[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Our Ephesians study continues today. We're doing Ephesians chapter 2 and verses 14 to 22. And let's go ahead and get into the text. Starting Ephesians chapter 2, verse 14. “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (ESV).

       We ended last time getting right into the beginning of this, where Paul tells the Ephesian believers in verse 13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (ESV). This idea is that the Jews, the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, because of their prior relations with God. They were the ones who knew God. A lot of them did. And then as a group, collectively, they knew God. They had dealings with God. But now the Gentiles have been included and that anyone in the world can come to know God through Jesus Christ. And that included the Ephesian people and those in Ephesus who have believed in Jesus have now become close to God like the Jews of the Old Testament already were. So, “the dividing wall,” that we just read, that we just saw there in the verses, that was the Law. In the Old Testament times, God’s focus was on the Jewish people. That's what the whole Old Testament is about. That's what the books focus on. That's what they talk about is God's dealings with the Jewish people. Now, did God have dealings with Gentiles outside the Jews? There are hints to that in Genesis when Abram sees Melchizedek, and Melchizedek calls God, God Most High. He's a Gentile. Abraham really at that point is still a Gentile, but Melchizedek seems to already know God. There are hints to that. And there would be another passage or two you could pull up to show that.

       The point that Paul's trying to make in Ephesians chapter 2 is that both the Jews and the Gentiles are now one new man in Jesus Christ. So there's peace. There's peace between the Jews and the Gentiles. And that's peace in the new way. And in Jesus, there is no more wall that separates the two. That's breaking down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

       So verse 15, “By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” Again, in the Old Testament, God had created a whole slew of commandments, of rules, of ordinances, however you want to label them, that the Jewish people had to follow to maintain proper standing before God. or depending on how you phrase that, to be in correct obedience to God. And we learn in the Old Testament that that was not really what God wanted to do in the first place. He set that up likely because the Jews wanted to be like their pagan neighbor nations. They wanted those pagan neighbor nations had law systems, rules, ordinances, all that. The Jews themselves wanted to have that stuff. So God acquiesced and did all that. That doesn't mean there's not a morality in God. That doesn't mean that God is not moral and wants people to follow morals. But a lot of that, we really don't know the ins and outs of it, but it's so that the Jews would have something to follow and their relationship with God in the most basic sense.

       Let's go to verse 17: “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (ESV). Again, that just reemphasizes what was just discussed, that the Jews were the ones near, the Gentiles were the ones far off. One interesting thing we can note about the way Paul phrases that, he came so Jesus would be who he has in mind there and preached peace. So that's interesting because Paul basically encapsulates the whole teachings of Jesus as peace in this sentence. And I think that is appropriate. I think that is Jesus gave us that peace to live by, if you will, in our lives. That we can be at peace with God and we can be at peace with our fellow man, whoever the people are in our lives, no matter what their background is, no matter what their religion is, any of that, we can operate in peace.

       Now, if we look at verse 18, it says, “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (ESV). Again, anyone in the world can believe. When we believe, we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. That's a permanent process that happens. And we gain unhindered access to God the Father through that belief and that process that occurs that Paul elsewhere will call the new creation, the old self versus the new self. And this also shows as an aside, and Paul talks about this, Even for people who in our current world would find themselves under some form of slavery, there is no distinction in God's eyes between what earthly state we are in, whether we are totally free or whether we are somehow in slavery, or if we're in this country or that country, a communistic country or a democracy or whatever it is, that doesn't matter as far as our standing with God and our standing as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's a tremendously good thing.

       Now, verse 18 also tells us that we have access in one Spirit to the Father. So this has come up in the past, but it's not something that a lot of Christians, especially these that I've noticed in the Evangelical world, are too aware of. And that is on the most basic level, as Christians, who do we pray to? Do we pray to God the Father? Do we pray to Jesus? You know, you see that a lot. A lot of brothers and sisters will pray to Jesus. Do we pray to the Holy Spirit? Is that okay? That's another thing that comes up. But what Paul tells us is we have access and one spirit to the Father. I personally generally pray to God the Father, and I will talk with Jesus at times. But generally, if I'm doing some sort of formal prayer, I will talk to God the Father, because that seems to be the model that we see in the New Testament, right? Even in the Lord's Prayer, it says, Our Father, who art in heaven. So it starts with our Father. That seems to be the model that's most common in the New Testament. Do I think it's wrong to pray to Jesus or even to pray to the Holy Spirit? I would say no, because they're members of the Godhead. One God in three distinct persons. I don't think it's wrong. I just think that the model that we see in the New Testament, the most common form of prayer, goes to God the Father. That's just a little something to point out there in the text, a little something specific there.

       Verse 19, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (ESV).

       The saints there might strictly be referring to the Jewish people, but it also might be referring just to everyone who has believed in God up to that point, which would include other Gentiles. And again, he uses the word or the phrase household of God. And that's an interesting thing to think about there, because if we remember in the gospel, as a matter of fact, I'll pull it up here. John 14:2, 3. Jesus said, “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (ESV). But he says he calls God's abode in heaven a house. Now, from a Jewish perspective, back at that time in the first century, a house would not just refer to the physical house, the material house like we think about, in our 21st century American mindset. It would also refer to the household, the people, the brothers, the sisters, the wife, everyone in that house. So it's not just physical house building focus, but it's also focused on the people of that house.

       If we go back to Ephesians, so when he says we are members of the household of God, that's like the highest compliment you can give someone, right? To say you are part of my household. That means basically that that includes my physical material house, but it also includes my possessions, my money, my relations, any people in my household, like children or wife, whatever that is, you're part of that, God's saying. That ties into the concept that Paul talks about elsewhere of adoption, right? We are adopted into God's family. This also reminds me of what Jesus said, and let me pull that verse up. If we go two more chapters over from where we were just a minute ago to John chapter 16, if we look at verse 15, Jesus said to the disciples, “All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (ESV). Now, he's talking about the teachings, the things that the Spirit of God is going to reveal to us, which is fulfilled in the rest of the New Testament. That's the context. But if you take the idea of that, Jesus is the rightful heir of God the Father, and he's the son of God the Father. So when we come into the family of God, we become sons and daughters, remember Paul will say, co-heirs with Christ. So that means that all the benefits the Son has, we ourselves have. I mean, that's really, really incredible when you really start to ponder that. And that shows the tremendous value that God the Father places on each person who believes in him to elevate them to that status. That's incredible.

       Now, if we go over to that verse where Paul says, let me pull that up because we're jumping around a little bit. So it's actually Romans chapter 8 and verses 16 and 17. So it starts, Paul says, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” Then verse 17, “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” Then it says, “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (ESV). So some, a few, let's say, theologians think that there's a distinction there where we have to actually suffer or go through certain things to gain a more in-depth blessing with Christ. They would say that there's something about that heir part with Christ that is not the same for everyone, so that everyone does not obtain that co-heirs with Christ status, if you will. That I've seen recently. I was never taught that. I was always taught, basically, there are key elements that are the same for everyone.

       Now, it is also true that we obtain different levels of rewards based on what we do in this life, or perhaps how faithful we are to the work that God has given us to do, sort of like, to use a governmental analogy, sort of like an electoral college, where in the electoral college, each state has equal weight, right? So the more populated states don't get greater say. Well, if you take that kind of idea, it would be like, have you been faithful to the work assigned to you? And if that person over here was assigned a small amount of work, but was really faithful in that small amount. So comparing that person who had a large amount of work, so like a one-talent versus a ten-talents person to pull up that parable from Jesus. Those two people perhaps might be weighted equally because of their faithfulness toward their work, if you will. But is there a distinction in being, is being a co-heir with Christ something that everybody achieves, or is that something that's only reserved for those who suffer with him? I think it's something that everybody receives.

       I would not make that specific distinction and say, well, there's greater heirs and that there's co-heirs with Christ, and then there's like heirs that are lesser that only get a few things or one thing. I don't think I would follow that line of theology personally, but that is a thing that I've seen that is out there, but it's really amazing when you think about these things. One cool thing you can do that I've found is helpful is to just make a list of the benefits of this, that, or the other. In this case, if you make a list of the benefits you have in Christ, you could make a list of the present benefits that you're experiencing while here on the earth, but also make a list of those benefits that you will receive when you pass away and you go home to be with Christ, like was just mentioned there in John chapter 14, where Jesus says, “ and my father's house.” So that what we get there obviously is reserved for that time. That's not a blessing, a benefit that we are experiencing right now, but that is something that God, that he's working on right now, that's going to be in store for us, no pun intended, when we get there, right? But using pencil and paper or your tablet to jot those things down and just, you can even create a permanent list that you refer to from time to time to see those things, to be reminded of those things. Because we see them sprinkled throughout Paul's letters, sprinkled throughout the New Testament, but if we compile them together, it can give us a more concentrated picture of that.

       Anyway, let's go back to Ephesians 2. And go to verse 20 . So I'll back up a little bit, “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” (ESV).

       He mentions two groups there. The apostles. That includes the apostles and the New Testament. So how many apostles are there? Well, there are 12, right? Or are there 13? That's the debate there. But Jesus had his original 12 disciples. Judas was the traitor. He's not included in that. The early, early church there at the beginning of Acts chose Matthias to replace Judas by the direction of Peter. Some recognize that as a legitimate action by the early church. Some think Peter was jumping the gun, that he should have chilled out, waited a second for God to bring that into fruition. And some think, well, really number 12 is the Apostle Paul. That can be debated, but let's just say it's the 11 plus Matthias, and then Paul is also included in that as an apostle. There might be others that we would classify as apostles, perhaps people we don't even know about because the record has been lost. But the apostles, regardless, seem to be an exclusive group of people that was limited to this early time when the scriptures were still being written, when everything was being set up for the new covenant, the new way. I personally would not say that there have been any apostles after the Apostle John left the earth, presumably, unless he's still here somewhere, or any apostles after him or anybody after that that would be called an apostle. Of course, people differ on that classification.

       But the second group that Paul mentions are the prophets. Those are primarily your Old Testament prophets—all the old Jewish prophets. And it's an interesting tie-in. Now, all the apostles were Jewish. Yeah, Luke was a Gentile; we might classify him as an apostle. We might not, but he was not one of the part of the 12, right? Luke is not part of the 12. So arguably all the apostles are Jewish, but it still shows that because it's taking place as the Gentiles are included, the apostles are for the Jews and the Gentiles, the prophets were for the Jews pretty much. It ties in to what Paul has been discussing in this section, the marrying together of the two. We had the prophet when Jesus was a child, remember, and God told that person they wouldn't die until they saw God's son. I don't even remember where that's at exactly. Might be Luke. But you have that prophet there in the New Testament.

       And then you have, Paul talks about prophets and what is it? 1 Corinthians chapter 14, I want to say. Is that right? Let's see. Yeah. So in 1 Corinthians 14, tapping over there, he gives a church order standard for prophecies within the body of Christ. Again, this is one of those areas where some people think this part is done, that we've moved past this. And then some think, no, it's still present in our current day. And some think perhaps it's still present in our current day, but it depends on the culture, right? If that particular society or culture is new to the faith or hearing Christianity for the first time or relatively for the first time, maybe God uses prophecies and stuff like that, and that's dreams, visions, that work to bring those people to himself, like I'm hearing about. And this has been a thing that I've been hearing probably for the last 10 years, but God using dreams or visions in the Islamic world with Islamic people where Jesus appears in their dreams, and people are believing in Jesus through that.

       So I don't think we want to take a firm, hard line and say, no, God does not use prophecies or anything like that whatsoever in our current time. I don't think that would be wise. But for our purposes in 21st century America in the Evangelical church, it's not something that I see very often at all, if hardly ever, and I would be very cautious with that because I don't think it's something that we really need. I don't think it's something that most of the time is going to provide us with any benefit. We have the whole New Testament, we have all kinds of translations, we have all kinds of Bible teachers, we have so many resources, and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think it's something that God uses with the Evangelicals, at least here in the United States, a tremendous amount.

       But that being said, we also have to be careful where if we were allowing that commonly, it just seems to me like anytime I've heard stories or perhaps watched things online or whatever it is, it seems like there's a lot of error that comes out to play and a lot of problems that come into the picture when you open that door. If it's happening organically, naturally, in a certain society or culture, that seems to be the way God uses it. But if it's something that we are trying to conjure up or even force onto the scene, we got to be very, very careful we don't want to be led astray by false things. Like, for instance, a common one is people trying to predict when the Rapture is going to happen or even the second coming of Jesus. Jesus already told us that the second coming that nobody knows that. Even when he was on the earth, he said he didn't even know it. The angels didn't know it. Only God the Father knew it. And that could be true as well with the Rapture. That's something that nobody knows, but perhaps the Godhead. And it could even be somehow that God the Father himself reserves that for himself. I don't want to get into that.

       But I'm just saying that we've got to be careful. We don't want to listen to that kind of stuff where people are saying, oh, no, this is when the Rapture is going to occur. This one second coming is going to occur. It's going to be on this date or in this time. Hold up. We're always supposed to be ready for the Rapture. And if we're walking in righteousness, if we're in communion with God on a daily basis, if we have that fellowship with him, naturally we should be automatically ready when that happens. We don't need to know the specific day. Because when God shifts his focus back to the Jews, that everything's going to change anyway. We're supposed to be holding on to this life with a loose grip. We don't want to have a too tight a grip onto this life where if Jesus looks down from the clouds and calls our name and it's time for the Rapture, that we're grieved and disappointed and upset by that because we love this life too much. And I think meditation in our Christian lives is something that we can put into practice that helps us to be focused on the heavenly things, to be a little detached from this world. I think when we practice that meditation, it helps us to cultivate a better mindset and a better detachment from things. That's something that is a good practice, I think, to put into place for people who aren't already doing that.

       Now, in Ephesians 2, going back here. So, “apostles and prophets,” I would like to quickly throw in here, this is something that the Eastern Orthodox Christians do well. This is something that they understand well, and that is the honoring of the apostles and understanding the contributions and works of the apostles. That’s something that we could probably as Evangelical Christians perhaps learn a little bit better from them. Because that, of course, with the whole breaking away from the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church back in the 1500s there under Martin Luther, when that occurred. There was obviously a great pulling away from that kind of stuff. Definitely from the paintings on the church walls, from any icons, anything like that. And I'm not saying we should necessarily have those things, but the spirit of it, the idea of it, of honoring the apostles, of knowing the apostles' stories, there's nothing wrong with that, of having a good grasp of the apostles and our minds and our spirits. Just something that I wanted to throw out there.

       So “Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” And speaking of the Roman Catholic Church, that's where we differ is we hold Jesus Christ as Evangelicals as the foundation, that cornerstone piece of the building, from which everything else flows. There are some people that think, no, that's the Apostle Paul, right? Paul wrote 12, 13 books in the New Testament. He's our cornerstone. No, Paul said in the beginning of 1 Corinthians, that's not him. That’s basically what he said. It should always be Christ Jesus, right? Jesus Christ. That's something that I think the Anabaptist Christians understand well. Their focus is on the Sermon on the Mount. That's where a lot of their theology, their thinking stems from. Okay, but that comes from Jesus. That's Jesus in that particular sermon was contrasting in a lot of ways that Old Testament perception of God the Father with how God the Father really is. We were just talking about this a couple of days ago in my Bible study. And that is how it is—that’s he's the cornerstone. We would not say the Pope is the cornerstone or the Apostle Peter is the cornerstone. It always is Jesus. And I don't want to dog on the Catholics here. I would not say that a lot of them would even necessarily say that. But because of the way we as Protestants, as Evangelicals now, the way we broke away from the Catholic Church, we definitely shy away from any type of earthly leader for the whole church or any kind of earthly system that would hint at being the cornerstone. I think a lot of Roman Catholic believers would say that it is Jesus Christ. But something to keep in mind as we live out our lives, as we structure our thinking, when we study Christian theology and church stuff and all that.

       Verse 21 and 22 are final verses for today: “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” (ESV).

       We already went over at length being joined together, but the emphasis I want us to focus on is grows into a holy temple and the Lord. And that's the thing about the Christian life, is it's a life of constant growth. And that's not a negative thing. I don't want you to think when I say that it's a life of constant disciplinary action. That's not what I mean by that. But it's a, when we say grow, it means we become better, right? We learn new ways to do things better. We learn to be more pleasing to God as we learn how to better carry ourselves out in our lives. It’s not that we become a Christian and then three to six months later, after we've read the New Testament three times, that now we're totally awesome and we understand everything and we're done. Now, there are a lot of Christians, even in the Evangelical world, who probably feel they arrived after six months and maybe have even parked there. But that's not something we want to do. We never want to park our car. We want to keep the wheels rolling. There's going to be seasons where we're just going a little bit of distance. We're moving kind of at a slow pace. And then probably most likely when the trouble hits might be a season where we gain a lot of ground in our growth, where we go a farther distance. Hopefully we don't put the car in reverse and go backwards when a major problem arises. That's not what we want to do.

       Trouble happens in everyone's life, whether you're a Christian or not. It's not personal to us, although Satan certainly will focus on us at times, on particular churches or particular individuals within the body, because he's trying to destroy people's lives to mess things up, so that can provide unique challenges. But the whole point of this growing is to become holy, a holy temple in the Lord, Paul says. So Paul's focus really is not individualistic. He has that collective focus. And again, you see that when the church, when individual members grow within the body of Christ, and a big picture perspective, looking at it from a ways off, that gives the church as a whole, when you have individual members that are more mature in Christ, a good reputation, a good group photograph, if you will, a good group picture there. When people are responding and just carrying out their normal lives in a growth mindset, and then when people are just responding to the problems and growing from those. That's what Paul wants, a holy temple in the Lord. If everybody's popping the car in reverse and going backwards, that picture's going to be ugly when it's taken. And even when a few people are doing that, that negatively affects the whole body. That is poisonous and can rub off onto other people. When one person, even if it's like a minister, if that person falls, that can defile and cause negative consequences to many. Stuff like that.

       Interestingly, and I'll bring this up real fast, because as I was talking about this, it just crossed my mind. It’s a book that I've read, and oh, it's been a while now, probably a year and a half to two years ago, that I read it, but I'll pull it up real fast. This is a good book. I think it's worth a read for those of you who are into this, for those of you who are into the psychological stuff. It’s called ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,’ and this is by Carol S. Dweck. I think that's how you say it. I've read this book once. It definitely shows the advantages to having that growth mindset. It is a secular book, so bear that in mind. But it is, if you need to be convinced or need to have to jog that mind on the importance of growth, I think that's a good resource there to read.

       But verse 22 again, “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (ESV). He's talking specifically about the Ephesian church. And when he says being built up together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit, well, what does that mean? Well, obviously, it could mean different things. It could mean that when the church collectively meets, we might say that the Spirit of God is present in that meeting. So maybe they'll have a stronger awareness of that. It could also mean in our individual lives as we become more mature in Christ, as we individually grow, that we will have a stronger sense of the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives and dwelling us. I think that that is something definitely to think about there. We remember that the Apostle Paul told the Romans, tie in Romans chapter 8 back in verse 16, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (ESV). And perhaps this is something in Ephesians that becomes more stronger, more obvious, or more stronger feeling to us as we become more mature in Christ. Just throwing that out there.

       And it's also true that collectively, once we are in the next life, because we were built up, because we grew, when we are dwelling physically with God, obviously with the Holy Spirit, we are a more mature, better group of believers dwelling with God. Now, of course, God makes us perfect when we leave this life. But the point is there's also some benefit, although we may not be able to understand it entirely or articulate it perfectly. And that God does want us to grow in this life so that when we are in the next life, that has benefit in his eyes. He's definitely pleased by that. We may have benefit that we don't quite understand that we can't put our finger on . But when he says being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit, see, if we're mature in Christ by the time we leave the earth and then collectively as a group in heaven, there's something to that perhaps that when God is dwelling with us by the Spirit, including the Holy Spirit there, that there's an advantage benefit to our maturity, to our growth that was achieved in this life. Just something to kind of kick around in your mind to think about there at the end.

       Yeah, I think that's going to wrap up things for today. That was definitely an interesting discussion. And obviously one that moved more towards a heavenly direction, if you will. So guys, next time we'll pick up at the beginning of chapter three. We've got to remember, too, that this peace that we have with God currently as Christians, that as we've been talking about today, nobody has to be a stranger or an alien. Anybody can become part of the household of God, as Paul talked about. Anybody can choose to believe in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for their sins, and his resurrection from the dead. Anybody can choose to believe in that and come into personal relationship with God right now, today, and make that choice and become part of this household with God. Doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen to us if we do that. As stated, that happens whether you believe in God or not.

       But the point is that when we know God, life is way better. It only benefits us to be growing in maturity, to becoming more like Jesus as we live out our lives, because that strengthens our relationship with God. And then it's only going to allow us to relate to others better, and really for others to like us more at the end of the day, to be truthful. Now, sure, not everybody's going to like us for that choice, but the people who are real, who are really no God, and are trying to do that themselves, they'll be the ones that we get to have fellowship with. So guys, anyone can make that choice today, and I encourage anyone out there who's not made that choice to seriously consider doing that. So that'll be good enough for today, and peace out, guys.

- Daniel Litton