The Uniqueness of the Church

Transcript

GR 2317
5/23/2021
The Uniqueness of the Church
Ephesians 2:19-22
Gil Rugh


We're going to Ephesians 2 in your Bibles, Ephesians 2. If you were going to say what word is emphasized in the book of Ephesians, it is church. The book of Ephesians is about the church, the doctrine of the church, and the uniqueness of the church. That is what Paul has been stressing in chapter 2, and really, from Ephesians 2:11 down through maybe Ephesians 3:13 and that part of chapter 3. He really is developing and explaining clearly how unique the church is and how it’s something new in the program and plan of God. Not that He had not planned it from eternity past—we've seen He has—but as far as His making it known and bringing it into existence, the church was something new. Maybe we ought to put up that chart again to mark where it is and its importance. In the chart, it is that tan area. This is the Church Age; it began in Acts 2, and it will end with the rapture of the church. We'll say more about that. Important, nothing before fits. As I was going through some commentaries, I was just reminded how many commentaries and writers fail to appreciate the uniqueness of the church. You see it fits there; it did not exist before. So when you read a commentary that is saying God is now bringing the Gentiles into the kingdom, it’s not so because the kingdom was talked about throughout the Old Testament, throughout the Gospels. In fact, one person thought that was the reason it should be connected. John the Baptist came and preached repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But the church is unique. It is not directly connected to the kingdom, which has to do with Israel. It will be part of the kingdom when it is established, but it is not a kingdom entity. And while I say that, it should be said too, the church is not the spiritual kingdom today. Some dispensationalists make a connection that the church is the spiritual kingdom or the spiritual form of the kingdom today. I don't find that as a result of normal, literal hermeneutics. The kingdom will have a tangible entity, but it is yet future. When you get to the end of that 70-week period and the end of the last seven years, we will be in the kingdom. We are at least seven years away from the kingdom because there are at least seven years after the rapture of the church. The rapture of the church, obviously, has not occurred. We are here. When the rapture occurs, that's when all believers in Jesus Christ will be caught up to meet Christ in the air. And the bodies of those who have been part of the church in past history back to Acts 2 will also be raised from the dead and caught up to meet Christ in the air. I keep repeating myself because it's important we understand the uniqueness of the church in this period of time.

Come back to Romans 11. We recently studied Romans 11 together in our Sunday evening time. Romans 11. The whole issue of a mystery is a key part of talking about the church. We'll get into that in more detail when we get into Ephesians 3 because Paul will talk about the mystery. A mystery is something that God had not revealed before—a part of His plan from eternity past, but not part of His revelation until that period of time, so until Acts 2. Particularly, the fullness and clarity regarding the church will come through the Apostle Paul. The church begins before Paul is saved; it begins in Acts 2. Peter is the key individual from Acts 2. Paul gets saved in Acts 9, then Paul begins his missionary journeys in Acts 13. But the revelation of the church and its fullness and understanding of it will come through Paul. Peter will get further information and clarity as well.

So in Romans 11:25 Paul says, “For I do not, brethren, want you to be uninformed of this mystery,” something that is not complicated and is not hard to understand. It is impossible because God has not made it known before, so it can only be understood by God giving the information. That is what He has done. “So that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved.” This is a time where Israel, the nation Israel, is under the judgment of God, so God's work of salvation does not focus on the Jews. They are under the judgment of God. This is the time of the fullness of the Gentiles, at the end of verse 25. That means this is the time when God is focusing His work of salvation in Gentile, non-Jewish, people. Some Jewish people are saved because God's grace is still reaching out to them, but it's a partial hardening that they have experienced.

We want to understand the uniqueness of this time. God is doing some special and unique. Before the starting of the church, God's focus in the world, as we have talked about, was in the nation Israel. Where did you go to get the Word of God? You had to go to the nation Israel. We saw passages where they were given the Word of God. The Word of God wasn't given through prophets in Babylon. For example, it took Jewish prophets to bring the Word of God. The temple of God, the tabernacle then the temple, was in Israel. Where did God manifest His presence? In Israel. Where was the priesthood and sacrifices that provided a way for you to come into the presence of God? In Israel. With the church that changes, now the focus will be on Gentiles and God reaching out to bring salvation to Gentile people. It's crucial that we understand that. Where do we want to put our emphases? Where is God working today? Why has God established us here as a people? Sometimes it seems more important to go other places. Years ago, people did a survey in our own city to see how many people were attending evangelical Bible-believing churches. It came out at about 10 percent of the people. Well, the city is 300,000, and 10 percent of them are going to Bible-believing churches, so I assume they are believers. I assume that. It’s an approximate number. That's 30,000 believers and 270,000 lost. I take it God has put us here first and foremost to reach the people of our own area. This is the day of Gentile salvation, and I want to be sure that is done. We have great ministries going to Israel, solid dispensational ministries, but I'm not going to pour a lot into that because God says I am not dealing that way there. Some Jews will be saved and brought into the church. Wonderful. This is a day of Gentile salvation; we want to be sure we take advantage of it. So the church is a time of the fullness of the Gentiles, when God's work of salvation centers in non-Jewish people. It includes Jewish people. Maybe we would say it doesn't have racial identity. That's what Paul said.

Come back to Ephesians 2. What God did to do this was He broke down the Mosaic Law as a barrier. Remember the Mosaic Law was a law given to Israel. The theocracy for Israel began with the giving of the Law, the covenant with Abraham. We looked at this in our previous study. It began with Abraham—the Abrahamic Covenant starts Genesis 12. We walked through some of the passages related to that. The theocracy where the nation now is gathered happens 500 years after Abraham when Israel is brought out of the land of Egypt. They went down into Egypt as a family: 70 physically related people. The come out as a physically related nation, the Jewish nation, the Israelites. What happens in Exodus starting in chapter 19 is that God gives them the Mosaic Law, which is basically the governing constitution for the nation. It governs them politically, spiritually, and morally; that's their governing document. And what happens in the provision of that? God's presence on earth will be centered in the tabernacle in the midst of His people. Moses, to begin with, would be administering over the nation on behalf of God, who is resident within the nation. That theocracy will end in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians take the southern kingdom into captivity. Remember Ezekiel sees God leaving. He departs through the eastern gate, over the Mount of Olives. God is departing from the nation because they are placed under judgment, and the times of the Gentiles begins when Jerusalem is under the domination of Gentile nations. So then God's plan with the final rejection of the Messiah, the church begins. When the church is gone… I've heard some people, so we want to clarify this. We say we want to reach the Jewish people so they can be a testimony to the nation Israel after the church is gone. We want to reach the Jewish people so they can be saved like Gentile people, but do you know what is going to happen? When the rapture occurs, there won't be any Jewish believers on the earth either; they go with the church. And the Gentiles will be gone. Immediately following the rapture of the church, there won't be any believers on earth because they will all have been raptured. So, we don't reach Israel and the Jews hopefully getting things prepared for the events afterwards. Do you know what God is going to do? He is going to intervene directly.

We have to do this; come to Revelation 11. We're going to hit the middle point of that seven-year period following the rapture of the church. That seven-year period is broken into two 3½-year periods, so we're talking about the middle of the seven years. Two witnesses are going to come, and they are going to be carrying the gospel. These are two prophetic individuals. The rapture of the church is gone, and God now is going to finish the last seven years of His program with the nation Israel to bring in the kingdom. His work of salvation will now turn again to the Jews. Two prophets will be raised up in Israel, and that's what we are reading about. Verse 3, “I will grant authority to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” He goes on to describe these powerful individuals. Verse 5, “If anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.” These are striking individuals; you won't be able to oppose them until God says their witness is done. Then they will be killed and their bodies will lie in the streets. You are familiar with that, but you see what happens here. God is bringing testimony on behalf of His work of salvation directed to Israel, and they'll be a supernatural work. Then the fullness of the Gentiles will be over and God's work of salvation reverts to again be centered in Israel. There will be Gentiles saved, but God's intention in that last seven years after the rapture of the church is towards Israel. Then we can have the kingdom, and the kingdom is Jewish. We go back to where, ultimately, God's presence will be on earth in Jerusalem. There will be a temple in that first 1,000-year phase, and even into eternity, God's presence will reside in the New Jerusalem. The church will be part of it, but the kingdom centers in the Jews and Israel.

All of that, now come back to Ephesians 2. What is Paul doing? He has to stress the uniqueness of what God is now doing. That barrier that divided Jews and Gentiles, the Mosaic Law, was the governing constitution that separated. God intended a barrier, the Mosaic Law, to be put around His people. It cut them off in the way they ate, in the circumcision that connected them to a covenant with Him, and the requirements of them. It all made a distinction. We noted Peter after his three years with Christ in earthly ministry and the church began in Acts 2... When you get to Acts 10, he still didn't think he should go and fellowship with defiling Gentiles. But God is doing something new. He is putting Jews and Gentiles together into one new entity. It's not the New Israel, as some write, because that wouldn't be new. That would just be bringing the Gentiles into Israel, so a continuity with Israel. No, this is new. Ephesians 2:15, “By abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments,” that's the Mosaic Law, “contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross.” So you see the picture—one new man, one body. It's not Israel, it's not another formerly existing entity. It is the church, which is new. So it's not the kingdom. The Old Testament made provision for Gentiles to be part of the kingdom and prophesied they would be, but they become identified with Israel. So now we have a new entity.

Verse 18, “For through Him,” Christ, “we both have our access in one Spirit,” the work of the Holy Spirit, “to the Father.” So that's the foundation; the work of Christ and His death and resurrection. It did not bring in the kingdom. It resulted in Israel as a nation being set aside by God for a time while God built a new entity, the church. And now Gentiles come freely along with Jews who want to come, as Paul did, for example, into the church. It is only through Christ, through faith in Christ. Remember back in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” So it is through faith in Christ that now all can come into a relationship with God as their Father by the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart. When you place your faith in Christ, the Spirit of God identifies you with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and that’s called the baptism of the Spirit. And so, now you have been born again. You have been made a new creature in Christ. You are God's child, and He is your heavenly Father, verse 18.

We pick up with verse 19 where we just left off our study last time after verse 18. “So then.” Now here is the result of what we are working through. “You are no longer strangers and aliens.” Gentiles are no longer outsiders. The Old Testament referred to them as aliens even though they could come and live in Israel and they could adopt Jewish practices. But, as we’ve seen in our study in Joshua, when the land is divided, it's divided according to which of the twelve tribes of Israel you belong to. There is no “here is the land for the non-Israelites”. No, Canaan belongs to just one nation. But now we are no longer strangers and aliens; we are no longer the outsiders because God is not adjusting His program with Israel and is not making us part of that program. He is doing something totally new. Since Israel is under the judgment of God and, in effect, rejected by Him for a time, to put it that way, Jews who place their faith in Christ will become part of the new entity, the church.

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,” outsiders, “but you are fellow citizens with the saints.” We have been brought into a new relationship together as fellow citizens with the saints. Paul is going to use a number of pictures, metaphors, and analogies to show us what the church is. He talked about it as a body. Look at Ephesians 1:22. It says, “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body.” So, we have the analogy of a physical human body. We have a spiritual body that we are all part of, and you'll note what is key in all this is unity, our connection together. So, he talks about a body, he talked about a family. At the end of Ephesians 2:18, He is now our Father. Now in verse 19 he'll say, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints.” Now we belong together in an organization and an organism, the church. We are of God's household. Pick up that family connection with God as our Father. This is His family, His household. Then he is going to talk about a building, and we are all put together as blocks in the building. All of these analogies and pictures will connect us in a relationship of oneness and unity. As we move on in Ephesians, he'll tell us we need to be sure to keep the unity that is produced by the Spirit in the bond of peace.

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,” verse 19, “but you are fellow citizens with the saints,” holy ones, God's people. He is holy, we are holy, and we all belong together now—Jew and Gentile. Distinction is not made on the basis of racial identity or anything else. This is what Galatians 3:28 talks about, remember. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, nor male nor female. That does not mean you lose identity. Paul still talks about himself as a Jew. He says he is a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin and so on. But his identity in the body is as a believer in Jesus Christ. He doesn't have to cease to be Jewish, but now he is not functioning as under the Mosaic Law. That has been ended; this is a new entity under the law of Christ and under His authority. We are of God's household. As I mentioned, that's why God is our Father. We are His household, and we belong to Him. What a great truth.

Back up to Galatians 6:10, “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” This is our prime responsibility. I mean, we want to do good, we want to be good citizens in the world, and we want to conduct ourselves honorably and properly in the world. We're concerned particularly about our family, just like you in your physical realm. Your family becomes a prime responsibility. If there are children in the neighborhood who need something and you’d like to help… But your first responsibility is to see that your own children are taken care of and the members of your family have their needs met. Spiritually, it is our prime responsibility to others who are part of God's family.

Come over to 1 Timothy. Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, remember, when Timothy was at Ephesus, to which Paul is writing the letter to the Ephesians. Timothy is there and Paul writes to him in 1 Timothy 3:14, “I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God.” It’s a related word but not the exact word we have in Ephesians and Galatians as we just read. But a related word, and you have it translated “household”, the same way referring to the house—in the household of God. What is the household of God? It is the church of the living God. And then as we would talk about, he mixes metaphors and blends one analogy into the other. It's the pillar and support of the truth. He's going to go on to talk about a building in Ephesians. So, you can go back and forth; you can talk about the church as a body, you can talk about it as a family, or you can talk about it as a building. You get a little different perspective, but they are all emphasizing the same thing. We've been brought together in a unity. We’ve been connected together. There is a oneness with a variety of parts contributing. Very important.

We don't appreciate the church, we treat it as a something optional, and we come and go. Not in God's plan and God's perspective. We need to know how to conduct ourselves in the household of God, God's family the church. What's true in the broad sense of what we call the universal church is to be true in every individual local church. The local church is the manifestation of the universal church. Paul is writing to Timothy while he is at Ephesus so the church at Ephesus knows how to conduct itself. He is writing the letter to the Ephesians so that their local church and other local churches will know… This is where it is manifested in a microcosm of what God is doing on a larger basis—on the universal scale. It's the pillar and support of the truth. This is a truth-center. It's where we stand for the truth, where we proclaim the truth, and where we defend the truth. This will be elaborated on in a little different way in Ephesians shortly, and then more in chapter 3 when we get there. We understand what the church is. It’s so crucial. You talk to people, even believers, and ask, what are you looking for? Well, I'm looking for a church. We like this; we don't like that. Let's narrow it down, what is the church? This is not mine and it's not yours. It's God's. We call it my church because we belong to it, but we don't own it and we are not sovereign over it. It is God's household; it's God's family. That puts it in perspective. When I was growing up, in my family, my father was the head of our household. He had the last word. He often had the first word, too. And in God’s word, He is communicating something. This is My house, My household. Now you belong to My household and you belong to Me. That's a blessing. Now we belong to God, God belongs to us; that's great. But understand He's the head of the house. We are the support of the truth. The other things are external. The church is about truth and honoring God with holiness.

So come back to Ephesians 2:8. You'll note, you have to enter into this, and we keep coming back, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Verse 18 says “through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.” You don't get access by baptism; you don't get access by formally joining this church or any other church. You have to get access through a spiritual dimension, through the work of the Holy Spirit of God acting when you place your faith in Jesus Christ to cause you to be born again, and made new on the inside. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. That's what Paul was talking about here, one new man. When you are put into God's family, you become part of the church, His household as he is developing it.

Verse 20, “Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” We talked about apostles as we started Ephesians. The foundation for the church is the apostles and the prophets. These individuals are the foundation. He's talking about New Testament prophets here because Old Testament prophets did not prophesy about the church. Their prophecies are important, and they prophesied a lot about the kingdom, but they did not prophesy about the church. God did not reveal it to them, but He did reveal it to New Testament prophets and also the apostles. These are not identical, but they overlap. One thing that is true of both apostles and prophets in the New Testament is that they both received direct revelation. That's key. Paul will get into this in chapter 3—we'll get into this in our next study. God revealed His truth to His apostles and prophets. So, this is new truth. Apostles seemed to exercise broader authority in establishing the church, in exercising authority, in appointing elders, and so on in churches. So they not only received direct revelation, but they also are more broad in their ministry. Prophets received direct revelation also. That's the truth that now comprises our New Testament, particularly the epistles that tell us about the church and God's work. We are built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

Come over to 2 Peter 3, and note what he says in verse 1, “This is now, beloved.” You find this word often. He is writing to fellow believers, those that he loves because we are family members who love each other. Love covers a multitude of sins. We overlook each other's faults and each other's failures. That doesn't mean sin doesn't need to be dealt with, but we are not looking around what's wrong. I mean, just talk to someone about their kids and as they get older their view will change, but they want to talk about how… You know, their kids are special. I might bump into somebody that I haven't seen for years, and maybe they were part of the church and I'll say, how are your kids doing? They can go on and tell me about their kids and how they've gone to school here, they've graduated, they’re doing well here, and sometimes they've gone on with the Lord, and that's encouraging. We are a family. We love them, and we want them to do well. As parents we rejoice in that. They are beloved; you are beloved. I love you. “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of our Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.” The church needs to keep its focus on that because you have to be careful. Some are twisting it. Come down to verse 15. “And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” Why has God taken so long? I started out my ministry telling people the Lord is coming. The years have gone by, and He still hasn't come. You go out to that church where that old guy is preaching, and he is still saying the same thing, but it hasn't happened. Peter had the same experience. Verse 3, “In the last days mockers will come with their mocking…saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’” Nothing has changed, but the world and its ups and downs just keeps on going. But verse 15, “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters.” He writes of “these things, in which are some things hard to understand.” Some of this is new truth to Peter. He came out of the old dispensation, the old economy, and had lived under the Mosaic Law. He had to make the adjustment that God could save Gentiles. Some of that new information came to him through Paul, because as Paul will tell us in Ephesians 3, the fullest revelation of the church was given through him. So, Peter says some of this was hard for him to understand. Acts 10, as God was telling Peter to go eat with some Gentiles, he says, don't do that, Lord. You do that because I tell you to do that. So you see the progress here.

But a warning. “The untaught,” middle of verse 16, “and unstable distort” some of Paul's writings, “as they do also the rest of the Scriptures to their own destruction.” That's why the church always has, remember in Acts 20, elders appointed by the Holy Spirit. Remember this is God's building; it's God's family. Christ is the Head of the body. He does the appointing, and then we pay attention. We just disregard who is in charge, but God is in charge. The Holy Spirit appoints elders, and then the elders are responsible to lead the people in defending the truth because the devil and people are constantly trying to distort the truth. They are untaught and unstable. They may profess to be believers, but they are distorting the Scriptures. We talk much about this because we need to—because that's the way the devil comes in. The church is to be the pillar and support of the truth, but he corrupts the truth by gradually moving people away from that firm, clear commitment to it. Pretty soon, we have a building that can't stand the storms because it is no longer settled on the foundation. It has been moved off. It's just a matter of time until it's going to get blown over. We see that time after time as churches and institutions… We ask, where did they go? How did they get here? So, the warning.

The apostles and prophets, their teaching... We won't go back because we recently studied the book of Jude, but he warned about it there. Come back to Ephesians 2:20. “Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the corner stone.” The picture is here of the apostles and prophets, those original apostles and prophets. They and the truth that came from them are the foundation. There are no more of them for the church today. Now when we go back to Israel in the coming seven-year period, we will find prophets and miracles. But for the church, those individuals… Peter, you are the rock and I will build My church on you. Not only him, but a promise that comes, and we see the others as well, of our foundation—the foundation the apostles and prophets. Peter was selected out there because he spoke up, but the other apostles and prophets would be joined with him to be the foundation. That's not repeated. The truth that they presented has been passed down to us, so we are still building on them as the foundation, the truth that came to them. Christ Jesus is the cornerstone. Again, we sometimes mix the picture here and we can get confused because cornerstones in our day are something different than they were in biblical times. Often the cornerstone in the building is the last thing laid and you have a ceremony once the building is finished—now we'll insert the cornerstone. Sometimes they put things in there for future generations and so on. In biblical times, the cornerstone was the first stone laid. They could be massive. One of the stones for the cornerstone in Israel for the temple was discovered, and it was 55 feet long. That’s one stone, and it was the main stone. The whole building was constructed around and upon that; all the rest of the foundation came out from the cornerstone. So, in that sense, the cornerstone is the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets the foundation. In another way we'll see in 1 Corinthians 3, you could call Christ the foundation because it is all coming out from Him. The building is constructed, and all the other lines are drawn from that. If the cornerstone is not right, the whole building is going to be worthless and unstable. So that's the picture—Christ Himself being the cornerstone.

That's a quote from Psalm 118, but rather than going back to Psalm 118 for time, come over to 1 Peter 2 because 1 Peter is going to quote the verse out of Psalm 118. And the picture here again has the same pattern. Scripture repeats itself; God would not run out of material. He could have made every page of our Bible contain something totally new, but He has revealed what is necessary for us and He follows a pattern of repetition. In 1 Peter 1, Peter talks about the redemption provided for us in Christ. 1 Peter 1:18, “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world.” We had that in Ephesians 1. Verse 21, “Through Him” we “are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead.” Verse 22, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.” You see in these same concepts we keep rereading that it is through Christ and His death and resurrection and our faith in Him that we have been cleansed, forgiven, and placed into Him. 1 Peter 1:23, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God.” Everything else is transitory. Isn't it sad? People go to church and they think that because they got baptized they are saved, or because they partake of communion they are saved, or because they attend Indian Hills they are saved. None of that will do it. It is the Word of God, the seed which is imperishable, the living and enduring Word of God. Have you believed this message? Christ died for your sins according to the Scripture, but He was raised from the dead the third day. It is through faith in Him that you are made new and born again. Then down in 1 Peter 2:2, “Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you might grow in respect to salvation.” Now down to verse 4, “And coming to Him as a to living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.” This is the analogy Paul is going to develop, that “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” He's a stone, but He's a person. The person is the stone who is the corner for the building, and it's the stone which the builders rejected that became the very cornerstone. They disregard it as unacceptable, but this is the stone that now is the foundation stone for the whole building.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 3:10. Paul is fond of these analogies. In the first part of chapter 3 he uses the analogy of a field and the planting—we sow the seed in the field, and then some water the seed and some harvest the seed. In verse 9 he says, “For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field.” Now he is going to change the analogy here to God's building. Then he talks about the building. “According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.” He's talking about the church is what is being built, but you can't lay any other foundation than the one which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Again, it's not “is Christ the cornerstone or are the apostles and prophets?” Well, you could put the emphasis either way. Christ can be called the foundation because as the cornerstone, He really is the foundation for the building because nothing else in the building can be constructed without the cornerstone, proper and sure. In that sense, it's the foundation for the whole building. In another sense, the apostles and prophets are because they bring out the truth concerning Christ which will enable the building to be constructed. It's constructed on the basis of Christ and His work and the truth concerning Him. Everyone “must be careful,” the end of verse 10, “how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” So, both are true because the apostles and prophets are bringing the truth concerning Christ and He is the cornerstone. In effect, in another way if you want to summarize it, He is the foundation for the whole building because even what the apostles are doing is based upon the finished work of Christ. You also have to be careful how you build. We don't take the local church seriously enough, but God takes it very seriously. This is My building, what I am doing, and I have demands. It gets so serious that if you don't build correctly, you could lose all your reward, but still be saved. We’ll find out how serious that is when we get to glory.

But note what he says in verse 16. He’s going to talk about a temple, and since this is where Ephesians is going, we'll be able to summarize Ephesians because we'll have covered it in another passage here. Look at verse 16 of 1 Corinthians 3. “Do you not know that you are a temple of God?” That's what Paul is going to say in Ephesians. The building that is being built is a temple. What is a temple? It's the place where God resides. That's what it was—first a tabernacle, then Solomon's temple. What happened? The glory of the Lord resided in the Holy of Holies in the temple, and God's presence was among His people. “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” These are plural yous in English… Back when I was growing up in Pittsburgh—I don't know that everybody did but some of us kids did—we talked about you and you’ns because if I said you, that just meant you individually. When I said you’ns, that meant us as a group. Well, good English is you and its context decides it, but in Greek they have a plural you and a singular you. It's a plural you here, and he's talking about the church, which is being built. It's a temple of God; the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now note this in 1 Corinthians 3:17, “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” Now what do we think of when we think of the Corinthian church? Division, trouble, and problems. How did 1 Corinthians 3 start out? Jealousy, envy, conflict, and personality conflicts. There’s a strong warning by Paul here. Are you on the road to salvation? Are you on the road to destruction? If you are about tearing down God's temple, your future is bleak, to say the best. God will destroy the one that… We just think, the church, it’s… We're not talking about a building. We're talking about the people of God brought together. We call this our church, and our church is on 84th Street, but it’s the people that build in it that make it up. It's just a building. If we would be relocated and they would turn this into a supermarket, I wouldn't say they are desecrating it because it's not anything. It's the people that are built. We don't think that. We think well, in the church I wouldn't do… Well, we are the church, so be careful. This is not my idea. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Now catch the two dwelling places of the Spirit—the church as a body, and the Spirit of God. That's what he is talking about here; that's what he is talking about in Ephesians.

Now on our way back to Ephesians, stop in 1 Corinthians 6, and look at verse 19. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” That’s a little different than what he said in chapter 3, but here he is talking about your individual body. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” Something which is permanent happened when I placed my faith in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God took up residence in my life. Now this life is no longer my own, and that won't change. It is His permanently. I get older and things change, but one thing doesn't change: this belongs to Him. My number-one concern is to be pleasing Him, to be serving Him, and to be honoring Him. Do you know what? It is also true that the church is the place where the Spirit of God dwells—in us as a body, as well as in us individually. If we don't understand that truth, we minimize the church and what God is doing in the church.

Come back to Ephesians 2. I don't get into all the details because Paul is going to repeat some of this in chapter 3. Verse 21, “In whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” It's the Spirit of God that is dwelling in this building, not the physical building but us as a body gathered together. That includes parts of this body that are sitting in their living room because they are not able to be here. But we are one body. That's why there are divisions. If we don't lay this foundation, we won't appreciate it when we get to chapter 4 and he says we have to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We treat lightly…the local church. It is important. I've asked people who have come here from other churches, what are you doing here? Why did you come here? Why did you leave where you are? These things are important. Do I take seriously this is the body of Christ?

You are not fitted together, and this is where we will have to leave off but look in verse 21. “In whom the whole building, being fitted together.” The passive voice is used there, and it just means God is doing it. In these biblical times, they did not have mortar. Most of you know I am worthless doing anything practical with my hands, but I've watched other people. I delight in watching other people work, but I've watched bricklayers and they put up their bricks, then they slop the mortar on; but they are doing it with skill. They put that mortar on, then they put the bricks on. In biblical times, they didn't have mortar, so do you know what they did? They cut those stones and they cut them so tight that they just were together. Remember Solomon when had the temple built, he had it build offsite and it's sort of like you see some log homes. They cut the logs, they build that log home offsite; then they dismantle it, take it to where it's going to be built, and they rebuild it. That's the way they did the temple. They built it, and those stones had to fit tightly. That's what God is doing. He fits us together exactly as we should be with all of our differences. This is the beauty of the body. That's why we don't start churches for different reasons, such as churches for people who are wealthy. When I was candidating before I came to Lincoln, I was invited to a church that said they were starting a church for the well-to-do in the city. There are churches for other strata, but we really don't have a church for well-to-do. Well, you shouldn't because James says you put the rich and the poor together and the slaves and the free together and the Jews and the Gentiles together and the blacks and the whites together, and the yellows and so on. That's the beauty of the church. Then we grow together because this is where the Spirit of God dwells. It has to be a place that is holy. Not this building, but we as a people together, fitted to honor the Lord. That's why division and conflict within the church is so harmful. Churches get destroyed. I talked to people from a good Bible-teaching church after some from Indian Hills had been there. They came in and said, it's so sad what has happened to our church. False doctrine got in and we had a good Bible-teaching church. We were growing, but that false doctrine just spread. The last I talked to somebody from there, they said, we're just a struggling handful of people. The damage was done. You know what happens. We have to be careful. If we don't know what the church is, then we treat it rather lightly and indifferently. When we understand we talk about, it's a body, it's a family, it's a building, and it's the dwelling place of God. All of that emphasizes its importance and its unity. God has put us together and that will mean all of our diversity, all of our weaknesses, and all of our strengths; and that's part of what makes us unique. The world fractures over everything. They look for reasons to find a fault with the other so they can elevate… The church is a different place. For us as believers, it doesn't matter how much money you have, how poor you are, or what color your skin is. We come together, and it all is a testimony of God's work.

Let's have a word of prayer. Thank you, Lord, for Your Word and its richness. There is a simplicity to it, a clarity. Lord, somehow, sometimes we just close our eyes and go by what You've said. We want to take to heart these truths and appreciate the wonder of what You have done and what You are doing. And that work is ongoing. You are building us as Your building together as we grow individually, and we grow together. Lord, I pray this will be a place that is a testimony that the Spirit of God dwells here and that His truth is found here, that You are honored here, and that Your people function as a family honoring You and the work You have done in our lives. Thank You for our time together today. I pray Your blessing on the day before us. We look forward to what You have for us this evening. In Christ's name, amen.