Benefits of Christianity Part 2

Take your Bibles if you would please and turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 2. Lord willing we'll finish Ephesians chapter 2 today. We'll be looking at verses 17 through 22. And it's good to see you guys on this summer Sunday. Many of you haven't seen in quite a while, but on vacation and traveling around — welcome back to Central Florida. And as we continue in the Word of God, I'm also so thankful for the messages being uploaded online. You can follow along on Wednesday nights and on Sundays as well. Many of you do that. Today we're going to be talking about the benefits of Christianity, part 2. Part 2, the benefits of Christianity. And the main idea of the benefit today is going to be unity in Christ and unity among the believers. And so the primary benefit of unity is pictorially explained by multiple metaphors to emphasize today that you are a dwelling of Christ. And so the main idea again is unity with God and unity with God's people.

Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2, verses 17 to 22. The last two verses are going to be our key text for today. But I want to read verses 17 and following to help us reiterate some of the main ideas from last week and get our minds rolling towards the last two verses. In verse 17 it says, "And he came and preached." And so that's Jesus coming. And in Luke 19:10 it says that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And so His purpose there is seeking and saving. And so He came and He did that through preaching. In Mark chapter 1 verse 38 it says that He came to preach and He must do that. And so He preached not only in synagogues, but He also preached by the wayside, where the people were. He preached in towns. He preached everywhere. Today we've seen a lost art of street preaching. Preaching the Word of God, proclaiming the Word, proclaiming repentance and faith in Christ is essential. And Jesus, by way of preaching, our first words we see of Him in Matthew chapter 4 verse 17, He says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And the first words that we have recorded of John the Baptist is, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." And so those are very important things to understand. It is through the proclamation of the gospel that people receive peace — peace with God. And so we are to be proclaiming the gospel, not just preachers, not just street preachers, but Christians as evangelists. Christians as — I should just say — mere Christians. Mere Christianity is for Christians to make Christians. Christians reproducing. And so Jesus as an example here says He came and He preached. Or obviously this is the apostle Paul teaching the Ephesian church. But in fact this is Scripture. And so by way of divine inspiration, Jesus is preaching the good news. And what is He preaching? The good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. We learned last week how those who were far away were the Gentiles and those who were near were the Israelites.

You may say to yourself, we live in the land of Gentiles. Those who are far away from Christ. Well, at the same time we may live in the land of Gentiles with those who are far away from Christ, but we also live in a land full of — spiritually speaking — Israelites. Those who are near. In the South we have had a form of godliness that has been exposed to the majority of us. And if those who have perhaps made a cheap profession of faith early on but have never really tasted the goodness of God and been regenerated and had a new heart and been caused to walk in the statutes of God according to Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 26, 27, and 28 — it's very clear when you receive a new heart you are caused to walk in the Word of God. You're caused to walk, to live according to His statutes. You gradually mature in your faith. And so that's a big deal. You can't just proclaim Christ and say I want him as my Savior and then live like you want for the rest of your lives. That's a form of godliness and that is sometimes prevalent in our day. If your life looks like one thing on Sunday and then another throughout the entire week, that's not true Christianity. And so having true peace with God is to have the peace of God that has removed the enmity, or the hostility, or even the wrath that abides upon you.

As we take our time through the text, turn with me to John chapter 3 and verse 36. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John 3. We all know John 3:16. It's so popular for us to be able to quote John 3:16. It's perhaps one of the most widely known verses in our day. And in my legacy translation, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." We should keep in mind that the context of John in chapter 3 is also talking about in verse 3 that you must be born again. And so chapter 3 verse 3 has the idea of being born again, okay, and then in verse 16, "Whoever will come." But look with me at the last verse, verse 36: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him."

We know that demons believe, but they're not saved according to James 2:19. It's very clear here that according to the Scripture, those who have eternal life are those who are obedient to the Word. And so those who are obedient prove by their obedience and their gradual growth in their faith that they are truly regenerate and the wrath of God no longer abides upon them. But those who are disobedient to the Word — for example, if they have a life that is characterized by disobedience, they have no desire for the Word of God, no desire to confess their sin as they commit it, they are comfortable in their sin, they still love their sin, they celebrate their sin, they want to sin — that is not the characterization of a reborn person. In fact, they're still unsaved. So nevertheless, they have the wrath of God abiding upon them. They don't have peace with God.

And so in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 17, Jesus came and He preached the good news of peace, that He may remove the wrath of God off of you and actually take it upon Himself. He took on the wrath of God. The wrath of God is His righteous anger against sin. He is holy. And so sin is an offense to Him and must be punished. You couldn't pay for your own sin, so Jesus did it for you. So confess that He is Lord, confess that He died on the cross and rose again for your sin. So He came and He preached. The idea of preaching is declaring the good news. This is great — we have good news for a lost world. We have the answer so that they can evade the wrath of God. They're no longer children of wrath for those who would receive this peace. And so the good news of peace to you who are both far away — it doesn't matter if you grew up in the Bible Belt. If you're far away, if you grew up in Seattle or Washington or California or any other whatever, it doesn't matter how far away from the Word you were. See, in this day, the Word of God was there in Jerusalem. They had the writings of the prophets. They had the Torah. They had these things. But what if you were a Gentile or a Scythian or a barbarian, far away from the actual writings of Scripture, far away from the law of Moses? You had heard nothing about that. Well, whether you are far away and have never heard about God or even His Son Jesus, or whether you are close to the Word of God, close to Jerusalem, close to the prophets, perhaps in Isaiah's day or Jeremiah's day — no matter if you were close or far away — we all need this peace that Christ is offering. So whether you're far or whether you're near.

In Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 19, the Bible says, "Creating the peace of the lips, peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near." And so Isaiah is preaching this very message in his day — peace for those who are far, that being Gentiles or those away from the Word of God, or those outside of God's chosen people. "And to him who is near," referring to the Israelites, "says Yahweh, and I will heal them." So Christ heals the ones who are away from God. He imputes Himself and then He expels the hostility. He gets rid of all of that enmity that's in us, that God hates so much, that God's going to pour out His wrath for eternity if it's not removed. If we don't have the imputed righteousness of Christ, then we are still children of wrath, but God will heal those who have this peace. And so hostility is gone and the holiness of God comes. Praise God for that.

"And so He came and He preached the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. And through Him," verse 18, "we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father." This is a phenomenal verse because not only do we see in verse 17 that peace replaces hostility, but we also see that both groups now have the Trinity and all of the triune work that is necessary for the accomplishment of salvation and sanctification. Both groups have access to this. Verse 18: "For through Him," being Christ, "we both have our access in one Spirit," the Holy Spirit, "to God the Father," to the Father. So both groups have the Trinity in verse 18.

But not only that, in verse 19, we've become family. "So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners or aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household." That's a family term — God's household. So that house is a metaphor. This household is wonderful to understand, but not only are we of God's house, but we are also called in this verse fellow citizens. The Bible in the book of Acts talks about the fact that we are also citizens. In Acts chapter 16 verses 38 and 39, the citizens in the ancient world had rights and privileges. And so if you are a citizen of Rome, that came with those things. And now when the officials in Acts chapter 16 at Philippi beat Paul and Silas without a trial, they were then notified that Paul and Silas were citizens of Rome. Can you say, "Uh-oh."

Because now all the power of Rome would then be enacted upon those who acted unlawfully. And so those officials who beat Paul and Silas were acting unlawfully. They could be, according to the power of Rome since Paul and Silas were citizens, punished. And so this made them tremble. They were worried about this because the power and the authority of Rome could protect Paul and Silas and discipline these officials. Now knowing the backdrop of the word "citizen" here, Paul then says to the Ephesian church, "You are citizens — not of the protection of Rome, not of those officials, not of the earthly things. You are a citizen of the protective power of God. You have rights and you have privileges according to being a citizen of God's family." So Paul communicates this powerful reminder to the Ephesian church that as Christians, as fellow citizens, we have the protective power of God and He disciplines those who oppose us. He does that. "Vengeance is mine," says the Lord. So when you focus one hundred percent on our unity with God and our unity is, to the best of our ability, with others, and let the Lord take care of what He wants to take care of — I pity the person who opposes God and God's ways, because God will take care of that in His own time. We don't have to worry about that. We need to be concerned with our daily walk with the Lord. We need to be focused on God and focused on doing our part in this household.

And so God is our Father and we are of His household. It's just a beautiful truth and Paul is reminding the Ephesians that you're citizens of heaven. And so in verse 19, not only are we family, but in verse 20, our lives are built upon the Word of God. In verse 20, chapter 2 of Ephesians, "having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." Now this is keying off of Acts chapter 2 verse 47 and the main components of church — number one being the priority of the Word of God. And so we're building our lives based upon the authority of the Word of God. The subject of authority is a hot button today because most would not like to submit to any type of authority at all. In fact, in the book of Revelation, one of the descriptions of those who were in the lake of fire is disobedient to parents. And that being true, we ought not to rebel against parental authority. And the same thing with our civil authorities, according to Romans chapter 13. Many people today want nothing to do with the authority of the land. In fact, they want to go off the grid and be their own boss and do everything that they can to run their own lives and not submit to local authorities at all. That's anti-God, actually — not to go off the grid, but to be anti-authoritarian. And so the authority of God through not only governments and not only through parental authority and church authority — there's a system there that God has put into place. We follow in that as ones who build our lives upon the orderliness of the Word of God. And we do our absolute best to be submissive to the Word of God and subject to one another, kind to one another, and doing everything that we possibly can to work with one another, especially as we start to see these metaphors unfold — you will see how your interaction with one another is so important as a picture of unity.

And so our lives are built upon the apostles' teaching, the Word of God, and that actually being Christ Himself. Verse 20 says Christ Himself is the cornerstone. And so everything hinges and everything is aligned with that cornerstone, that being Christ.

For today, Christians grow in holiness and then also God's Spirit dwells in Christians, verses 21 and 22. So last week's points — I'll run through them and we'll start with point number five. Point number one: peace replaces hostility. Point number two: both groups have the Trinity. Point number three: Christians are family. Point number four: our lives are built upon the Word of God. And today, point number five is part two of this message — Christians grow in holiness. Christians grow. Their growth in their sanctification is going to be evident. So verse 21: "In whom the whole building, being joined or fitted together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord." A holy sanctuary. And so this whole building, when it comes together, it doesn't remain blank. And so first of all, let's think of a building — okay, blocks, floors, roof, the temple as an illustration in the Old Testament. It doesn't remain just blank walls, but you have an amazing amount of furniture and decor that all has purpose and meaning, especially in the temple in the Old Testament. So just as Jerusalem was fitted and furnished, the decorated items were made to be purposeful and so elaborate in the temple. So our bodies, according to 1 Corinthians 6:19, are a temple. Our bodies are a temple. And so within ourselves, we have the Holy Spirit of God fitting us into the whole picture. You have furniture in the Old Testament, all kinds of different furniture with meaningful purposes. You have walls, you have a roof, you have a floor, you have the foundation, you have all these different things. And not one particular person makes up the whole body. Not one particular piece of furniture is more important than all the others. It's all working together for a purpose to glorify God. And so our lives, once saved — once we have been resurrected — we don't remain dull and blank and lifeless. We're made more holy and more beautiful as representations of Jesus. So Christians, we are regularly repenting of our sin and regularly being refined by the Word of God. And this is all part of God's process of beautifying the temple, of beautifying our local churches, of beautifying the body. This is all through sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." God's will for your life is the continual sanctification of your mind and of your heart and of your lives.

Turn with me to Romans chapter 6, and I want to show you how this is done. This is important to see how intentional our part in sanctification is. Romans chapter 6 verses 11 to 14. Romans 6:11 — "Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin." Let's talk about that for just a moment. As you become born again in the faith, you're a child of God. And then as you grow from a child into what the Bible calls a youth in the faith or an overcomer, a strong one in the faith, you have these worldly pursuits that used to be your primary ambition. You have perhaps these old habits, you have these bondages that are there. And to rip those out of your life, to remove those from the everyday thinking processes of your mind, to get them dug out of your heart is painful. It's like you're dying on the inside. The Bible says right here, "Even so, consider yourselves dead to sin." Die to yourself. Get that stuff out of your life. John the Baptist was talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees about their false religious pretense. And he said, "You've got to take the axe to the root here and get this garbage out of your life and then start over with Christ." And a lot of times in our lives, we've got to do some painful removing of pride, some painful removing of fleshly pursuits in life, some painful removing of some bondages. And that is proving that as you're willing to be Christlike and put yourself on the cross to die to yourself, you actually feel like you are dying inside. It is painful to remove some of the — when you start the process, many of you have already been doing it for years — you realize just how sinfully addicted your heart was to the things of this world. You're like, "How in the world did I invest so many years, so much money, and so much in the fruitless, empty things of this world rather than Christ?" And so on the inside of you, you're like, "Wow, man."

And so "even so, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God." I like to look at this as the displacement principle. Displace all of the things of this world with more of God, with more of His Word, with more praise, with more prayer, with more service in the church, with more of God. Displace the things, the time in your life — getting away from the things of this world and replacing it with as much God as you possibly can. For all of us who listen to podcasts and such, teenagers and music and such — put the things of God in your earbuds. Train your mind in the Scriptures. Listen to the Word of God repetitiously. Saturate yourself with theological hymns and songs and praises. Get away from the entertaining stuff of this world. Get away from all of the entertainment. You simply need to die to yourself and forget about being entertained as if you're on the throne of your life. And submit yourself to the Word of God. And the more that you can saturate yourself in the Word of God, the more you will be made into the Word of God. Believe me, this is the worthy pursuit of displacement in your life. Identify the things that add up to nothing, that are meaningless, that are fruitless, and replace them with intentionally seeking Christ.

"Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts." You do know that sin is a taskmaster. It will rule you. If you submit yourself to sin, it wants more and more and more and more of you. It's not satisfied with just a little, and sin will continue to creep in until it takes over. It's like cancer. As soon as it opens that little bitty door, it's just going to want more and more and more and more and more until you are its slave. "Don't obey its lusts," verse 12. Verse 13 says, Romans 6:13, "And do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." Don't submit yourself to the sinful things of this world. Submit yourself to the grace of God. And by the way, just as one of our elders, David Parker, read earlier, this whole process is so akin to Christ and how He came and why He came. And if you would, according to the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:20, have fellowship with God, to truly know God and have fellowship through His sufferings, then you too will walk a very similar road. As Isaiah 53 says, He — being Christ — "was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hid their face, and he was despised, and we did not esteem him." His own family, His own people rejected Him. And that is oftentimes the life of a Christian — we who would remain in the Word of God, no matter what. Christ is our King, not subject to the whims of the world. It's children who are tossed about by every wind of doctrine. But when you are a youth in the faith, and you're growing strong in the faith, and you're maturing in your faith, you get away from being swayed by every little wind of selfish doctrine, and you saturate yourself with the Word of God. You grow in your holiness.

That's the point in verse 21. I'm talking about Christians grow in their holiness. And so back to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 21 — Ephesians 2:21: "In whom the whole building, being joined and fitted together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord." In 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 16 it says, "Be holy, for I am holy." And those who are being made holy go through not only this dying-to-self process, and if you would be proactive in rooting out the sin in your life, you won't end up underneath Hebrews chapter 12. Everybody turn to Hebrews chapter 12 with me. You've got to see this. This is evidence of the believers. Your life will truly go through Hebrews chapter 12 if you're a true believer. That's what the text says. You can't get away with sin because God spanks His own. He disciplines those who are truly regenerate. He's not going to let you get away with sin over and over and over again and enjoy that. He's actually going to convict you of it and discipline you, and it's actually training that yields. And here's the point of the reason why we're going to Hebrews chapter 12 — the disciplinary actions from God toward those who are in sin yields righteousness, produces holiness. And so we who are truly born again are disciplined by God and prodded unto a righteous life, a more righteous life. And so God disciplines those who are His and produces holiness.

Let's read Hebrews chapter 12 starting in verse 4 all the way to verse 14, and you'll see this for yourself. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 4: "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin." Boy, that's a high mark there. And when it comes to denying yourself, yeah, to the point of that. Verse 5: "And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons." Okay, so this is children of God whom the rest of this is addressed to. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure, and God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate." Do you see that? Proof of your salvation is when you sin, God chastises you. Proof of your salvation is when you rebel against God, He lets you know you rebelled against Me. Okay, children and not sons. Verse 9: "Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?" Verse 10: "For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our benefit so that" — remember two of my favorite words — "so that we may share in His holiness."

Guys, listen. Christians grow in holiness. True believers make progress in sanctification. If you're dealing with an unregenerate person that cares nothing about sanctification, then share the gospel with them very clearly. Be kind, be loving, and be gentle, and share. Jesus Christ came to preach peace and remove this hostility inside of you. The gospel, the good news, removes this enmity, this hostility, these sinful tendencies, these addictions. The gospel is so powerful. It's powerful unto salvation — to save you — and then those who are truly saved continue in the Word. They prove they are disciples by continuing in the Word. They continue in their sanctification, and it produces a holy life, a life that is growing in holiness. True, regenerate people grow in holiness.

Verse 11: "And all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful." Yeah, we talked about that just a minute ago — you feel like you're dying inside. "But sorrowful, but to those who have been trained by it." Get this. These biblical words are so clarifying. When you understand that the trials of your faith are more precious than gold, like 1 Peter talks about, when you realize that the agony that you're going through is training — training in righteousness — these are good words. This helps you to characterize suffering as a benefit, not as an "oh, poor me" victimhood stance, right? You see now that God actually loves you and He is training you and helping you. It's like chiseling something. It's like polishing something. We are being worked over inside and out in our lives to be transformed by the Word of God. We're being trained by it, and afterwards it yields the fruit of righteousness. Believers are made better through the battles. At the end, they shine more clearly for Christ. After a trial, they say to themselves, "That was tough. I don't want to go through it again, but I wouldn't remove that from my life because of all of the benefits that I have yielded through this trial."

If you're in a trial, that is the perspective, the biblical worldview lens that you have on suffering. It is training. God is working all things to His glory, and you're good because you're a child of God. It's nearly impossible to see and even sometimes believe that when you're in a severe trial. I totally get that and understand that and live that. But I'm telling you, if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, this is hope. This is glorious. This is purpose. If you just know why — the why behind the what — you don't know the specifics, but you know God's good intentions, you're like, "Okay, I'm good. I can go through life another day. I can put on my spiritual boots and battle through the swamps of life. I'm all right." Therefore, in verse 12, "strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather healed." God does not want His discipline nor the trials of your faith to destroy you. He wants to build you up in it.

Verse 14: "Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord." Again, God is making it very clear that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord. And so those who are truly characterized by a continual growth in their faith are the ones who will see the Lord for eternity.

I believe with all of my heart, and so does the Scripture say, that disciples are disciplined when they sin. Disciples of Christ, true saved ones, are disciplined. And so before Christ renovates us and helps us and works us over, He removes the filth and replaces it with clean furnishings. We've all been born with junk inside and it's got to be cleaned out. So this old life has got to be washed away and we've got to take on newness of life. This whole thing, this whole building — whether you're looking at it as the church, or you're looking at it as an individual life — means that we are built upon the Word of God as the foundation, the Word of God, the foundation is Christ our Savior, and we're growing in Him as a holy temple.

In this Greek phrase, "the whole building" is interpreted as the art or process of building. And so this building — it may have been built in the Old Testament and you see the Ark of the Covenant, you see all the furnishings, you see all these things, you see the temple, perhaps even in Jesus's day Herod's temple, you see that. The idea of what is in this text is not a one-and-done thing. Our continual sanctification and progress is a progress of this building being fitted together. And John Calvin says of this particular text that we are working with each other, we are accommodative, and so each individual believer understands that others are also growing in their faith and so we are accommodative. We are sympathetic, we are merciful, because we're right side by side — nobody's perfect yet. It's not a one-and-done thing. You didn't get saved and sanctified fully on the same day and therefore you're walking around as done. No, it is a continual growth and all of us are going through this journey of Christ transforming our lives, and so it merits us truly having patience and kindness with one another. Everybody's allowed to have a — and everybody should be given the benefit of the doubt that their motives are right and holy unto the Lord. And if anything is ever misunderstood, you should interact respectfully and talk it through. If anyone offends you, go to them and show them their fault. Matthew chapter 18 verse 15 — talk these things through. Be the church, be accommodative, be merciful, be a good neighbor, love your neighbor as yourself. Be one who is pleasant to be beside.

We are living stones in this building, 1 Peter 2:4–5. We are living stones and so this building is not built out of dry concrete stones. It's not rigid, it's not religious, it's not rough. We're living stones. We're alive in Christ. We're being formed, we're being molded, we're being placed together one by one by one, and God is beautifying not only the local church and not only us as temples but He's beautifying all of this for the purposes of His glory. And so the foundation of this building is the only thing that is complete. The foundation is done. The Word of God is complete. Christ is complete. There's nothing incomplete about the Word of God or Himself. He's complete, the Word of God. And the cornerstone is set for this building — that's complete — and this building is being built. And so the oldest person in this worship center is still growing in their faith. And the ones who were just born again have barely just started growing in their faith. And as we accommodate one another, we love one another, we are being Christlike. Every living stone who has been saved by the grace of God is essential.

Every single person has been given a place. Think of the furnishings inside of the temple, think of every stone. If you, being a living stone — as a metaphor, as a building, as this church — let me just say, if I did not have one of the stones or the cinder blocks in my own house, if I didn't have that block, you could see out. There'd be problems. What would creep in? All your ladies are like, "Spiders, bugs, you know." The first thing is the AC, you know, creeping out. The electric bill is going to go up — problems on top of problems on top of problems. You, as a living stone for the church of God, are more essential than one cinder block in my home. You being fitted — the Bible's talking about fitted, joined together — are essential. Just like every furnishing inside the temple in the Old Testament has a purpose and meaning, you are essential. Your attendance matters for more than just your absorption of the Word of God and more than for you to give God due praise. Your attendance in the local church matters to others, and how you interact with others matters. Oftentimes, how we accommodate and how we're fitted together, how we rub each other, matters so much as to whether or not there's unity or disunity — and that's the point of the text, unity with God, unity with one another.

Do you see how we are living stones in a building that's being built and everything truly matters? In verse 21 here in Ephesians, we're talking about this being fitted or joined together. "In whom the whole, being joined or fitted" — this word means framed and ready for use. Are you, as a living stone, in place, regularly dedicated to the purposes of God and holding the line? Are you being used in the church? Are you serving? Are you engaged? Are you loving one another and loving God? All of these wonderful concepts come with being a living stone, and every member of the true church has been specifically designed and specifically gifted and placed in the local church. You are not replaceable. Really, truly. But when you're not here, the weight that that stone — you as a stone — holds, that weight falls on others. You see how important you are? And when you're not here, it allows bugs to get in and AC to go out. When you're not here, metaphorically speaking, there's things that are missed. There's things that happen internally to the brethren. There's things that rub differently and there's weight that falls in the wrong places.

And so every particular member of the body is so important. Think of yourself perhaps as if you are a foot. If you remove the foot of a body, does that not affect how you live? If you remove your right hand, does that not affect how the body is? And every single person — whether you think of yourself as just a big toe — well, the whole body is going to be walking a little bit differently or a little bit awkwardly, not as strong as if you were fully engaged and strong in here. So every living stone is important. This whole building is not one but all.

And so we're a holy temple, a sacred building. Essentially, the building in itself is being made more holy, but the holiness that we have is not us. The holiness that we have is not of our own doing. Essentially, the building has no holiness but only the holiness of the builder. And so it is the imputed righteousness of Christ that we have, that we embrace, that we enjoy, that we proclaim, and that we shine with. That is not our own. It is Christ in us as the hope of glory. All the glory is unto Him. And we have not created glory. We have not achieved any of this glory in this holiness. A temple is simply a metaphor of connected unity to the glory of God. Thus, it makes us to understand that God — He is our mortar. He's what keeps us together. God, He is our holiness. He is our cornerstone. He is our foundation. Our connection, our unity is everything. Our connection with God — our unity with Him, to be united in Christ — is everything.

Everything hinges on this. How we view and protect and engage and embrace these concepts truly dictates to a large degree the temperature of the local church — good, bad, and ugly. So our connection to God is everything, and that is to an extent a measurable determination of how much you focus on personal holiness. The temperature — when people walk into a congregation, what they perceive, what they see, what they feel, what they hear, what they walk away with — is by a large extent a measure of how holy we are and how focused we are on that. So how strong are you in the Lord in the power of His might? Ephesians 6:10. How focused are you on being holy, 1 Peter 1:16. Building a life like building a house on a firm foundation of Christ, His Word, being aligned with Him as the cornerstone, fulfills your purpose. Your purpose is achieved in this life through those means. It's not through making a certain amount of money or building a certain amount of retirement or traveling to a certain amount of places around this wonderful creation called this world. Your purpose — for which you've been created — is through these things. Your focus on being united to Christ and loving and working through His primary purposes, which the local church — do you not believe that is the hope of the world? Everything, everything, everything starts with God and works its way through.

And if by some way you feel like maybe your Bible time is negotiable, you can achieve it on your own, or if somehow you think — or perhaps your life demonstrates the fact — that God's priorities of worshiping Him and learning His Word and prayer and the ordinances and His design for the local church — if you think that your participation and your dedication to that is optional, I guarantee this: it works its way out in the life. It works its way out in the life because those who try without Christ struggle. They don't have the blessings of the Lord simply multiplying the bread, so to speak. You think to yourself, "Wow, God really multiplied this. It worked out well." You can — when you have your priorities right — "Oh wow, it's amazing how God makes things happen in your life." His blessings are upon you, not only your spiritual blessings in Ephesians chapter 1, but also in this life. You have an inner freedom, an inner joy that is sustained upon Christ in the Word of God. These priorities sustain us. He is truly your foundation. But when you walk off of the foundation, you try to do things yourself — perhaps you don't think that you need to prioritize serving Christ, or perhaps you think that you don't need to prioritize giving to the Lord. Perhaps you don't think that your voice matters when you're worshiping, you're standing around and you're not singing, you're not giving God His due praise. Perhaps you don't think that you need to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness before you make decisions. Perhaps that may be your default system of living. I guarantee you that that affects your life. But when you have God as your priority and you're working through and you have Him, you are working as a living stone. Everything is in place and when you depart from here, it's almost like the Lord is leading your steps. It is absolutely amazing.

When we have God and His Word as our plumb line — Amos 7:7 talks about the Word of God being a plumb line — it makes it to where we are truly able to measure what we say and what we do according to an absolute standard. Amos 7:7 says, "Thus He showed me and behold, the Lord was standing by a wall made with a plumb line, and in His hand was a plumb line. And Yahweh said to me, 'What do you see, Amos?' And he said, 'A plumb line.' And then the Lord said, 'Behold, I am about to put a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer.'" Okay, there's a time where we can be a little bit careless and exercise our own free will outside of the grace of God and try it ourselves. But when God decides to put the plumb line on your life, here's what happens: "The high places of Isaac will be desolated and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste. Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword." God's standard, His holy standard, is the plumb line. What we think is right has to be measured against the standard. What we do and think is right — we have to measure it against the standard. The Scriptures are the standard. We must be so very careful to walk carefully — the King James says to walk carefully — in the Word of God, to handle ourselves within this holy sanctuary according to the standard, lest God judge us and show up in a disciplinary way rather than in a way that we would prefer.

Point number six is that God's Spirit dwells in Christians. And back in Ephesians as I try to wrap up this chapter, in verse 22 it says, "In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." You are a dwelling of God. "Christ is in you as the hope of glory," Colossians 1:27. God's Spirit — it's almost like a fearful thing to think about. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. Should we not really truly be paying attention to make sure that we are in alignment with the Holy Spirit and let no unwholesome word proceed from our mouth? Ephesians 4:29. Make sure that we are walking according to His Word. To be fearful and trembling of a God who holds the plumb line, who has set the standard, who has the ability to discipline our lives. And so God's Spirit dwells in Christians. "Dwells" refers to our body. Your body is an inhabitation of God's Spirit. We are a habitation, a dwelling place of God. I can't even comprehend it, much less explain it — the fact that God is holy, holy, holy, and His Holy Spirit dwells in us. Therefore it merits the fact that we flee any hint of immorality. Ephesians 5:3–5 — flee from it. Let nothing in your life be displeasing to the Lord. We must flee these things and pursue holiness because we're a temple. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 17 to 20 says so. And so within not only these church walls but within your temple, the body, according to 1 Corinthians 6, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body is a dwelling place of God. Within our walls dwells the deposit, the guarantee, the Holy Spirit.

And this glory in us is pictured in the Old Testament. This glory in us, in our inner sanctuary — 1 Kings chapter 6 verse 19 says, "Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the Ark of Yahweh." What does the Ark stand for? What does it represent? The presence of God, a dwelling place inside the inner sanctuary. And now this Old Testament illustration of a temple is now being used to compare the body as a temple, as a dwelling place for the presence of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 10 it says, "Now it happened that when the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the house of Yahweh, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud." When we get a glimpse of God's glory, we're brought to our knees and we cry out, "Lord, I'm undone." We see our sin for what it truly is. We realize that we are so sinful and God is so holy. "For the glory of Yahweh filled the house." Filled the house. My prayer is that God's glory and His holiness would not only fill this house, fill this church, but it would be an inhabitation of you — that you would be filled with God, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that you would flee from immorality, flee from any sin proceeding from your lips, rip out the thoughts that are so against God, rip out the heart motivations that are displeasing to the Lord. Get all of that which is disdain out of you, remove it, flee from it. "Flee from your youthful lusts," 2 Timothy 2:22 says. "And be holy," and as you do this, the Spirit of God and His holiness and His glory fills you up so much so that it is all you desire. It's all you want. God said in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 29 — I believe that He is a consuming fire and all that is within you is the Lord in His glory.

We have so many idols in our life. We look at Israel and say, "Oh, that was so foolish to have so many idols in your life." Do you know what an idol is? We truly have so many idols that we worship in our life. We are idol worshipers. We combine pagan gods and pursuits and affections in our own life. We are the heathens before God. We need His forgiveness. And when we see God in all of His holiness and all of His glory, these things are exposed in our life. Our self-righteousness is placed so big and so clear in front of us that we now walk in humility before God and others. And we now accommodate and we now are a blessing and we're now gentle and kind and the fruits of the Holy Spirit characterize our lives, proceeding from love — and you will have joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control.

And so my prayer is that may God's glory fill not only this sanctuary but your sanctuary as well.

"E.M. Bounds said it best — men are God's method." He's working on men. He's working through men. He's working through us. Mankind is God's priority. He wants to work through us to bring Himself glory. May you be part of that whole process.

Let's pray together. Lord, we do love Him. We thank You, dear Jesus. I pray, God, that You forgive us of our sin. Help us, Lord, to walk before You with clean hands. Purify our hearts, dear God, I pray. I pray, Father, during this invitation time that Your saints would do business with You, and if there's anything that's unconfessed in their life, if they've offended a brother or sister, or if they have been engaged in sin, may they confess that now before You, dear Jesus, and not cause You to have to discipline their lives to prove that they are truly regenerate. Lord, if there is one who has never been saved before, who cares nothing of repentance, who cares nothing of holiness, who lives their life according to their own will, I pray, God, would You draw them according to Your Word? Would You draw them closer to You? Would You grant them repentance and faith? Dear Jesus, would You save them today? Let today be the day of their salvation. I pray, dear Jesus, that You would help us as Christians — those of us who are Christians — to walk worthy of our calling, to walk worthy of becoming a Christian, to walk worthy of the salvation that You've granted us. God, I pray, dear Jesus, that You would continue to purify the saints in this house of worship. Thank You, Father, for the wonderful Spirit that dwells so strongly among us that our fellowship is enriched in a way that is different from any other church I've ever been a part of, and I thank You, dear Jesus, for that. Would You continue that wonderful work? The evil one opposes these things. Keep us strong in You, dear Jesus, I pray. Keep us focused upon You. Keep us striving in You and walking towards You. Move us, dear Jesus, from children in the faith to youth and overcomers in the faith to actually mature fathers in the faith, according to 1 John chapter 2 verses 12, 13, and 14. Help us, dear Jesus, I pray, to mature from being a child — a gullible one, one who is easily fooled and tricked and dependent upon others — help mature us in the faith, dear Jesus, from being children to being youth in the faith, strong ones who are by Your power able to deny themselves and take up the cross and follow You. God, grant us the spiritual holiness and maturity, dear God, to overlook the approval of men and simply be focused on being obedient to You. Remove from us, dear Jesus, the need for the accolades and approval of mankind. May we seek Your Word and simply ask the question, are we unified with You and obedient to Your Word? God, I pray that You remove the American definition of success from our minds. Forgive us for being given to thinking that bigger numbers and bigger buildings is evidence of Your blessings upon us. God, the church growth movement has done so much damage in Christianity and it still resides in a lingering way inside of our hearts and minds. God, help us to look and analyze our lives as to whether or not we're truly unified with You and walking in Your Word. Are we being made into a holy sanctuary? Help us not to gauge our lives based upon what non-believers in the world would deem successful, for then we would be depressed. God, I pray that You would lift us up by the power of Your Spirit and help us to see our lives in accordance with Your Word, and be like Noah, a preacher of righteousness — and though he won only his family, he was put into the Hall of Fame chapter of faith. God, I pray that You would help us to focus upon You and Your holiness and Your righteousness and allow the things of this world to continue to grow strangely dim. Put them behind us, dear Jesus. Give us the ability to rejoice evermore, and again I say, rejoice. Give us the ability, dear Jesus, to do like John chapter 15 and verse 5 says, to abide in the vine. Help us to be so rooted in Christ and Your solid foundation that we are unmovable and unstoppable and always abounding in the work of the Lord, according to 1 Corinthians 15:58. Help us, dear Jesus, to hide Your Word in our heart and to characterize our life in it and by it. Help us to characterize our thoughts, our motives, our lips, and what we say. Help everything, dear Jesus. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto You, my Lord, my rock, my Redeemer. God, this is the cry of this dear church and may You continue to lead us and add Your blessings as we are obedient to You. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.