Siblings in Christ, Stones in the Temple (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morningston, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Go ahead and turn over in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 2. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2 and this morning we'll be looking at verses 19 through 22. Ephesians 2 verse 19 can be found on page 1039 of your Pew Bibles. Ephesians 2, verses 19-22. This is God's Word.

Pay careful attention. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God, in the Spirit. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's Word. It is the greatest book that has ever been written. Every word in it is true, and it's sweeter than honey.

Soak it up this morning. One of my friends and a professor once told me one time, he said, Brian, if you ever find a perfect church, don't join it. You're going to ruin it. And he was right, in our culture today, many people go church shopping. We even have a term for it, church shopping or church hopping. People want to find a church or find a new church or find a new congregation. They want to find the specific church that's going to be absolutely perfect for them.

But there's an issue with that, and I'm sure you've noticed it at some point. If you're a part of any family, let me ask you, is there any family that's absolutely perfect? No, look over at your spouse or think of your sibling and you know that's just not true. And that's what this is.

The church is the family of God. And so as we look at this text this morning, I want us to think about how are we supposed to interact as the family or the temple or the church of God. And so the first thing we look at is we see that we are citizens of God's kingdom. We are citizens of God's kingdom. That's what verse 19 teaches us. Look with me at verse 19.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints. Fellow citizens, no longer strangers, no longer aliens. Remember, that's what we once were in chapter, or in verse 12, right? We were once strangers and aliens to the covenants of the promise. We were once those who were far off from God. But in verse 13 and 14, it's God who drew us near to himself. And this is picking up on those former ideas that we are no longer those outside the covenant of God, no longer not God's people, but we are God's people.

We are citizens. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are a full-blooded citizen of the kingdom of God. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, if God's grace has been poured out upon you, you do not have a green card, but you are a citizen with all the rights and with all the privileges. You are not some second-class citizen, not someone who's just in the country but just allowed to be there, but you are a citizen with all the rights, And that's what we looked at last week in verse 18.

We actually get access to the king of the kingdom of God. You, as a Christian, get to go into God's palace, and you get to stand in the king's presence, and the God of the universe cares about you. You are a citizen of God's kingdom. But it's even better than that. See, it's not just that somehow we are citizens, But we are members of God's household. We are members of God's household. That's what the rest of verse 19 says. How do you know you're a member of a household?

I think this was perfectly illustrated to me one time when I was talking to a man and he was telling me a story about his son. And their family had gone to the grandparents' house, and as soon as they went into their grandparents' house, one of his sons went right to the cupboard, opened the cupboard, grabbed a bag of Doritos, opened it up, sat down on the couch, and started eating. And his dad looked at him and he said, what makes you think you're allowed to do that? He says, this is grandma's house. And those are mine. Because he knows that his grandma didn't like Doritos, but his grandma kept them in stock in the cupboard because he was a member of that household. He was able to go and he knew that this is where he belonged. He knew that he was a member of that household. Likewise you, Christian, you are a member of God's household. Again, you get to go into the very throne room of God.

And you get to cry out to your father. You get to lean on your father. Instead of being anxious about what you're going to eat or what you're going to drink or what you're going to wear, you get to come to the very presence of the maker of the universe and lay your cares at his feet. And your father gives you good gifts. Your heavenly father cares for you. You are a child of his household.

But don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that somehow God is just like a grandpa who spoils the grandkids. This does not mean that God as your father is just up there and every time you ask for something, he's just going to spoil you with everything you ask for. No, he's a good father. He's not going to let your teeth get rotted out by giving you too many sweets in this life.

But he wants what's best for you. And so sometimes as a father, he's able to tell you, no. Daughter, I know you really want that. Son, I really know you want that pain gone. But I got a plan for that, I'm teaching you something with it. I know you really want this thing and your heart is set on that thing, but I'm telling you, if I give you that thing, it's gonna hurt you. Trust me. Trust me, I'm doing this for your good. You're a member of the household of God. All the promises are yours.

But he doesn't just give us good things or withhold the things that are bad from us, but he also instructs us. Right, I mean, if you opened up to the book of Proverbs, the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs are all of father telling his son, here are some really important things you need to learn, boy. Here are things that will sap your strength. Here are things that will lead you down to the pit of hell. Here are things that are good and go and chase after these.

God has given you 66 books to go and to find out what is good for you, to instruct you in this life, to teach you about who he is and how he wants to see you grow. God is a good father to you. You are a member of the household of God. But that also means, as a member of the household of God, you also have siblings.

Look around you. Seriously, look around. Look around. These are your brothers. These are your sisters. This is how we're supposed to be. This was taken so seriously in the early church that the Romans used to persecute the church thinking that they were committing incest because they kept calling each other brother and sister. I mean, this is a foreign idea to the world that somehow someone who's outside your family can be your brother or sister, but that is what God calls you. God calls us to be a household. God calls us to love each other.

Now I'm gonna ask you, just about every single person in here has a sibling or has had a sibling, how easy is it to have a sibling? Oh, I got like nine of them. For some of them, it's pretty easy to be a sibling. For others of them, we pray for them. Is it always easy to be a member of the household of God? Is it always easy to love your brothers and sisters in Christ?

No. No, absolutely not. This is what that old professor was telling me, Brian, if you find a perfect church, don't join it, because you're going to ruin it. Right, because a family, a family necessarily has tension in it. Because we live life together. As a church, when somebody needs attention, it is really easy to be selfish and think, well, I don't really have time for that. I need to get my tasks done. But what is God calling us to do in that moment? He's calling us to love our brother and sister. It's amazing what the church is called to be as siblings.

I want to read to you just a passage of this man who is... imprisoned in Romania. If you don't know anything about the history of Romania, it was one of these countries that was taken over by the communists after World War II. And the Christians were horrifically tortured and persecuted there. But I want you to hear how he writes about the church as a family.

My suffering consists, first of all, in the longing after the unspeakable beauties of the underground church, the church that fulfills the old Latin saying, naked following the naked Christ. In captive nations, the son of man and those who are his have nowhere to lay their heads. Many Christians don't build houses for themselves. To what good? They'll be confiscated at their arrest. Just the fact that you have a new house can be a greater motive for you to be imprisoned, because the others wish to take your house.

Therefore, you don't bury your father, nor do you say farewell to your family before following Christ. Who is your mother, your brother, your sister? You are, in this respect, like Jesus. Mother and brother are for you, only those who have fulfilled the will of God.

As for the natural ties, they can count any more when it is frequent occurrence that the bride denounces the bridegroom, children their parents, wives their husbands. It is more and more only the spiritual connection that remains. You've heard me say it before and I'll say it again. We live in a complacent Christian church. We live in a society where the worst persecution we get from around us is people just telling us to shut up. Don't talk. I don't want to hear about this Jesus stuff. That's just annoying. Stop.

Every once in a while we'll see little glimpses of it. But when you read of the global church, of what happens in China, and in Russia, in places like Romania, or what's going on in Nigeria with Boko Haram, These are Christians who deeply care for one another as brothers and sisters. This is what the church looks like when people do things that we don't even see happen. This does happen in the American church. I don't want you to think that this doesn't happen. Often in the American church, people just keep things on the down low. Just keep it on the DL because you don't want your right hand to know what your left hand is doing. But this does happen.

When people will pay for a widow's bills and nobody knows about it. When somebody will go selflessly to care for their spiritual father or their spiritual sister and they'll go to the nursing home, not because they can get anything from going there, but just to care for someone whom they love. It happens when Christians will adopt children so that they can show the love of Jesus Christ and might bring a child into the kingdom of God. It happens when people, I remember hearing stories of people who would literally just get checks in the mail. Somebody finds out in the church that somebody is suffering and all of a sudden a check or cash ends up in their mailbox and it has no return address on it.

Being siblings looks like sacrificing for one another. Being siblings looks like caring for one another. It means spending time with one another. It means praying with one another. It means talking with one another, not just liking pictures on Facebook and Instagram. It looks like communicating with each other. It means like valuable time.

So let me ask you. How strong are your ties to your brothers and sisters in Christ? I'm gonna give you an opportunity now, right? You can write underneath the bottom of that line, we are members of God's household. You can write a number there, one to 10. One being the worst, 10 being the best. Just give yourself an evaluation score right now. How good of a sibling am I to my brothers and sisters? Do we look like, do we act like the household of God? Do we show our brothers and sisters the love of Jesus Christ? Are we living out the reality here that we are members of the household of God? I'd like to say, brothers and sisters, I have seen this in you.

I don't know what your individual score is right now, but I am so thankful. One of the cool things that people will ask me about, they'll say, you know, do you miss living in California? To which I say, absolutely not. I love living in Southeast Iowa. But there is one, well there's two things I miss about California. One is surfing and two is my family.

I miss my grandparents. But I can't tell you what a blessing it is that our kids have Grandparents Day coming up soon and I know that we've given some of you invitations. Will you be a surrogate grandparent? And some of you have said yes. that Olivia was in the community and she was talking to some random, well in my mind a random person, Olivia knew this girl, and she said, oh, those are Chris's adopted grandkids. I said, thank you for reassuring a pastor's heart that this is a true statement that happens here. Do we live out the realities of these statements that we love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ?

We are members of God's household, but the last image that it gives us here in verses 20 through 21 is we are part of God's temple. You, Christian, are part of God's temple. Look with me at verses 20 through 22. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom also the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. God talks about us being part of the kingdom of heaven. God talks about us being part of the household of faith. And now the imagery switches to now we are part of His temple. And what does God say the temple's foundation is? What does verse 20 say?

It's the Apostles and the Prophets. This is what Revelation 14 teaches us as well, is that it is upon the teachings of the Apostles and of the Prophets that the Church is built. Now this is extremely important. The Church is built on the Apostles and on the Prophets. Apostles, plural, let me just say that. It's not just one Apostles, but it is all the Apostles. And the prophets, all those in the New Testament who are giving their prophecy and building up the church. And what we see is when the church is built upon that foundation, we have the right place to go.

Now, this should be a rebuke. a rebuke to two different types of churches and we need to ask ourselves if we have fallen or we will fall into these faults. The first fault is those who forsake the truth of the apostles and of the prophets who just explain away the scriptures, like what happens in the liberal church, just explain away the roles of men and women, explain away all the lists of sin, explain away all the realities of the teachings that this has. If we are doing our work to explain away the Bible instead of clinging to the teachings of the apostles and prophets, you are no longer on the foundation. but you are on a different foundation. You can call yourself a church all you want, but that is not a Christian church.

Are we built upon the apostles and the prophets? The other side are those who want to build the church on anything else. other than the apostles and the prophets. Build the church upon what's going to get people in the doors. Build the church, accommodate everything in the church just to get people in the door. Build the church on giving good messages. Build the church on some type of really great pastor. Build the church on a series of programs. Build the church on whatever your political ideology is. Build the church on whatever social movement you want to push. Brothers and sisters, that is not the foundation that God gives us for what the church is. The foundation is found, what is in your very hands.

And at any point, this is an honest reality here, I'm giving you permission. At any point, if you see our congregation moving away from the teachings of the apostles and of the prophets, come and show us where in the Bible we are wrong, and we will change our course. Let me say that again. John and Jim, I'm putting you guys on notice. We might get people talking to us later. If we are not building the church upon the foundation of the scriptures, the elders are wrong. Let me say that again in a different way, okay?

I can't do whatever I want here. Jim can't do whatever he wants. John can't do whatever he wants. The deacons can't come up and do whatever they want. Sorry deacons, you've got a lot of great ideas, but we can't do anything. We can't do whatever we want.

It must be founded upon the apostles and the prophets. So if you've ever wondered why we do stuff really weird, It's because we think that the Bible teaches it. Now, I promise you, there's a whole bunch of stuff we just do because of tradition. There's just things we do. Feel free to tell us at any time, I don't think that's Bible, can we change it? And if we can't support it in the Bible, we'll have a conversation. But if we can say, we'll hold on here, the scripture says, thus saith the Lord, here it is, I'm sorry, but this is the cement upon which the foundation has been laid. It's not moving.

The foundation, verse 20, is the apostles and the prophets, but the cornerstone is Christ. The cornerstone is Christ. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone. It is Jesus Christ who is the most important member of this congregation. It is Jesus Christ who bears the weight of the congregation. It is Jesus Christ, as we read in Isaiah chapter 28, who sets the plumb line for the congregation.

What do we want to do in the congregation? Who do we want to be as living stones in the congregation? We want to be those who are being measured by Christ. We want to be those who are in line with our Savior. We want to be those who are like the cornerstone. We want to be smoothed out and hewn like Him. We want to be in line with Him.

Have you ever seen a house that's been built on a faulty foundation? I'm serious. We lived in Pittsburgh for a while. And in Pittsburgh it's all these crazy hills and stuff and they're moving all the time. And Olivia and I, when we would go and we would be looking at houses, maybe we want to do this, maybe we want to buy that, and she'd always be saying, the first thing I look for in a house is I want to see is there any water in the basement. Is the foundation good? And you could normally tell when you get down to the base of the foundation of the basement, if the stones at the base right off the foundation were off, man, you could walk upstairs. And I remember some of these.

They were like walking in clown houses. You would walk upstairs, and you would try to close the door. And you would close it and just kind of swing back open, close it, and the door jam would look like this. And everything was off kilter. Because if the foundation is off, the frame gets off. If the load-bearing support is off, the entire house gets twisted.

Brothers and sisters, this is what happens in churches today. I would put it in front of your eyes today that if you evaluate the churches that have left the scriptures, this is why. If you sat there and you're like, why would they believe that? I just don't get it. Like, don't they read the Bible? This is your answer.

They're going with a different cornerstone. They're going with a different foundation. Again, I don't want to be that church that's looking at ourselves like, yeah, we got it all together here, though. We're perfect. Yeah, right. No, the cry of the Reformation was always reforming. Semper Reformanda. We want to be more and more like Christ. We want to look more and more like Him. We want the church to be founded upon Him.

See, it is Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone of the church. The cornerstone of the church is not what political party is in favor now. The cornerstone of the church is not whatever social movement is popular right now. The most important stone, the cornerstone of the church, is not whatever is trendy online right now. The cornerstone of how the church is built is never going to be upon whatever brings people inside the church.

If we are not building on Jesus Christ, we are wasting our time. Brothers and sisters, as we are a corporate body, as we are a church, we are founded and rooted and built upon Jesus Christ. I hope you walk away from here and think, man, pastor said nothing, but he just kept talking about Jesus and Jesus and Jesus and how we're supposed to love each other like Jesus and how Jesus loves us and cares for us and brought us to the Father because it is Jesus who is the cornerstone.

It is the gospel in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who tore down that wall of separation. It is through the blood of Jesus that we were brought near to God. It was through the cross of Jesus that the enmity was done away with. It is Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone.

But don't be fooled, not everyone likes it. For the stone which the builders rejected have become the chief cornerstone." Isaiah 28, Psalm 118, 24. It is Jesus Christ that people will reject, but who we say is the cornerstone of our faith, of our life, of our church.

The church is built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ and we are being, verse 21 and 22, I'm going to wrap it up. Verse 21 and 22, in him in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

There's two points there. I'm gonna smash them together and we're gonna move real quick. We are being built up together. We are being built up together and this is painful. Have you ever seen someone chip away at a stone to get it square and get it ready? Have you ever seen someone cut tile? How would you like, you're called a living stone in 1 Peter. How do you think this tile feels when it's getting cut by the saw? How do you think the stone feels when it's getting chiseled away at?

Do you think it's going, oh yes, I love this. I love it. I'm looking more and more perfect. No, it hurts. It hurts, and you know what happens even more? Imagine being that stone, and you're really blessed. You're one of the foundation stones, right? You're one of the first couple layers of the temple, and you get set down, and you're like, yeah, I'm one of the good ones. What's going to happen after that? More stones are going to be put on top of you, you who are strong in the faith, Do not be surprised when God bears more weight upon you.

He gives us brothers and sisters that we could uphold them, that we might be built up together as a church into a holy temple of God. And when we are together as that temple of God, he is here with us. Oh, what a beautiful promise it is that Jesus says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I will be in the midst of them. What a beautiful blessing.

And my mind goes back to this temple idea when Solomon built the temple. And he was praying as he was dedicating that temple. And as he was praying, he was saying, how is it that someone like me could build you a temple with human hands? And what does God do? God descends down upon the temple in a great cloud. And it becomes so dark that the priests can't even do their work.

Brothers and sisters, there are times when I get to have sweet prayer with some of you together and there are times when we're together for worship where the Holy Spirit is so thick that you can feel Him. Where God's Word is so true that you can taste it. That God's Spirit is so close to you that you can breathe Him in. God is closer to you than your very breath. We are a temple of the Holy Spirit and He indwells in you. Brothers and sisters, you are the family of God.

And I am so thankful that somehow you have brought, adopted this weirdo into your family. And I am so thankful that God has called you to love one another. And I look forward to seeing how God is going to mold you and shape you and build up his church through you. And as he is doing that, brothers and sisters, we will be there for you when you need someone to rest upon.

Closing Prayer

Because we are your family. We will be praying for you and we love you. And this is what the church is called to do. We're not a perfect church. but he's making us more like Jesus, our cornerstone. Let's pray. Oh Lord, thank you for the work that your Holy Spirit is doing in our hearts. Father, we pray, Lord, that you would care for us and bless us. Father, we pray that you would build us up into your holy temple. Lord, please do not let these just be words on a page, but Father, please, by the powerful working of your Holy Spirit, apply them to our lives. Father, we pray that we would be truly a family. We pray, Father, that we would love one another deeply, and that we would share your glory with all those around us.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Work for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa 52640. May God richly bless you this week.