One New Man: God's Temple
Text: Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV
If I haven’t had the chance to meet you, my name is Luke Miller, and I’m one of the pastor/elders here at Table Rock. I’m a lay pastor, meaning I don’t earn my living from the church. I feel incredibly blessed to get to work for the city of Boise as a firefighter with the Boise Fire Department. It is truly my dream job and what I had wanted to do since I was a little kid.
I’ve only been a firefighter for 7 years now, and as I read and studied the passage we have today from Ephesians, I was reminded of how I felt when I graduated from the recruit academy. The academy for Boise Fire is 20 weeks long, and it’s a grind. It’s physically and mentally exhausting, but by the end of the 20 weeks, I felt ready to go out on the line and be a part of answering the calls that come in from people needing assistance.
As a firefighter, I was taught about the deep trust the community extends to us. When people call 911 and we show up, they allow us into their homes, often into their bedrooms, with the hope that we can help make things better. They trust that whatever diamond rings or gold earrings, cash, electronics, or whatever valuables or treats they had laying on their counters or bedside tables when we arrived will still be there when we leave. I often feel very honored by people when I’m at work because the vast majority of the population inherently place a high level of trust in me just because I’m a firefighter.
When I was nearing the end of the academy, I had a realization about that trust I had been told about and was about to experience. The realization was that I had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. I didn’t earn any of the public’s trust, but it would be extended to me because of those who had gone before me. I get to enjoy the good will and trust from the community because previous firefighters had stewarded that trust well, and now I had to uphold that trust and steward it.
This realization was both exhilarating and intimidating. I was, and remain, excited to add to the rich legacy of the firefighter profession. As I graduated from the academy and started going on calls, with our lights flashing and siren wailing, it excited to me to get to make a difference in people’s lives and hopefully make things better when we showed up. With each call, I hope to leave a favorable impression of the fire service in the eyes of the public, whom we are sworn to serve.
One way of concisely saying all of this is that I am the recipient of the foundation that others have laid well, and I get to add my contribution to it for future generations to learn from and enjoy. And this, my friends, is analogous to what we see in a much more grand, glorious, and pure way in our passage today. While I love talking about firefighting and my experiences in the work that I feel incredibly blessed to get to do, how much more do I love talking about Jesus and the saving grace that I have experienced in my life, which I get to do this morning! I pray that as I speak this morning, God would give you joy in seeing who you are in Christ and the honor and trust he bestows upon us, his beloved children.
We’ve been using the same twelve verses from Ephesians 2:11-22 for the past couple of weeks. Each week we’ve read all twelve verses but focused on only a few for that Sunday’s sermon. This week, we’re closing out this section by focusing on verses 19-22. I want to read that section again together.
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-22 ESV)
Here is the structure for how we’re going to work through these verses. I’ve broken it into three parts:
1) Who we are not
2) Who we are
3) How we fit
In the first two points, who we are not and who we are, Paul is wrapping up his thoughts from the previous verses, which were the emphasis of the past couple of sermons from Ryan and Don. In the third point, how we fit, we’ll look at the metaphor that Paul uses in verses 20-22.
Who we are not
So, let’s start by looking at who we are not. Paul says in verse 19,
“so then you are no longer strangers and aliens…” (Ephesians 2:19 ESV)
He is looking back at verse 12, after laying out the reasons for the Ephesians that they are not outsiders to this faith. Why did Paul need to encourage the Ephesians in this way? What were they feeling or experiencing or doing that Paul perceived a need to remind them of this? What does it mean to be a stranger or alien?
I think we can get a glimpse of what Paul was seeing when we think of moving to a new country or city, or a new school or job. Picture going to a new country—it’s a language you don’t speak, filled with culture that you don’t know. You’re a stranger to everyone, not known. You’re an alien, easily picked out as one who doesn’t belong because you came from somewhere else. Some of you have experienced that and know the feeling well.
When I was trying to feel what it is to be a stranger and alien, I realized that God had been kind to never let me experience it in this way. I live in the same town, here in Boise, where I grew up. I live in the same end of town, same neighborhood, and in fact I live in the very same house I grew up in, for crying out loud! I just haven’t ever really been an outsider for any length of time. It’s all been comfortable and familiar. Even when I have launched outside of Boise, I still haven’t really experienced being an outsider because I’ve always been surrounded by others that are going through the same thing I am, such as when I went to boot camp. I was surrounded by others that were brand new to the culture and training as well. So, I’m not much of an expert on relating to what it looks and feels like to be a stranger and alien.
Because I haven’t had this experience, I talked to a couple of guys who recently have gone through a major move to a new city and asked them what words they would use to describe the experience. They said things like disconnected, misunderstood, not confident, intimidated, unable to fully be yourself, and disorienting. One of them compared it to basketball, and said it felt like he kept trying to shoot, but just kept throwing airballs. He’d try to connect with people but was misunderstood and in conversations, he just missed connecting with people.
Apply those feelings to your Christian walk. Do you feel like an outsider to our church? Maybe this is the first Sunday you’ve come and you feel conspicuous. Or maybe you’ve always felt like an outsider at church—our culture and customs feel foreign and confusing. We use words that you don’t know the meaning of and feel like you’re missing with people in conversation. Maybe you haven’t been wrapped into the Christian community like you, or we, wish you were. If that describes you, then Paul is speaking to you. If you’re a believer in Jesus, you need to hear that you are not an outsider.
While I haven’t had much experience as a stranger or alien either in my everyday life, like moving to a new city, or in my Christian walk, I have experienced a form of it. I haven’t felt like an outsider, but I have at times felt like an imposter. I’ve struggled with thoughts that if people saw me with clearer vision, I would be exposed as one who doesn’t belong. For example, when people easily quote a Scripture reference they have memorized or reference a doctrine that I know I’ve heard before but can’t remember, I feel like an imposter. “You need to remember what it says in Romans 12, right?” Or, “well, that is exactly what the writers were intending to highlight in the Nicene Creed, don’t you think?” Whenever these situations arise in my life, my face blushes, and I immediately sweat to the point of pitting out because I feel like an outsider in those moments, like I’m a lesser Christian.
Another manifestation of this imposter syndrome is in fearing that if someone finds out about a sin issue in your life, you will be exposed as an outsider. You fear that if anyone knew you struggled with that sin, you would be judged harshly and cast out. So you keep your sin covered, rather than confess it and confront it, and you feel like an imposter. Maybe you can relate.
It is these feelings, and the resulting actions that the Ephesians were experiencing, that Paul is addressing. Paul has to speak to them because before Christ, they were outsiders. Ryan reminded us two weeks ago that the Israelites were God’s chosen people, and Gentiles were outside of the faith. Don contrasted Jews and Gentiles and the intense separation between them again last week. That dividing wall was brought down. Now Gentiles were brought in, learning that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was for both the Jews and Gentiles, but they still felt like outsiders and were behaving as such. Sometimes, they were being treated as such. Paul says very clearly that once you know Jesus as your redeemer and savior, you are no longer an outsider. Period. And rather, quite the opposite: you belong.
Who We Are
Which takes us to our second point: who we are. We’re still in verse 19, where it says,
“so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:19 ESV)
We’re fellow citizens with the saints, and we’re members of the household of God. Let’s unpack the first part, that we are fellow citizens with the saints.
If you identified with the feeling of being a stranger in either church or in your walk as a Christian, I hope you feel the weight of what Paul is saying here. He’s not just saying you belong; he’s saying your place is shoulder to shoulder with the saints. There is no value hierarchy in God’s kingdom. We belong to him because of his faithfulness, grace, and truth. It’s not because of how long we’ve been a believer or because of the good works that we do. We belong to the Lord because Christ made it possible and showered his grace upon us.
What’s even more exciting in this is that we have citizenship. Paul is not only making a statement that we belong in the faith together with the saints, he’s saying that this belonging will last forever, that’s what he’s saying by calling us citizens. Philippians 3:20 tells us our citizenship is in heaven. So, our faith not only transforms the life we get to live here on earth, it transforms our eternal destination. The work of Christ secures our eternity in heaven with him and gives us an abiding hope in this life.
We’re also told that we are members of the household of God. Beloved, this is an intimate statement. We are part of a family, which is why we read and use language like brother and sister. I recognize that for some of you, family doesn’t feel intimate and warm and fuzzy. Sometimes our earthly mothers and fathers don’t make us feel loved or known or cared for. But that’s not the way it is supposed to be. Being a member of a faith community like Table Rock Church is supposed to feel like an intimate, relational family. Churches sometimes fail in this as well, and we admit that has even happened in our short time as a church community, and some of you in this room have been hurt by me or others in this church. That’s not the way it is supposed to be either. This language of being a member of the household of God is pointing us to the way it is both supposed to be and the way it is going to be. In heaven God will restore and redeem everything and make it right. And it is to that household of God you belong as a member. The family of the Lord is going to be unlike any family any of us have experienced. Even for those of us, and I count myself in this category, that were brought up with a loving family with minimal heartache, it doesn’t compare to the family that we belong to in the Lord. For it is God who is the head of this family, and he will restore to his perfect design what has been lost in the fall caused by sin.
If you’re stuck feeling like an outsider, I pray you would realize this morning that you don’t need to speak a certain language, act a particular way, have your theology all in order, or be fully mature in your faith to belong to Jesus. To think that way is to revert to a works-based theology. You are no longer a stranger or alien if you are in Christ. Take your place alongside the saints and have confidence that your citizenship is in heaven. The truth is that we’re all being sanctified. We all have sin issues that need to be rooted out, and areas we don’t rightly understand, and theology that needs to be matured. None of us belong because we’ve come a certain distance; rather, we belong to Christ because of his great and perfect love. Extend the same grace to yourself that God extends to you and hold fast to the promise from Romans 8: 38-39 that
“neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39 ESV)
How We Fit
Our third point is “how we fit.” As fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, we are, in verse 20,
“built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:20 ESV)
Paul now transitions into a metaphor of a building under construction. Before getting to the foundation, I want to look at Jesus being the cornerstone. In ancient building techniques, the cornerstone was incredibly important. The cornerstone was the first stone in the foundation to be installed, and it had to be very particularly crafted and placed to ensure the rest of the building was oriented correctly and the lines were level and plumb, square and true. If it was off by the slightest degree, the walls that extended from it would be crooked. If it wasn’t perfectly level, the building would look like it was leaning. If it wasn’t plumb, it could topple. If there were imperfections in a stone that was meant to be used as the cornerstone, the stone would be rejected because so much of the construction was dependent on the cornerstone being perfectly constructed and placed. The lines of the cornerstone and its placement was of paramount importance because those lines extend into the rest of the structure. The structure thus resembles and repeats the cornerstone’s lines.
The language of the cornerstone goes back to the old testament. In Isaiah 28:16, it says,
“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. Whoever believes will not be in haste.” (Isaiah 28:16 ESV)
And there is a prophesy in Psalm 118,
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118:22 ESV)
God’s plan for redemption was always that Christ would be the perfect sacrifice, the perfect redeemer, and the only perfect cornerstone upon which to build. Some reject Christ as the cornerstone of their life, but their foundation is not going to be sound, and their future is without the hope that we have. Praise God if he has allowed you to see Christ as the cornerstone upon which to build!
This cornerstone picture of Christ is helpful. Our application is to look at these aspects of the building that depend on the cornerstone. Just as the squareness and levelness of the cornerstone extended lines throughout the structure, Jesus provided lines that should influence each of us. Jesus’s lines that extend through us include his grace and mercy, truth and love, justice, forgiveness, humility, servanthood, boldness, reliance upon the father, and the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Beloved, are these characteristics visible in your life?
Paul also says that we are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. From Christ, the perfect cornerstone, the apostles and prophets provide the rest of the foundation. They took the teaching that they had heard firsthand from Jesus, and they spread that good news throughout the world. God used them to write down what they had been taught so that his gospel message could spread. The Lord allowed them to apply the teachings of Jesus to the lives of people like the Ephesians and to us so we could grow in our faith. They also provided examples to us of what it looks like to walk out our faith. We see in the apostles and prophets how to strive and fail, repent and receive forgiveness, and submit our life to the Lord. Jesus affirmed that this was the Father’s plan when he was talking to Peter in Matthew 16:18. He says,
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…” (Matthew 16:18 ESV)
Jesus knew that his apostles, along with the prophets, were going to be the foundation.
And in Christ, the whole structure is being joined together and growing into a holy temple in the Lord. This isn’t just any structure. This is a holy temple that God is constructing. It’s cool to get to be a part of an organization, and it is a longing for many of us to belong to something. People chase that in various ways, trying to find a place in their work, trying to find their place on a sports team, trying to root for a sports team. But this, this is the pinnacle of belonging and being used—we each have the honor of being a living stone in the construction of God’s temple. While I feel honored to belong to the firefighting profession, how immeasurably more do I feel honored to belong to the Lord as a beloved child! While I enjoy the tradition and trust that was laid before my time in the fire service, it pales in comparison to the thankfulness I have for the apostles and prophets who laid the foundation for my faith.
We see in this passage God calling us to be a temple for himself. To truly feel the depth of honor this is, we have to recall the significance of the temple in the Old Testament. The temple allowed for the very presence of God among his people. First in a temporary tent, and later in a permanent structure, the temple was made with very specific plans in order for it to be fit for God’s glory and presence to abide. The temple was, in every sense of the word, holy ground. Especially the most sacred spot in the temple, the mercy seat or holy of holies. This particular area was separated from the rest of the structure by a thick curtain because God’s presence was in that room. Only the high priest could enter into it once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people that year.
But remember in the garden that God walked with Adam and Eve, and they enjoyed personal fellowship with him. God desires to be with his children, but sin has separated us. When Jesus was crucified and died, the curtain that separated God’s presence from his people was torn. Now, because of what God the father has done through his son Jesus, we who believe have the Holy Spirit of the Lord living in us. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says,
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV)
We are now God’s holy temple. Additionally, we are collectively as believers, in the metaphor that Paul uses here, being built up to be a temple that brings glory and honor to God. This honor that our God bestows upon us is unsearchably deep. It’s an honor unlike any other you could acquire. God—in all his glory and holiness—has made us worthy through the blood of Jesus to be a temple for himself. I’ve been stunned by the honor of this truth and feel like I’m only able to scratch the surface of its depth and meaning and implications.
This structure, this holy temple, is still being built. The language is in the present progressive, meaning it is happening now and will continue to happen. We have Christ as the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets are stones in the foundation, and you and I get to be a stone in the building, and construction is not yet complete. If construction isn’t complete and is ongoing, then what then is our role in the construction project? God calls us to share the gospel with others so this temple can grow, until it is complete when the Lord comes again. Jesus said,
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37 ESV)
God allows you to be a laborer who shares the gospel with others, that he may harvest them as a stone and add them to his holy temple. Be reminded that this call is to all of us, for Jesus’ last words to his followers and us in Matthew 28 were,
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19 ESV)
God, in his love and kindness toward us, brought us in. We were outsiders, strangers and aliens, but he made us fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God through the finished work of Jesus. And because his Spirit is now in us, we are his temple, and he’s using us as living stones to build a holy temple for his glory.
As we come to communion, this is what we get to celebrate! We remember what Christ has done for us in giving himself as the perfect sacrifice for the atonement of our sin. We remember that it’s his work on the cross that made it possible for us to no longer be a stranger and alien!