Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household,So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God,Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
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… I love that. Verse 19, now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints. Notice this, and members of the household of God. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, here it is, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Verse 21 says this, being fitted together. I want to talk to you from this title or subject, if you're taking notes, and I ask that you would. Just a simple thought in the form of a question. Are you fit for the body? Are you fit for the body? Growing up, there was something that my family enjoyed doing, and that was putting puzzles together, different types of puzzles. Now, me personally, I enjoyed putting puzzles together, but I think my favorite were those types of puzzles that only had probably about 15 pieces. …
… And we read there, Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone, in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. This is God's Word. We've been looking at the passage and we say there's a number of metaphors that Paul uses to explain what the church is and therefore what kind of lives we have in connection with Christ. We've been spending most of our time on the longer metaphor, which has to do with the idea that Christians, that the church is God's dwelling place, a holy temple. But tonight we take a look at the first of the metaphors in this sentence, in this paragraph. Consequently, you are no longer strangers, or as the translation we have here, you are no longer foreigners or aliens, But, fellow citizens with God's people. …
… going to key off of tonight. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. and in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. For a number of weeks we've been looking at this idea, this metaphor, this concept, this teaching, that to be a Christian means that you are, as it says here, a dwelling place of God the Spirit. We are being joined together and are rising to become a holy temple in the Lord. and we've seen that Paul is really teaching us quite a few things. In one week, we talked about the fact that Paul is saying that Christians are not designed to stand on their own. No human being is designed to stand on his or her own, that we need each other, and we talked about the unity, and we talked about the fact that just attending a church and getting some inspiration out of it is not the same thing as being built together at all, and that's another sermon, isn't it? Yes, so let's avoid it. Then the second week, we looked at the fact that this also teaches us that since we are a dwelling place of God the Spirit, we're His house, that means we have an …
… the page where you are if you've been singing, along with the rest of the congregation. Ephesians 2, verses 19 to 22. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. and in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. we've said that there's actually three metaphors in this particular paragraph that describes the church. And the first one is we are citizens in a kingdom. And then secondly, we are members of God's household, members of his family. But thirdly, and the one we've been looking at for a couple of weeks and which we are going to continue to look at tonight is we are building blocks in a house. It says here we are actually built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ being the cornerstone. We are building blocks in a building joined together, rising to become a holy temple, a dwelling place of God where he lives by his spirit. Now, a couple weeks ago we said that Paul's trying to get a number of things across to us. He's trying to show us if we're building blocks in a temple of God's spirit, it means that we need each other. …
… and we'll just get back to where we were Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. and in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Now, this section, as we said last week, gives us three pictures of the church. It's possible for a church, for a local church, for the church in general, to be characterized by such supernaturally excellent quality, a supernaturally excellent quality to its relationships. It's possible that our community would be so remarkable that people flock to it like moths to a flame. The only time I can ever remember being in what probably the Bible would define as a revival. I mean, people are always talking about revival. …
… how important it is for you to understand what the church is, what it can be, what it should be. Verse 19, consequently, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and Arise is to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Now, we're talking about the church. We go back to it. Why? Two things, I think, in my experience, are necessary for people to cross the line from unbelief to belief. To cross the line from being outside of the Christian faith into the Christian faith. Two things. You have to demonstrate to people, and some of you are in the midst of seeking this out and this happening to you right now. …
… nickels, and dimes. What would I do with it? Well, I don't know. What would you do with it? You better look at Ephesians 2, verses 11 to 20. Read it. Read it this week. Read what it says about the church. It's a bank account, and it's in your name. What have you been doing about it? Well, we're only getting started. Let's get started. Paul very humbly lays down a foundation principle and says, and I'll just summarize it here and then we'll unpack it. He says, if you understand the cross, any two people should be able to get along. and if you're not getting along two people who say they believe you're not thinking about the cross you don't understand it you're not taking it in see look he says verse 14 for he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two making peace, and in his one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death the hostility. Now, let me show you a very interesting case study and the principles that we're supposed to draw out of it. …