New and Improved

Introduction

First Sermon, Eph. 2:11-22 > NIGHTMARE > 8 min. long... or short (about only redeeming factor, maybe)

So, I offer you the “New & Improved” version!

When I preached that 1st sermon, during time considering going on to Ph.D., and I swore off preaching > ripped off and threw lapel mic into desk drawer and told Dagny, “That was, without question, the most embarrassing moment of my life, and I intend never to preach again.” :-)

But God grabbed me back from the Ph.D. track two different times to continue in pastoral ministry because I love to hear “new and improved” people tell their stories of God’s redemption in their lives. You see, the church is unlike any other organization, company, civic group, or association in the world. We are entrusted with a truly life-giving message. Life transformation and the eternal destinies of real people depend on the redemptive message entrusted to the local church. Entrusted to you and me. Real. Eternal. Life change.

So I want, today, to add to your definition of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. That you would understand anew the ramifications of being church. I want you to understand the Big Idea: As God’s new creation, we are citizens of His kingdom, members of His family, and stones in His holy temple.

Read Eph. 2:19-22

We are Citizens of God's kingdom.

John the Baptist proclaimed in his day, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:2). The kingdom was coming quickly. In Jesus, the kingdom appeared on Earth. In Luke 17:20–21, the Pharisees asked when the kingdom would come. Jesus replied that "…indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

Jesus spoke of us when he said to the Jews in Matthew 21:43, "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits." That "people" is us, the "new man" mentioned in verse 15 of Eph 2 and the “one body” in verse 16.

This kingdom can be described as the rule and reign of God in our lives. When you became a believer, you surrendered your rights and submitted yourself to God's rule in your life. Because of that you are no longer a stranger or a foreigner, but a citizen!

That's the phrase Paul uses in 2:19: we are now "fellow citizens with the saints." Some versions say “God’s people” instead of “saints.” Same thing. Every saved person is a saint, and every saint is a citizen in God's kingdom. In his kingdom there are no "strangers and foreigners" among his people. There are no second-class citizens.

As citizens in the kingdom, as those who submit to the rule and reign of God in our lives, we have a common language, the language of love. We have a common history, the community of faith. We have a common allegiance, higher than any Earthly loyalty. We have a common goal, the glory of God. We have a common destination, heaven. Phil. 3:20 says, "For our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

There are three benefits to being a citizen of God's kingdom. First, this citizenship gives us identity. The word "strangers" comes from a special Greek word that referred to groups of foreigners who settled in the city. We see that today as small ethnic minorities cluster together. The citizens often viewed these folks with fear and suspicion. "Foreigners" meant someone even further down the scale, a person who takes up residence, but never adopts citizenship—aliens and refugees.

On the other hand, citizens were fiercely proud of their cities. People's names often spoke of their citizenship, such as Saul of Tarsus and Jesus of Nazareth. As citizens of God's kingdom, we have an eternal identity that is manifested in our fellowship and worldview.

Second, our citizenship gives us the privilege of full access to God. Roman citizenship was highly prized in the first century. It "included the right of voting, of being elected to a magistracy of appeal to the people, of contracting a legal marriage, and of holding property in the Roman community." Paul used his citizenship on several occasions, notably the privilege of appealing his case to Caesar. As believers, we have the privilege of full access to God.

Third, our citizenship gives us security. We belong. We have a home in Jesus. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived for an extended period of time in a foreign city, but I once walked through the streets of Birmingham, England in the evening and saw, through uncurtained windows, families sitting around a table or reclining around a hearth, or open fire. All this, of course, just made my loneliness even deeper. We don’t experience this “in Christ” because we belong. We are on the inside, not the outside.

Practical Question: Is your citizenship in the Kingdom or something else? Sports? Intelligence? Beauty? Money? Material goods? Your age? Your career? Are you a card-carrying member of the I-go-to-church-but-that’s-it club? Because there are a lot of people in that club. “Narrow is the way,” says Jesus. Because from wherever or from whatever you derive your identity, enjoy your privilege, or gain your security... that is where your citizenship really lies. See, being here, sitting in a  pew, doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonald’s makes you a Chicken McNugget. But, if you have submitted to the rule and reign of God in your life, you are a citizen in God’s kingdom.

We are members of God's family.

One of the key phrases throughout Ephesians and all the epistles is "in Christ." This little prepositional phrase describes the full content of our salvation. We are baptized, by the Holy Spirit, into Christ's body. Because we are "in Christ", we are also in Christ's family. We are "members of the household of God" and are given the same inheritance he gives his Son.

Romans 8:17 says we are God's children, "and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and fellow heirs (co-heirs, joint heirs)) with Christ." Hebrews 2:11 says, "[H]e who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Hebrews 3:6 tells us that “Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast."

To be a citizen is to be a member of the family, too. These are not distinct roles, but rather different views of the same reality. The first metaphor says we are "fellow citizens with the saints." It is a wonderful thing to be a citizen. However, it is something else to be "members of the household." To be a member of a family is a much more intimate relationship than to be a citizen of a kingdom. In Christ, we have great intimacy, not only with God but also with each other, and we relate to one another as a family.

As Christians, we relate to one another as family in a few ways. First, we live together as a family. In Ephesians 3:15 we read about the "whole family in heaven and Earth." We live here below with the part of the family that is on Earth. Those in heaven dwell together as a family. One day we will all be together as a "family in heaven."

Also, as a family we bond together. I love watching a new believer come into the family of faith and grow up in the Lord. It is like watching a child grow in a physical family. Some of us are children; some of us are older siblings. Some of us are parents and grandparents, spiritually. When a person is saved, he becomes part of the huge family of God! And being part of a spiritual family is a bonding experience that brings reward. In Mark 10:28–31, Peter has just told Jesus, “See, we have left everything and followed you,” and Jesus replies, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time... and in the age to come.”

Lastly, as a family we pass on our Father's characteristics. The physical traits found in our genetic codes are passed on to our physical families. In a much more important way, in our spiritual family, we have characteristics passed on to us by our Heavenly Father like righteousness, holiness, and the fruit of the Spirit.

Practical Question: To what extent do you believe that your membership in the family of God is as the Bible describes? Do you believe that being “in Christ” means a duty-bound adherence to a pleasant set of “good-for-healthy-living” principles” or is your spiritual family your place to live together, bond together, and pass on the Father’s characteristics? If you believe this truth, you will be here more than occasionally because you will depend on it. If you believe this, you will orient your relationships such that they will be places of bonding and producing fruit. Otherwise, you are playing church. You are a member in name only.

We are stones in God's temple.

Let's examine three elements in God's temple: the foundation, the Cornerstone, and the building stones. The Foundation of the Temple is the teaching of the apostles and prophets. Notice the tense of the verb, we have been “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." This is past tense. The apostles and prophets have already laid the foundation. You don't put up the walls until the foundation is laid. For 2,000 years God has built his church on that foundation that was laid out in the 1st century. We have a historic faith! And our doctrinal groundwork has been laid out before us for centuries.

The Cornerstone of God's temple is the Lord Jesus Christ. The cornerstone was the major structural part of the buildings of ancient Palestine. It had to be laid out perfectly and it had to be strong enough to support the full weight of the building, because everything else depended on it.

The cornerstone of the Jerusalem temple was 29 feet long and the size of a railroad boxcar. John MacArthur writes: "The cornerstone was the support, the orienter and the unifier of the entire building. That is what Jesus Christ is to God's kingdom, God's family and God's building."

For centuries throughout Israel's history, the cornerstone was a metaphor of the coming Messiah. Hundreds of years before Christ, Isaiah proclaimed, "Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: 'Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation'" (Isaiah 28:16). Psalm 118:22 says, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." As Jesus quoted that verse in Matthew 21:42, he added "This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Paul makes it clear: Jesus is our cornerstone. As the cornerstone of the church, Jesus supports us all. He holds us together. He determines our symmetry, shape, and style. Not a committee, a simply majority vote, one’s opinion, or even one’s stylistic preference. Jesus determines our trajectory because he alone can support the full weight of the temple.

The building stones of the temple are the believers everywhere. Paul uses the same analogy found in 1 Peter 2:5, which says, "you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house." If Jesus is the cornerstone, and the divine teaching of the apostles is the foundation, then we believers are the "living stones" of the building.

Psalm 40:2 says, "He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure." Jesus took us as dead stones from the pit of sin, gave us life, and now shapes us to be "fitted together" as "living stones" of his "holy temple."

The phrase "fitted together" or “built together” in Eph. 2 comes from a term that suggests that every stone is set in place perfectly. This means nothing is misplaced, misshapen, or imperfect. Using a carpenter's term, everything is "plumb."

Together, as a "holy temple," we are a "dwelling place of God." Though we may call a building a church, or even "God's house," it is just brick, mortar, and wood. The real temple is the people. We are the church; we are God's house, his "holy temple" wherever we meet!

Practical Question: Do you act as if the teaching of the church, its history, and the thoughts and lives of those who have gone before, are of no consequence? Do you perceive the cornerstone of Christ simply as a pleasant moral principle for keeping God at bay or as the first principle of your very existence? Do you function as if the church is just here to put together congenial, warm and fuzzy experiences? Or do you take seriously its role in the world and in your life as the support, orienter, and unifier of your direction?

Conclusion

The building is not yet complete. God is still adding stones. It will not be complete until everyone who will believe has done so. We are like the great cathedrals of Europe that took centuries to build.

You've probably seen those headless frames painted to represent a muscle man, a clown, or some famous character? Some of us have had our pictures taken this way, and the photos are humorous because the head doesn't fit the body. As we picture Christ as the head of this local body of believers, would the world laugh at the misfit or would they stand in awe?