God. Secondly, we have privilege of membership in God's family. And third, we have the privilege of being a living stone in God's living temple. These are all the privileges of becoming a Christian. Now he's painted what a dark picture it is when we're without God, without hope, all that is. And he wants us to realize what a distinct difference us being saved has made. Foreigners suggest an alien who's just passing through with a passport. Our English word xenophobia comes from the same New Testament noun. Strangers suggest a resident alien, a foreigner from another state but doesn't have citizenship. That is, they're permanent residents, but they're always on the fringe. They're just tolerated in society, if that. Well, every single believer has crossed the line from being an outsider to being an insider. They're no natives. We're all naturalized by the grace of God. We must all receive citizenship because of the mighty act of Christ. None of us are in church on the basis of our merit or tenure. All of us are in the faith on the basis of grace. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, they were now fellow citizens with the saints. They moved from being total outsiders to being welcomed insiders. The Ephesians had lived in a darkened paganism. Now Christ has joined these pagans, former pagans, in the same family with Abraham, Moses and the apostles. But now, it says. That's a great transition. Aren't you glad for the but nows of the scripture? Pictures dark and dismal, but God, but God or but now, great transition. Those of us who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah. In Christ Jesus is contrasted with we're far away. Foreigners excluded is a contrast between what we were and what we are. We were far away, but here's the contrast between what we were and what we are. There's a mountain of debt that we could never pay separating us from God. We're on one side, God's on the other side. But now we're brought to him through the blood of Jesus Christ. He paid the debt. He brought us close. He lifted us by his sacrifice. He has redeemed us. He has saved us. He has suffered for us. He has died for us. What gratitude ought to mark us who have made a passage from outsider to insider. We're in Christ. We once were excluded. We were foreigners. We were without hope, without God. Now we've been brought near. That's the glory of the gospel. That's the whole message of the gospel. We who were once away from God are now able to go into the very presence of God. This is something that's done to us and for us. We don't get there by our activity. Anything we've done, we get there by Christ's activity, what he has done. We are in that place. Praise the Lord. We're not reconciling ourselves to God, but God's reconciling himself to us. That's a praise the Lord reality. Let me back up just a little bit. The hopeless division between Jew and Gentile is a microcosm of our world today. The Jews hated the Gentiles. The very name Gentile was a contemptuous name to the Jews. Jews referred to them as Gentile dogs. Jews thought that Gentiles existed just to be fuel for the fires of hell. If it was not lawful for a Jew to help a Gentile woman give birth, it would be just bringing another Gentile into the world. I mean the division between Jew and Gentile was absolute, and any talk of reconciliation was scandalous and impossible. Israel was God's chosen nation, but they rejected him. In redemption, God had created a new spiritual nation of all believers and citizens of that nation. Now then, we're citizenship, according to Philippians 3, we're citizenship is in heaven. You see what he's doing. The image of being a citizen in God's kingdom is not sufficient to explain the Christian privilege. He now tells us that we've been made part of the family of God. That's absolutely amazing. We know the difference between the state and the family. It's the difference between the general and the particular, the external and the internal, the remote and the intimate, or the impersonal and the personal. Our relationship with Christ is certainly too personal to be exhausted by political language. There's got to be more than that. The Christian faith begs to be expressed in the language of the family. We are family. The New Testament often uses the language of God's family. We are in a family relationship with God himself. First Timothy 3.15, Paul wrote, so that you will know how people ought to act in God's household, which is the church of the living God. It's amazing. The more I think about John 17, and the more I think about the frequent times that the Apostle Paul speaks about unity, I realize how absolutely impossible unity is without Christ. I also realize how many churches are torn by divisions that are purely political, purely perspective, that should not exist. God has a way of humbling us and teaching us. I told you once before when I was a young preacher, I grew up in Jacksonville, and Jacksonville had white high schools, they had black high schools too. I didn't realize, I rarely saw any African Americans in Jacksonville. I was preaching revival there when I was fresh out of high school, came back, we moved to Houston, I came back to Jacksonville to preach revival in the town I grew up in. That's an interesting experience. I was preaching in the tomato shed. Jacksonville is supposed to be the tomato capital of the world, or at least East Texas, if you look in the tomato section of Kroger's or Central Market or Market Street, you'll often see Jacksonville tomatoes. We were in the tomato shed, and we were singing, and I was going to preach. There's a black man standing over there, and I said, sir, why don't you come on over here and pray with us? And he said, no sir, boss, we don't do that. First time I realized, he felt like he couldn't come. I'd never seen that before. That was something that surprised me. When we're saved, we're part of God's family, all of us. And to show you God has a sense of humor, when we were in Dell City, I ended up being the legal guardian of a 16-year-old black boy who slept in the same bed as my son. God does have a sense of humor. I told you this, but I'll tell you again. He always called me Dad. One time the choir broke up behind me, the Senior High Choir was out preaching away, and everybody laughed in the choir, and I thought, what was that all about? So I asked Randy, and Rastus was his buddy that was living with us, and I said, what was the choir laughing at? He said, well, you said something, and Rastus leaned over to me and said, well, we need to talk to our dad about that, and so the choir just broke up. But they got me good at Falls Creek, I've told you this before, it's still so funny that I can't believe they did this. But when I moved to Dallas from Dell City, I was scheduled to preach Falls Creek, which is the large, they'll have about 6,000 to 8,000 kids and workers, six times during the summer at Falls Creek, and Terry and Bailey had gone on a youth choir trip and was going to come in on Thursday, but Randy was with us, and so after the first night, Daddy said, gee, Dad said, you didn't even introduce me, he said, all these pretty girls around here and you didn't even introduce me and tell them who I was. I said, well, that's because I thought it was a little unusual for Randy, because he's not usually that kind of concerned, you know, but I said, well, I've been waiting for Bailey and Terry, but I said, you know, I'll introduce you. So the next morning, I was told that we had three kids, two of them were on a choir trip and would be here on Thursday, but I said, my son Randy's here, my 17-year-old son Randy, I said, Randy, stand up, well, Rasta stood up. They had set me up, you know, that's why they've been planning to do that, and you could hear a gasp go through the people there, but you know, in Christ, we are family. We are family. One of my best friends, nearly every place I've been, I've had a very close friend who was black, wonderful people, preached in a lot of their churches, they'll wear you out. I mean, I preached in one church over in Kansas City, Kansas, we were in Kansas City, I told you this before, when I got through, he said, your skin is white, but your heart's black. But we're family when we're in Christ, and you look at the divisions that exist between the Christian community, and you understand why the Bible has so much to say about unity. God never intended that, and you know, most of the fighting that goes on in a Baptist church has nothing to do with theology, it's usually what color the carpet's going to be in the auditorium, or are they going to have hat racks in the vestibule, you know. But we seem to have a propensity to fuss and fight. Jesus never intended for that, and what Paul is telling us here is that his intention is that we realize we're not only citizens of the same kingdom, but we are members of the same family, and family's intended to be one that is filled with love and harmony and unity and not different. Now, unfortunately, many families have a lot of chaos, too, but Christ never intended for that to happen. We're part of his family. Now, we're family because we were born into the family, yet we're also adopted into the family. Now, usually you don't get born into family and then get adopted into the same family, but in Christ, we have been adopted as well as been born into his kingdom by the new birth. And back then, and I think it may be still true today, an adopted child cannot be disowned. You can disown your natural children, but you can't disown your adopted children. So when you talk about eternal security, just know that we've got a double security. We're members of the kingdom of God, but we're also members of God's family, and that's not going to change. He's not going to kick us out. From the standpoint of legal privilege, we've been adopted from spiritual poverty into the family of God and can never be disinherited. That's important. We might get through here. Maybe not. But one immovable cornerstone, verse 20 tells us, we've seen that redemption makes us citizens of a spiritual nation and places us in the family of God, and now it says that we are part of the temple of God, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. So the temple is in process of being built and will be completed when the Lord returns. God's still adding to the building of the temple, which is his church. That's why we seek to win people to Christ, so they can be part of the temple that's being built. So Paul still soars higher and higher to express the full truth about the believer's privileges. We are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone, the whole building being fitted together in him, and is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit, Ephesians 2, those last three verses. In this connection, Paul mentions the foundation, the cornerstone, and then the superstructure itself. The foundation on which the believer rests is laid by the apostles and the prophets, and Jesus underscored that himself. The life and message of the doctrine of those first Christian leaders is a steadfast foundation for us. It is the foundation upon which we are built. We are built on a system of truth. Every believer is in vital contact with the original foundation, and thus is part of the living temple. By the way, the language suggests the closest, most intimate contact possible. Then Paul changes his figure, saying that Christ is the cornerstone, not only the foundation, but the cornerstone. Notice he says, Jesus Christ himself. To us, a cornerstone is decorative. You go out somewhere around there, you can find a cornerstone on the buildings that we just finished. I don't know where it is. It is just a decoration, just for information. But in biblical times, the cornerstone was the key to the entire building. It was at the extreme corner of the building, and it bound everything together, and it was the stone that showed that the building was built according to specifications. The cornerstone set the architecture for the entire building. What an image! The church is founded upon and bound together by the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, there was a golden milestone near the Roman Forum in Rome, from which all distances in the Roman Empire were measured. Every place was measured in terms of that stone. In the life of the church, everything is measured by the standard of Jesus Christ. That stone in the Roman Empire, if you were in Philippi, it would give you a distance, and that was from the pillar in Rome to Philippi. That was their point of origin. Paul also points to the superstructure. He sees every individual Christian as one of an infinite number of smaller buildings in various stages of being built, with all of them growing together into one great temple. The church of the ages, and you probably have been told many times, but it's worth remembering, the word for temple, where he says we are the temple of God, is the word for the holy of holies. We're not just part of the temple. We are the holiest part of the temple. The great master has plans, and he knows what he's building, and the building is in the process of being framed together, and throughout history, God is bringing unity out of a variety in a way that we can't even fathom. That's being perfected by the Holy Spirit, according to the last two verses. The apostle must still rise higher to express the full truth about the privileges. The believer is a living stone in a growing temple like successive scenes on a movie screen. The images resolve one into another, a citizen in God's kingdom, a member of God's family, a stone in God's temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and so on. The whole building is fitted together in him, the holy sanctuary. All of this is what we find is ours in Jesus Christ. He mentions the foundation, the cornerstone, the superstructure itself, and we are part. Peter talks about this also, about our part as being living stones in God's great temple. We're almost through. It's built by Christ, verse 21, the whole building being put together in him. God dwells in this new temple. The Jewish temple is gone. Colossians 3.11, by the way, says, In Christ there is no Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, sithian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all. He is constantly developing a lively, active process of building people together in Christ himself. Can be no such building without a right foundation. We have that foundation. It is ours and God gives it to us and builds our part in that temple. We're all living parts of that temple. We're holy unto the Lord, verse 21 says, holy of holies. We're indwelled with the Holy Spirit, verse 22 says, in him you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit. I'll just conclude with this. In the Old Testament, God had a temple for his people. In the New Testament, God had a people for his temple, and that's who we are. If we would realize the miracle of our redemption is that God brought us who have no merit, no value, no worth into the family of God, into the citizenship of the kingdom, and as part of a living temple in the very holiest place in the heart of God. That's who we are. Understand why God is so insistent that we love one another and we get treated with a note of kindness and concern and that we live as efficient citizens of his kingdom and parts of his family. He's going to treat very severely anyone who destroys the fellowship of the church. I've told you before, but just remember 1 Corinthians 3, 16, 17, and 1 Corinthians 6, 19, and 20. It'll tell you, he says it very simply, anyone who destroys the temple, God will destroy him. It's the most dangerous place for a believer to be as part of dissension in a church. We're not people trying to come to full agreement on everything. If two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary. The unity doesn't mean that we don't have disagreements. It just means that we love one another and they don't become points of chaos. And when disagreements become contentious, then it's not the will of God because the New Testament clearly said God's not the author of confusion. So any confusion, don't get mad at somebody who's saying something different in the midst of confusion. Confusion is not when we agree on everything, but it's when we love one another to the extent that the differences don't matter. I was in Buenos Aires years ago when I was pastor here, well, actually when I was pastor in Del City. And I remember one service, there was a young man, a young Argentine man who was probably in his twenties that had been saved. And after the service, he came up to me and gave me a big embrazo, he said, a big embrace. He said, one day, I may never see you again, but one day when we get to heaven, I'm going to see you and I'm going to give you a big embrace. That's what God does for us. You know, there are a lot of people that if I look at it from a human standpoint, I just don't like. I don't know, maybe I don't even know why, I just don't like. In my first church, we had two brothers-in-law who hadn't spoken in 25 years. That's my first church. So I went to both of them and I sought to get them reconciled. Do you know what? They did not even remember why they didn't speak to each other. They just knew they weren't supposed to speak to each other. I mean, thank God that we don't have to live like that. We're in his kingdom, we're in his family, and we're going to live together, not in total unity of agreement, but in the unity of love and grace. And we have a common goal, common direction, and that's what it means. That's the miracle of our redemption. He doesn't use any of us because of us. He uses all of us in spite of us, but he's been doing that a long time, and he's not going to stop it now. All right? God, thank you for loving us when we were unlovely, and Lord, thank you for telling us that we really weren't worthless and useless. We really are very valuable. You created us in your image, and you redeemed us, and you gave your life for us. All of this tells us that we're somebody. You're somebody that you love so much, and you valued so much that you died on the cross for us. Thank you, Father, for the miracle of redemption, and I pray, Father, you'll draw our hearts always together in love, disagreement sometimes, but never hostility. We belong to you, your kingdom, your family, and we're a temple that you can dwell in, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.