In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
7 sermons cite this verse
… prophets with jesus christ himself the cornerstone and in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. My friends, this is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. you know when I first told one of my spiritual mentors back home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that I was feeling called to seminary, that I might feel that divine nudge to be a pastor, that spiritual mentor of mine responded by saying this, Chris, anyone who wants to be a good Christian should definitely not be a pastor. Now, this person, this person who still is a very meaningful figure in my life, this person who has decades of ministry experience, well, he was probably being a little too pessimistic that day. But what I took him to mean was something like this. That there are some times when institutional leadership makes it really hard to be a Christian. …
… 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. You know, they're real big. It was very obviously where they went and things of that sort. because with my attention span and my lack of patience, I always wanted to get it done quick. But I liked doing them. It was fun. It was great. …
… 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. What is that teaching us? …
… 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 access to Him. He interpenetrates us with His presence. We have access to His very face, and we looked at all of that and all that that meant, and that's also another sermon which we …
… 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. …
… 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. I've actually been through one. I saw a little group of Christians scared, huddling together, 10 or 12 on a college campus, scroll to about 120 people, mostly through conversions over a very, very brief period of time, over a matter of months. And I do remember, because I was a part of that, I was one of those 12 little scared ones, brand new Christian really myself, and not a terribly consistent living Christian at all at that point, a lot of hypocrisy in my life. Yet I saw a scroll largely through the strength of the quality of relationships in the community. We did not know how to articulate the gospel. We did not know how to answer the objections. We were not at all bold in talking …
… 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. you need first of all to have the credibility of the christian faith demonstrated to you and then secondly you need to have the plausibility or the personal relevance of the christian faith demonstrated to you the credibility and the plausibility the credibility means is it intellectually coherent does it stand up to the evidence the credibility the plausibility has more to do with, does it have the ring of reality? …