How many of you have ever driven south on I-75 to Florida? Stacey and I've done that for the last 10 years visiting our daughters who live there and That stretch of interstate from about period of Valdosta with huge places where the road is not finished single file traffic I'm always amused when I see the signs to say construction ahead and then you drive for 30 or 40 miles and you don't see anybody working anywhere Where are the workers and where are the progress? What's what's going on? Well, we should perhaps put a sign on the church. It says caution construction ahead according to Ephesians 3 I'm going to read verse 19 through verse 22 as we continue our study and Ephesians Consequently, you're 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 two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Amen This is I believe our 13th week in Ephesians and Tom preaching Ephesians the Sunday I was gone as well. We've noted that the book of Ephesians was written primarily to a Gentile Christian audience There were more than likely a number of churches in and around Ephesus. It was a large commercial center and Paul's theme Repeatedly in the book of Ephesians is the grace of God. We saw that in chapter 1 verse 2 grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ Verse 6 to the praise of his glorious grace Verse 7 in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins According in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us all the way through the book of Ephesians much as Paul does all of his epistles he's talking about grace Now how well do you understand grace? I mean really how well do you understand grace? Most of us would probably say yeah I think I understand grace pretty well I'm a Calvinist I understand reform theology but do you understand grace in its implications for your particular situation? That's what Paul is talking about in Ephesians. He's not just talking about theological understanding of grace so that we understand what the Bible is talking about in terms of God's saving us He's really talking about how we live grace out in our lives in our in our particular situations All of us may included are good at intellectualizing the Bible We're even good at verbalizing what the Bible says sometimes without actually doing anything In Matthew 5 Jesus said now you've heard it said I for I and tooth for tooth but I tell you don't resist an evil person If someone strikes you on the teeth cheek turn him the other also someone forces you to carry a load one mile go with him too Jesus was talking to people who thought they understood what the scriptures and what the law said They had an intellectualized but they didn't know how to really live it out and Jesus said surprise people with grace Here were people who thought they understood the law in the scriptures but the application of it just went right over their heads And there's a danger with that with grace too. We think okay I get grace it's only God's grace to me in Christ that takes me to heaven. I get that Well that's true but grace also takes us places that we don't expect Now last week we looked at the surprise of the early church when they looked around in their worship assemblies and saw so many Gentiles that had embraced the gospel. People who had no religious background in Christianity they were separated from God They had been excluded from citizenship in Israel they were strangers to the covenant they were without hope and without God And yet these Gentiles with completely pagan baggage and backgrounds who had been worshipping at the temple of Artemis before this Here they are worshipping with believers and so there was an attitude of okay they can come in But we don't want these Gentiles disturbing things and Jews and Gentiles began retreating behind cultural walls Now Paul's point last week was Jesus has torn down and destroyed the dividing wall of hostility The wall in the temple that said Gentiles stay out upon penalty of death, Jesus has destroyed that and Jesus has reconciled Jews and Gentiles to God by putting to death The hostility that exists between them that was last week and then today Paul saying not only Not only does Jesus reconcile them both to God but he makes two cultures formally enemies into one body Now I'll just put it on practical terms go with me to Westminster church of Ephesus in the first century Let's we're having a picnic this week go with me to the picnic of Westminster church in Ephesus 2000 years ago what was that like? Here come the the Jewish women with covered dishes of kosher food You know prepared by according to the Jewish rules Wearing Jewish clothing accompanied by their husbands men wearing the luliamacas and so forth and here come the Gentile Christians to the church picnic as well They've got their crop pots of red beans and rice and sausage and green beans seasoned with ham and shrimp stuffed with crab meat and all the things that Jews couldn't eat or touch
Can you imagine the surprise on people's faces? Can you get any idea of the tension that existed between you and Gentile? And so the Bible says practice hospitality with them with those folks who turn up their noses at us with those people who are just no better than unclean dogs worship with them be one body You see we can we can make a choice here in this passage we can interpret the Bible theoretically intellectually so that we say okay I understand this and I feel better about myself or we can do so in a way that fleshes out the gospel of grace in a more radical and threatening way We have to decide was the apostle Paul really inspired by the Holy Spirit that he really understand the mind of Christ in this or do we just want to stay safe? In Ephesians 1 we read God placed all things under Jesus feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church And as Paul communicates the church and one body to the Ephesian Christians he's using the he's using that concept in three ways first of all The church is God's kingdom look at verse 19 Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens with God's people The church is God's kingdom God doesn't operate like you and I do in Luke 14 Jesus said now when you give a luncheon or dinner when you throw a party don't invite your friends your brothers or your relatives relatives or rich neighbors if you do they'll they may invite you back and so you will be repaid but when you give a banquet invite the poor the crippled the lame the blind Let's flesh that out for just a second Honey, let's have a party for the folks in our neighborhood who should we invite oh you know I know who we should invite let's invite that couple down the street that curse at us You know the ones that drive by and flip us off whose teenagers egged our house twice last year and vandalized our car Remember the dope pusher around the corner that sold Billy the drugs a couple of summers ago Let's he didn't he'd love to be included let's invite him what about that new couple You know the ones that painted their shutters the awful clashing colors and tortured our kitty max for sacrifice to their gods let's invite all of them wouldn't that be fun You invite people like that your party no we don't The grace of the gospel means this God has thrown a party For the most offensive obnoxious rebellious idolatrous centers whoever lived Regardless of race class culture or language group want to repeat that's on the screen God has thrown a party For the most offensive obnoxious rebellious idolatrous centers whoever lived regardless of race class culture or language group Who does that include that includes you and me God did and he sent his son to the cross in order to throw this party God mixes Jew and Gentile and different cultures There was there was always a separation a sense of a separation among the Jews that There was unhealthy now on the one hand God said come out from among them and be separate But God wasn't saying be separate for separate sake They were to be separate because ultimately Israel was chosen to be a light to the nations Genesis 17 verse 5 no longer what you'd be called Abram your name will be Abraham For I have made you a father of many nations Psalm 96 declare his glory among the nations his marvelous deeds among the peoples first Chronicles 16-8 Give thanks to the Lord call on his name make known among the nations what he has done Isaiah 49 perhaps the clearest of all verse 6 God's talking to people who are in captivity They're in captivity to Babylon because of their sin and the context there is Isaiah saying I'm going to take you out of captivity I'm going to restore you God says is it is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore just the tribes of Jacob and is and bring back those of Israel that I have kept I will also make you a light for the Gentiles And then Micah 4 verse 2 Micah writes many nations will come and say come let us go to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his past And so the Jews mindset their mentality was yet come out from among them we have to be separate But it wasn't just for separate sake God wanted them to be holy so that they could be a light to the Gentiles God mixes cultures and peoples who don't naturally mix and who don't normally match I want you to understand how revolutionary this was Jew and Gentile in one culture This was a time in which Rome dominated the world there were Roman armies everywhere Every where there were Roman roads everywhere Roman culture was offensive In the same way God brings people into his kingdom that makes in such a way it makes you an uncomfortable And why does God do that? Because he's God and because it pleases him Now you see the architecture on the screen It's a little bit, actually a little bit ahead Remember about five or six years ago over on Riverside Drive Remember the Elk Slodge what it looked like before it was torn down and rebuilt? How many of you remember that? When we moved to Gainesville I saw the Elk Slodge and B-P-O-E It stands for Benevolent Protectorate Order of Elk That was the most horrendous building architecturally I've ever seen Apologies to anyone who had any connection with it But Dick am I exaggerating? No I'm not exaggerating it was a horrendous building it just didn't go together it just didn't it just didn't make sense The picture on the screen was designed by a man named Frank Lloyd Wright He was the most influential architect of his day he designed over a thousand buildings about 400 of them were built His specialty his philosophy was organic architecture that precedes according to the nature of man and his circumstances has both changed Now you can talk to Dick Bachman after the service and find out what that means I don't have a clue what it means I know this that Frank Lloyd Wright put together stuff in architecture that just didn't seem to match he combined unusual things in a spectacular way But over time people saw his genius go to the next slide
That's a pretty unusual house architecture if you could see it blown up you would see it even more He combines geometric forms and so forth and columns and reflective pools go to the next slide still This is perhaps the most famous home that Frank Lloyd Wright built this is in Milrun, Pennsylvania You can see the river that goes down the river actually runs through and underneath the house And there were four huge boulders on the site where this home was to be built And whoever owned the land set out you know on a home here and contacted Frank Lloyd Wright and most people would have said well you know before we can build this house we have to move the boulders we've got to get jackhammers in there or dynamite Frank Lloyd Wright actually integrated the boulders into the design of the home he used the next slide he used one boulder as a table in the living room You can see there the hearth to the right there's one boulder and another he built the boulders into the design of the house in a spectacular way It was brilliant In the same way Paul says God as the architect of the church has combined things that you and I would never have thought of What we wouldn't have ever done in combining God has taken these things and designed them into the fabric and structure of the church I had a sense of this last week as I looked over to my left and saw 30 Vietnamese who 40 years ago we would have been enemies with Some of them were singing some of them were just sitting there but here were 30 Vietnamese a couple of them were and our believers and I had a sense of their Vietnamese here Their anglos in the congregation the Hispanics are downstairs and I just had a sense of God smiling And it is a picture in one sense of what heaven is going to be like and it's a picture in another sense of what the church is to be like because the church is God's kingdom Second the church is God's family look again at chapter 2 verse 19 You're no longer foreign and aliens but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household The church is God's family and everybody who is in a family or who grew up in a family knows this in a family you're exposed to conflict Is it true? It is in a family you're exposed to conflict Mom tell him he can't play his music in my room Johnny it's his room too Now he's singing I hate it when he sings but he won't stop Why don't you go into a different room I never think about the conflict in a home Why does God allow conflict in homes? The place where we want peace and quiet and refuge do you know why? Because conflict is one of the ways that God uses to make you grow Some of you are probably saying goodbye to teenagers going off to college this fall and there's a sense of you know It's going to just be wonderful when they're going or I can tell you it's not Conflict is one of the things that God uses to make you grow Conflict is one of the prime ways that God shows you your own sins and your own idols Okay it's the end of the day or the end of the week and you come home and you're tired and you've been at work It's been a long week a long day and in your mind you know going home is supposed to be peaceful and quiet You know and you have this mental image of the dog bringing your slippers Really the dog will chew up your slippers but there's this mental image The dog is going to bring me my slippers I'm going to sit down in my recliner and read the newspaper or watch the evening news The children are going to play quietly my spouse will be providing a wonderful meal whether it's your husband or wife When I go home everything is going to be peaceful and so forth and you get home and both your kids have earaches or something and they're crying, screaming Why is that? Or as your kids get a little older what was that noise you know and it's the neighborhood kid riding through the kitchen on a skateboard or The phone is ringing off the hook and if it's Brad's house It's somebody's wanting Maggie to babysit or there's a text message coming through One of your kids phones as you're eating the evening meal you know and will you turn down that Xbox? And you get irritated You need a prescription Will you go to the pharmacy and get the prescription he's not going to get well unless he gets that antibiotic in it Where would you go get a gallon of milk and all you wanted was just to go home and relax and experience peace Is a quiet calm home wrong? No, it's not wrong at all but here's the thing It isn't realistic It's not life in a real family In a real family you're going to experience conflict why is that? Because God's doing something in you God's doing something in you The same thing is true in the church the church is God's family Maybe you've noticed that there's a difference between men and women You don't believe that? Go to the video store or the red box or wherever you get a video and pick out a movie You know and you're with your husband or your wife you know what would you like to see? Well you know what kind of movie your wife is going to choose it's going to be a chick flick And probably you're the guy you want to see something that has explosions, something that has action jumping out of planes Or you know men and women are different who's right? It's not a matter of being right or wrong it's a matter of give and take within a family The same thing is true in interpersonal relationships and the same thing is true in the church as well We see things differently and that conflict allows all of us to see our own sins and our own idols These next two quotes are not mine I don't remember who said them but they're good When conflict causes people to forget their common cause and focuses them on the negatives that they see in one another it is destructive When it causes them to rethink their position and reaffirm their love for each other by seeking a solution it is constructive Those are true We all like to demonize the opposition whatever the opposition is But conflict doesn't have to mean that the other person or the other party or the other culture is a tool of Satan Constructive conflict is and culture conflict is actually a sign that a church is growing in a healthy way When a living thing doesn't change it dies when a living organization doesn't change it dies too So the church is God's kingdom, the church is God's family, the church is God's temple When Paul mentions the word temple the temple that everybody knew anything about in Ephesus was the temple of Artemis or sometimes called the temple of Diana It was one of seven ancient wonders of the ancient world it was incredible Marble columns 60 feet high and so forth That's what people thought of and yet Paul says the church is God's temple Now since we redid our sanctuary I think 100% of the people I've talked to has said wow it's wonderful The pews are so much more comfortable, the stage makes sense, we love the colors that Ann Bockman and Kathy and Julia Baxter and so forth It just looks wonderful This past winter Charlie Langford had a meeting of the neighborhood watch group and his neighborhood here in the sanctuary And one of the one of the couples who came was the man who was the pastor of Lakewood Baptist Church when they built this sanctuary And he came in and was just amazed He found me after the meeting and said I just love what you've done to this church Several other people said I like your church I want to come back Now what are they talking about? They're talking about the building itself But I want you to remind all of us this wood and these pews and this carpet this isn't the church A worship center, a sanctuary where we worship is convenient but that's not what Paul's talking about That's not what God is building that isn't the place that God dwells It's the people who sit in the pews This building is no more Westminster church than Turner Field is the Atlanta Braves Or that the Georgia dome is the Atlanta Falcons This building is where we happen to worship but if it burns down tomorrow we still have a church We still are the church And today Westminster church sits in this building but tomorrow Westminster church is going to be spread out all over town all over the state Remember when Paul wrote this nobody would have pictured a particular building or a meeting place You know you are the church of the living God they would have mentioned they would have immediately pictured as I mentioned the temple of Artemis where pagan things went on but God dwells in and among his people Spurgeon said it this way does God dwell in bricks and mortar Can there be such a thing as a sanctified staple? Can it possibly happen that there can be such a thing as in the world as a moral window or a godly door post Is every crow that flies over the steeple at that time in solemn sacred air? Certainly it's as rational to believe that as to conceive that every worm that's eating the body of an Episcopelian is a consecrated worm I say again such child's place, such Judaism is a disgrace to the century and yet notwithstanding we all find ourselves at different times and seasons indulging in it We have a reverence for our chapels we feel a kind of comfort when we're sitting in the place which somehow or other we have got to think must be the same Holy let's get rid of all such superstitions with regard to place depend on it one place is as much consecrated as another And wherever we meet with true hearts reverently to worship God that place becomes for the time being God's house That place which has no devout heart within it is no house of God it may be a house of superstition but a house of God it can't be So spoke the greatest preacher in the English language whoever lived who by the way preached in one of the most glorious buildings ever constructed for worship And yet he said this place where we meet this isn't the church This passage here in Ephesians 2 is really about unity of church God breaking down dividing walls that naturally come because of cultural differences not not matters of right and wrong but of culture Maybe when you come to church you're used to the church being somber and serious Let all the earth keep silent before him or maybe you're used to the church being very friendly and kind of a picture of heaven or maybe when we have communion You're more comfortable with instrumental being music being played quietly or maybe what you would like during communion is to hear some jazz to celebrate the gospel Or maybe you're more comfortable singing out of a hymn book or maybe you're like singing off the screen or maybe you're comfortable with code and tie or maybe you're comfortable with Bermuda shorts You see it's really not about culture it's about Jesus it's not about language it's not about Spanish or English or Vietnamese it's about Jesus You know what cultural differences show in the church they show that God is at work I want to remind you that the puse you sit on and the building that we worship in are not the church I want you to look around just for five seconds look around at the people in this room they are Westminster church and you know what if Frank Lloyd Wright were still living and if he could see what he had to work with in building the church designing the church Frank Lloyd Wright would look around this room and throw up his hands and in frustration and say how in the world can I design something and build something out of hard-hearted sinners like that he would but here God say stand back watch this angels watch this all you heavenly host I'm going to do something special I'm going to change the hearts of people the way they live and function and relate to one another so that they're going to leave their own comfort and become one body and I'm going to do it by lifting up the cross of my son in their midst and as I do that my son Jesus is going to draw all men and women and cultures and language group to himself that's what Paul is talking about the church is God's building the church is God's family the church is God's temple let's pray Father we all have different expectations and biases and cultural differences but we thank you that what really unites us is the blood of Christ and a Savior who has lifted up on the cross we might know you and that we might worship you through him and so we thank you for the gospel today that unites us and we thank you that this building is not really the church thank you that we are the church of the living God as we worship but as we leave today and as we go out in the world this week we thank you for Westminster church and we pray for our ministry not just on Sunday but we pray for our ministry before our watching world this coming week and we pray that you would be glorified in it in Jesus name we pray Amen