Introduction why we are studying Ephesians:

If you are a new member to our church, or have only been attending since January, you may be convinced that our Bible consists only of Ephesians. The reason: because we've been working through it for a long time now.

This morning I hope that you experience an Ah ha! Moment. The moment where you grasp the importance of everything we've been talking about. At risk of sounding like a broken record, "I hope you leave with a better understanding of you are" as the body of believers, and I pray that this understanding begins to transform the way you live within your community, your church, your family, and even in your alone times.

OPEN IN PRAYER

If you know me, you know I love to rant. If you get me going on something I will go on and on for hours. Close friends can recount the many times my wife has had to calm me down saying, "honey, you're yelling."

Perhaps you know someone similar. Something triggers them and they just have to start going! They begin to weave thoughts together taking you on a journey through-out their thoughts and finally they end with "my point is this!"

In a similar way this is what Paul does in Ephesians. And so, to understand what he is getting at, he takes us on this journey through his thoughts. And it is our job as readers to trace these thoughts and identify what the "point is." Other ways we will run the risk of taking the details out of context, missing the point entirely.

And so this morning as we work through Ephesians 2:19-22 we will stop periodically to evaluate what Paul has said in light of the historical and cultural context in which he lived to gain better understanding of why he said he did and how they apply to us today.

Read The Passage

Lets begin read together Ephesians 2:19-22

Finally Paul says it! After writing almost two entire chapters, Paul gets to his point. The pinnacle of everything he was writing, the climax of everything Christ did: alas the great therefore!

Ephesians 1:

1. We are likened to a body which was planned and created by the father, purchased by the son and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2

1. Paul outlines what we once were (2:1-12)
1. Dead in sin (2:1)
2. He continues to then explain what God has done despite these shortcoming
1. He loved us (2:4) and He gave us life (2:5)
3. In chapter 2:8-13 Paul explains how God did these things through the blood of Christ (2:13)
4. Last week we learned that we are partners with Israel. Reconciled to each other as one body of Christ.
5. And now we come to Paul's key point. The conclusion of all the previous verses....

As a result of all these you have become a new creation! He writes, you are no longer foreigners, you are now citizens, you are family and are becoming a Holy temple for the Lord!

Escalation of Terms

It is important that we note the escalation of the terms. Paul goes from Strangers and foreigners to Citizens, to family, to the actual building itself.

Citizen of heaven; same tribe

Verse: 2:11 " you used to be outsiders"

Verse: 2:12 "you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from God's people..."

Verse 2:13 "...you once were far away..."

And in Ephesians 2:19 Paul contrasts all of this by saying that we are now, Jew and Gentile a citizens together.

First, being a citizen means that we have allegiance to that which we are a citizen of.

Secondly, in Roman times, being a Roman citizen meant that you were protected by the law of that country.

Thirdly, being a citizen meant that you had explicit rights which were not granted to outsiders.

Family

Yet, being a citizen lacked intimacy. And so Paul compares us to a family. A family unit for both the Romans and the Jews consisted of:

1. a father who oversaw and was responsible for all of the assets and wealth and decisions of a family.
2. They ate together,
3. they worshiped together,
4. they looked after one another and they were intimate.

Tyndale Bible dictionary writes "House holds were seen as corporately responsible for the honor of the family and in fact we see an example of this in 2 Sam 3:27 where revenge was taken by the brothers of a household in order to uphold the honor of the family"

1. Families are created for encouragement and support
2. Intended to celebrate and mourn together
3. Designed for the care of one another
4. Were meant to be a unified body which cares intimately for one another because they are family

Story of finding lost brother

•1. My parents were divorced at a young age.

•2. I have three older brothers and that makes me the youngest.

•3. A few months ago I was doing some research on my family and discovered a fellow who may be a long lost, younger brother.

•4. The signs were all there, he was a spitting image of my oldest brother, friends had trouble deciphering the two of their pictures.

•5. The more it seemed he was a family member the more I wanted to know, the more I sought him out!

•6. Though it turned out that this fellow was not a lost brother, the same is true of the body of believers the family. We seek each other out. We desire to have the family together a complete whole. We bring the lost to our father and say "look who we found" and we celebrate together.

That's family

Celebrating birth of believers - that's family

Bearing one another's burdens - that's family

Disagreeing once and a while with one another but always loving each other - that's family.

So, point 1 we are not longer foreigners but we are citizens which are protected by a new law and have our allegiance to a heavenly kingdom.

Point 2: we are a family unit called to encourage one another, bear each other's burdens, and to do the father's will with that which he entitles to us.

Temple

Paul then takes his analogy one step further and says that we are more than just a family but we are a building, a temple.

Both the Jews and the Ephesians would have immediately have grasped the significance of the image of a temple which Paul uses to describe us. The Jews as we know had the Temple in Jerusalem. To them this was the place of worship and sacrifice. When they heard that we were being built into a magnificent temple, they would have pictured this in their minds.

Ephesus was a center of trade for Asian minor and was also a pagan society. A hybrid of pagan gods and religions. If you were to study Ephesus you would discover that the city was littered with temples to various gods. One of the primary economic activities was telling fortunes and fashioning idols for merchants and locals to worship.

The temple of Armenius, also know as the Temple of Diana, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and known as the most beautiful temple in Rome.

Unfortunately the temple was a pagan temple dedicated to defilement and disgrace.

Jones Spense writes "The world-famed temple of Diana at Ephesus may have been the apostle's mind- its symmetry, its glory, the relation of each several part to the rest and to the whole, as a suitable external emblem of the spiritual body which is being built up in Christ; but the Christian Church is a holy temple, dedicated to God, purified by his Spirit, entirely foreign to those defilements which disgraced the temple of Diana."

Both the Jews and Ephesians would have grasped the meaning right away. We were being build into a pure spiritual temple. One which would never be destroyed. One where the Spirit of God would dwell in us, not a physical building. A temple, which went every where we went. The very dwelling place of the Spirit of God!

The Jews would have been ok with the concept God indwelling the temple (their hearts and soul).

The Ephesians would have been ok with "a god" doing the same.

Both would have struggled with it being Christ.

Verse 20

Paul clarifies that this temple is built on the foundations of the apostles teaching and the cornerstone is Christ himself.

What is the significance of the cornerstone?

Last week Daren asked a series of question regarding our heritage and we were invited to stand if the statement was applicable to us individually. If you were like me you stood when asked if you were Mennonite by heritage, and if your faith is the result of a long last heritage of believers. Yet I have read this verse and other verses which describe Christ as the Chief Cornerstone hundreds of times yet have never stopped to understand the significance of the statement.

In Isaiah 28:16 the prophet writes :

Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says:

"Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem,^*

a firm and tested stone.

It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on.

Whoever believes need never be shaken.^*

Many commentaries refer to this stone as that which is the foundation. Or that which holds everything together, or perhaps the stone which without the entire building would collapse.

Tom Olson does and excellent job of explaining this to us "The Jews had a legend based on a statement of the psalmist. According to that legend, when the Temple of Solomon was being built, the masons sent up from the quarry below a stone different in size and shape from all the rest they had sent up.

Looking at it, the builders said: "There is no place for this stone. There must be some mistake." So they rolled it down the edge of the cliff into the valley of Kidron below the Temple area. As time went on (for the Temple was seven years in building), they were ready for the chief cornerstone. When they asked for it they were told, "We sent it up to you long ago."

One of the workmen said: "I recall it now. There was a stone altogether different from the rest, and we thought there was no place for it and rolled it down to the valley below." Men were sent down to the valley to find the stone. They succeeded in doing so; and when the stone was brought up it fitted perfectly into its place-the headstone of the corner."

In the same way that the builders rejected and threw away the capstone, so did the Jewish people. God came to them and they did not recognize him and killed Him! Paul is using the Jewish legend to paint a disturbing picture of their rejection of Christ. This is why Christ is continually referred to as the capstone or cornerstone which was rejected. The one that confused and caused many to stumble. Christ was the ultimate rejected one the stone that brings unity and completion.

Paul makes it very clear that the temple is none other than the Holy Temple of Christ whom the apostles spoke of and testified of.

Verses 2:21-22

Joined together = synarmologoumene

Becoming = a process

Joined together : is synarmologoumenç, used only here and in 4:16. It denotes that the various parts of the building are skillfully fitted to each other, not haphazardly thrown together.^[1]

CONCLUSION

Paul in his conclusion of Chapter 2 calls us, even today, to be different. He reminds us that we were once outsiders, foreigners to God's promises and grace. But he has brought unity to both Jews and Gentiles, creating a way for us be a new creation, not based on the Old Testament but on the New covenant. Beyond being joined together as citizens we are a family called to intimacy with one another despite our cultural or various other differences. We have been created into a Holy Temple which should continually testify to the Lord as a result of the Holy Spirit in us.

Sit down on stairs...

I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.

I long to be accepted and to belong.

I wrote 16+ pages of notes to explain to you what Paul's point in this passage was and I kept on asking myself this question: "why do we not find rest and acceptance in the body of believers."

Do we allow others to find rest here? Do we carry their burdens or do we pile more on to them. Do we critize more than we love and encourage? Do we spend more time being split of insignificant issues than lifting praises to God?

This isn't a message for your neighbor, it's a message for you each individually. It's a message first and foremost for me.

The entire point of Paul's message is this: Stop building walls or divisions between you, instead love each other as brothers and sisters, look to Christ as your King and do everything first and foremost for His Glory.

In closing let's read Collations 3:12-17

^* Hebrew in Zion.

^* Greek version reads Look! I am placing a stone in the foundation of Jerusalem [literally Zion], / a precious cornerstone for its foundation, chosen for great honor. / Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Compare Rom 9:33; 1 Pet 2:6.

^[1]Walvoord, John F. ; Zuck, Roy B. ; Dallas Theological Seminary: The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL : Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 2:627