This happens really naturally in some cases.
If you're in the Army and you meet someone, you are a private first class or corporal or major or general.
I've not been in the Army.
Some of you know better than I, right?
But I know in the academic world, well, I'm a 1L at the law school.
Some of us don't even know what a 1L is, but that's a designation.
If you're in the law school, it just means, okay, now I know where you fit.
Now I know.
In the medical system, I'm a second-year medical student.
I'm a first-year resident.
I'm a chief resident.
I'm a fellow.
I'm a super fellow.
I'm an extra super fellow.
I don't know what all the titles are.
But there are all these places, right, that sort of say this is who we are.
And there are some of those cultures where it's very stratified and very clear, right?
But when you walk into a social setting, what does it look like?
I think in our culture, it's often that we gravitate towards what we do or what achievements
we've had.
But you know what?
That hasn't always been true.
There are times past, and even other cultures today, where the most important thing to introduce
yourself is, you know, I'm Duncan McLeod from the Clan McLeod, if you've ever seen, you know.
Anyway, that's a cultural reference.
If you missed it, just let it go by.
You're introducing, this is my father.
You know, I'm a part of this family.
And that's how you introduce yourself.
I'm from this family.
At some time in history, you would just say, I'm from this town.
I've noticed that people who've lived in Connecticut all their lives say that.
I'm from Bridgeport.
I'm from New Haven.
I'm from West Haven.
For some of us who are from outside, we're like, West Haven to New Haven, isn't that like
really close?
No.
They are different towns and different.
And it means something to say that's where you're from.
All this to say that who we are, these dynamics of how we introduce ourselves and who we are
expose a question of our own sense of identity and our desire and longing for a place of belonging
in this world.
Of course, we recognize that sometimes we don't feel like we belong.
And we don't really know who we are or how we fit in, do we?
I remember I worked with, this is a fairly trivial instance, but I used to work in campus ministry
over at Yale.
And I worked for an organization called CRU, Campus Crusade for Christ.
It's a great organization.
Loved it.
Mostly, it's big in the South and the Midwest.
It's not so big in the Northeast.
And so I went to my national staff training in 1996.
I went to the national staff training.
And there was a handful of us from the Northeast, right?
And then there were hundreds of people from other parts of the country.
And I was at that point from Rhode Island.
And I kept introducing myself.
Like, hi, I'm Matt.
I'm from Rhode Island.
And people would nod and smile and say, okay.
Like, they didn't even know where it was.
And then I met this girl from Idaho.
And we had this deep moment of commiseration about, oh, you're also from a state that nobody
knows where it is.
Until she looked at me and said, but at least Rhode Island is an island.
I mean, you can point to it on the map.
And I didn't have the heart to say, Long Island is not the same place as Rhode Island.
So I experienced it more profoundly the year after college.
I graduated and I moved from suburban New Jersey and Princeton down to Trenton.
And I moved into a neighborhood that was primarily African American.
And I was a white college boy, post-college boy.
And I had a roommate who was from Spain and a roommate who was Asian American from Southern
California.
And we lived together.
And the first Saturday after we moved into our apartment, we decided to go out our door.
We turned left and walked down the street.
And it was quite an experience for us because we felt very much like, man, did we not belong?
And this was deeply embedded on us because after having walked for quite a while and met
some very interesting people in our neighborhood, a police car pulled up and beckoned to us, hey,
come talk to me.
And the cop rolled down his window and he looked at us, what are you doing here?
And we were like, we moved into the neighborhood.
This is where we live now.
And the cop said, and the cop was Caucasian.
So let's just be on, you know, above.
He looked and said, I wouldn't walk down the street in daylight with a gun by myself.
Do you want to ride home?
And we said, no, no, no, it's okay.
This is our neighborhood.
And, you know, as I came to learn, if I were a cop, I might not walk down that street either.
Given the tension between the cops and the neighborhood, there were some reasons why the cop might have
been afraid of that neighborhood.
But we actually made some friends in the neighborhood.
And we found that there were ways for us to reach out and connect even though, but we stood
out so clearly as feeling like, man, we do not belong here.
And I wonder if you feel like that in your context, in your life.
I wonder if you felt that sense of, where do I belong?
We live in a political moment in our culture and in our nation where it's pretty easy to
wonder, do I belong?
Am I going to be accepted here because of my race, because of the country I come from,
because of my gender?
All of these questions seem to have been put on the national stage for us.
Do I belong?
Will I be accepted here?
Our passage today points us in some directions of what the Bible has to say to us about this.
So go ahead and let's look at Ephesians together.
We're going to read our passage.
I'm actually going to read the whole section, as Nick mentioned last week.
Chapter 2, verse 11 through 22 is one section.
We're taking two weeks to talk about it.
And actually, as we talk about it, just remind those of you who've been here and just to point
out the flow of thought briefly for those of you who haven't.
Paul in chapter 1 writes this beautiful story, this beautiful picture.
It's not a story.
It's a beautiful picture describing all the richness of what God has done for his people
in salvation for Christians, all the things that God has done for us.
And then in the second half, he prays that we would see this and that we would know this
and that Jesus would be exalted in the middle of it.
And then in chapter 2, he goes back and he says, how did we get there?
And he uses this pattern in chapters 1 through 10 of, you once were this, but now in Christ,
God has made you this.
And that's a similar pattern that we see here.
You once were this, look at me and now I'll just, he said, you once were aliens and strangers
outside of the people of God.
But now because of what God has done in Christ, which Nick just beautifully pictured for us
last week, what God has done for us in Christ is broken down the divisions of people so that
now those who are far off and those who are near can all come together in one new thing
that God is making.
And this leads us to the passage that we're going to focus on tonight, verses 19 through 22.
So let's read this together.
Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called
the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.
Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
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.
And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone
in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Lord, in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Lord, we ask you that you would help us as we look into this word.
Lord, to capture our hearts with the glory and the beauty of it,
of the truth that it tells us about who we are because of what you have done.
Lord, I pray you would help us to do this.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Well, as we look at this passage, we see that God has given us this new identity,
this new place in the world as being God's people.
And in this new identity, we find that there is a greater glory than we ever could imagine.
There's a greater glory because we now belong.
And there's a greater glory because of the sense of privilege that we have to play a particular role in God's world.
And so this is what we're going to look at.
First of all, the sense of God's belonging and then the sense of privilege and how that,
the privilege of the role that God gives us.
So first of all, the glory that God gives us in sense of belonging.
One of the things you have a hard time seeing in your English translation,
but it's really fun when you read, this is one of the times when reading Greek is actually really fun
because six times there are words that are related to what is basically the word for house in Greek.
Right?
Six times.
Verse 19, you see it.
Right?
You are members of the household of God.
That's the most clear and evident one.
Six times.
I only have five on my page.
Maybe it's only five.
I might have missed one.
I only have five in my notes.
You skip down to verse 21.
He talks about this whole structure, this whole structure of something.
And that's another word for it.
The whole household.
Right?
And the whole household is being made into a house or joined together is the word that you see in your English translation.
But it's being sort of merged into this house is the idea.
And then verse 22, it says again, this is, this is, we're being built together.
That is becoming a household together to be a dwelling place.
And that's the last one.
To be a place where the house where someone dwells.
And in all of this language, what Paul is saying is the great place of belonging for this new person is that you are now in the household of God.
Okay.
What does that mean?
Well, if you are a Roman in the first century, you would have an idea of this in their culture.
A household was a much bigger concept.
Not just a nuclear family, but a much broader concept.
Right?
Where there was a head of the household.
And under that head, people lived in his care.
And it obviously meant his spouse, his children.
It likely meant his parents.
It may have very well meant an extended family, uncles, aunts, cousins.
It meant servants.
Even slaves were a part of the household.
One commentator says it like this.
In the Roman world of the day, to be a member of a household meant refuge and protection.
As much as the master provided, it also meant identity and gave security that came from a sense of belonging.
And so, whether you were a spouse, a child, or a servant.
If you met someone on the street and they say, who are you?
You know what their answer would be?
Oh, well, I'm from the household of Paulus.
I'm from the household of Stephanus.
I'm from the household of Joe Schmo.
You know?
Whatever it was.
Your household gave you an identity.
It said, this is where I belong in this society.
This is who I am.
And what Paul is reminding us tonight is that the amazing thing of what God has done for his people in Christ
is that he has made them, he has brought them in to say, you are part of my household.
I am the master who's taking responsibility for your protection, for your provision, for your identity, and for your belonging in the world.
You are now under me.
And this would have been amazing news to the Gentiles.
I don't want to rehash what Nick said last week, but as a Gentile, you were outside of all these things.
And the Jews looked at you and said, ew, ick.
You do all those detestable things.
And the Gentiles looked at the Jews and said, y'all are weird.
And I don't know what you do, but I don't want to be a part of that.
And then the gospel comes, and it begins to bring these people together in an amazing way.
And if you were the Gentile, and you were living in Jerusalem, and you looked at this physical temple that was in the middle,
that said, oh, to be a part of the people of God is centered around this building.
And you were a Gentile, you knew that you could stay at the outer edges, but you could never go in.
You could never go into the inner sanctum.
You could never truly belong to God.
Because there were walls and doors.
And behind those, there were laws and prescriptions and prohibitions.
Said you could never go in there.
And again, go back and listen to Nick's sermon.
But what God has done in Christ is said, those walls are gone.
The prohibitions are gone.
Now, the ick, ew people, and the why would I want to be a part of you people are now brought together into this one thing.
And God says, this is my household.
These are the people whom I love.
So what does this mean for us?
Well, first of all, it means there's a glory in belonging.
Friends, there are no green cards and no visas in the kingdom of God.
In Christ, you are brought into full citizenship.
There are no stepsisters and stepbrothers.
You are fully brought in and integrated into the family of God.
This is now my family under one God.
Okay, and here's the crazy thing.
Look around.
This is it.
These are the people.
It's not some ideal group out there that you can imagine in your head.
It's not some group of people that meet somewhere else that maybe you've seen on TV.
The household of God that he's called you to is us tonight.
This group of people.
This group of people in this city.
And it's an incredible thing that God wants us to treat with great value.
He wants us to love the church,
which means loving one another and saying,
these are the people whom Christ died for.
These are the people that God broke down the dividing wall between sinful men and God
and then between one another so that he might bring us together
into this one beautiful, diverse, crazy family.
It's not easy to do.
Jesus recognizes this and says,
there's a cost to following Jesus.
It may mean leaving all of your other identities behind.
Leaving behind your family.
Leaving behind your worldly success and ambition.
It might cost you that.
But he says,
what you find in the church is a hundredfold.
The riches of being with God's people.
All those other identities,
the little excursus.
It's not like you lose them completely.
You don't stop being a woman.
Or you don't stop being Caucasian.
Or you don't stop being from Poughkeepsie.
Or whatever it is.
Those things are not lost,
but they are relativized.
Or they are brought into.
And in fact,
they find the fullness of their expression and richness
in being in Christ and in the family of God.
When we see that being in Christ becomes the foundational identity,
all of those other things make more sense to us.
And we are able to live in them and out of them
towards one another
in ways that we sometimes struggle to apart from that.
How can we look at one another
and value one another as a family?
Think about how we can honor one another.
You know,
as I said earlier,
our culture often deals with identity
in terms of performance and role.
Like,
what's my job?
That sort of thing.
But recognize that that's not true for everyone.
So how do we think about how we address one another?
Oh,
who are you?
Where's your place on the pecking order?
No,
who are you?
How has God made you to be?
What has God done in your life?
One of the ways that we honor one another
in the family of God
is by simply saying,
hey,
how has God worked in your life?
As the first thing I want to know
about one another.
It's the first thing I want to know about you.
How has God worked in your life?
It's fun to know all those other things.
What football team do you like
and where are you from?
And as we get to know one another,
it would be much deeper.
Wow,
what does it look like
through the lens of your particular makeup
and all the richness of it
to be a follower of Christ?
How have you used that?
How can I learn from you about that?
But as we honor one another,
we're not threatened by one another.
We're not afraid of one another.
And we actually see God use us
in one another's lives
in beautiful ways.
And that's part of what God has called us to
as we recognize that
as we have this sense of belonging
in God's family,
he then invites us
to take hold of this
and to value it
and to love the church well.
Maybe some of you are here tonight
and you think,
I've tried the church thing
and I don't fit.
I don't fit in very well.
Well,
I have two things to say to you.
One,
the church has a long way to go
in living this out.
It's not always perfect.
And I want to acknowledge that.
And I want to say it's not good
and it's not right
when we don't accept one another
within the church
for reasons
that have nothing to do with
being a part of God's family or not.
But let me also say this more profoundly
because I think this is what Paul is saying to us
in Ephesians.
He said,
if you think you don't fit in the church,
you're wrong.
You do fit.
If you are in Christ,
God has called you
to be a part of the church.
Don't forsake it.
Don't give up on it.
Keep pursuing it
because God has called you
to be a part of his household.
and his household is experienced
in this age
in the church.
So love it
and give up
and don't give up on it.
But this passage goes on
and not only does he
address this sense of belonging
by saying,
yes,
you belong
in Christ.
You belong
because you've now been brought
into God's household.
But he makes this amazing thing,
this amazing argument
where he says,
now I have brought
the Jews in
with the Gentiles,
or the Gentiles in
with the Jews
to play a particular role
in the church.
And I want to talk
really briefly
about this history
just to put it together.
Because
when you read
through the Old Testament,
right,
you see God making
a special promise
to a special group of people
to say,
I'm going to bless you
and make you a great nation
and you will be my people
and I will be your God.
Now his purpose
has always been broader
than that
because he says,
I will make you a nation,
I will lift you up
to be a light
to the nations
so that the whole world
might know who I am
and might turn back to me.
That's throughout
the Old Testament.
But it's not that hard
to read the Old Testament
and to think,
man,
being Jewish
is really,
really special.
And if I'm not Jewish,
man,
I feel like I am
the outside
on the outside of this.
And so,
in this argument,
Paul says,
look,
God is bringing together
this new work.
You who once were alien,
foreigners and strangers,
what's the language
he uses in this?
It's translated differently
in different,
you are strangers
and aliens.
You aren't welcome.
You aren't from here.
You who used to be
those people.
You are now brought in.
You are fellow citizens.
You are members
of the household.
But then he goes on.
Verse 20,
you are built
on the foundation
of the apostles
and the prophets.
He's saying,
this people,
you,
we as Gentiles,
I'm assuming almost
all of us are Gentiles here,
we now have been brought
into something
that's a much bigger river
than we've ever imagined.
It's not just,
now I love Jesus
and now I know God
and that's great.
But I'm a part of this
whole sweep of history
where the prophets
beforehand talked about
what does it mean
that there is a God
in the world
who is calling
a people to himself
from every tribe
and tongue and nation.
And God did this
through the whole Old Testament
and in the whole Old Testament
the prophets speak
of this God
and this salvation
and how he's going to do it
in beautiful
and wonderful ways.
And we as Gentiles
ought to have
a great sense of privilege.
I can't believe
that I get to be
a part of this.
It's like marrying
Prince Harry.
I get to be a part
of the royal household
of the British Empire.
Yet so much better
than that.
So he says that,
look, not only are we
standing on the shoulders
of Peter and John
and Paul,
but we're standing
on the shoulders
of Abraham and Moses
and David as well.
And the beautiful thing
of this sense of privilege
of being a part
of God's people
is that it's not something
that we can really think
highly of ourselves about.
Because we just heard,
if you've been here
for a while,
we've just heard
in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9
that our entrance into this
is by grace,
through faith,
not of yourselves,
not of works,
so that no one may boast.
The thing that should
characterize the sense
of privilege we have
as Christians
to be God's people
is humility
that God would save
people like us.
Not self-righteousness,
not triumphalism,
not condemnation,
but humility
that God would save
something like us.
and then
he ratchets it up
one more
in verse 20
and he,
sorry,
in verse 21
and he says,
not only this,
but we've inherited
the purpose
that God had
for his people
throughout all history.
Think back.
When Moses
was leading the people
out of Egypt
and out of slavery
and as God
was ordering
the people
and as they camped,
in the center
of the camp
there was what?
A tabernacle.
It was a big tent
and in the center
of the tent
what was there?
There was a special place
and do you know
what dwelt there?
The very glory of God.
God himself
expressed his presence
among his people
in a tangible way
so that the whole nation
would know
as much as the
so that all the nations
but the nation of people
that his people
would know
I am in your midst
and I will dwell
among you.
And then hundreds
of years later
when they finally
moved into Jerusalem
and established
the capital
and built in the center
of it a temple
and in the center
of the temple
with all the barriers
there was a holy of holies
and in that holy of holies
the glory of God
descended.
First Chronicles 7.
Look it up.
And one of the most
tragic moments
in the whole Old Testament
is in Ezekiel 10
where the prophet Ezekiel
has a vision
of the temple
and the glory of God
departing
from his people
and leaving them.
And it leaves
the Old Testament
with this great cliffhanger.
Where is God
going to show himself
to be among his people?
Look at verse 21
with me again.
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.
Friends,
not only are the people
around you
the household of God
that you have been
brought into
but the people
around you
us together
as we gather
corporately
we are the dwelling
place of God
in this age.
People say
where is God
in the world?
Do you know
where God dwells?
He dwells among
his people.
He dwells actually
in his people.
And he does this
by his Spirit.
This is one of the
incredible promises
of the new covenant era
of the time
post-Jesus
is that God himself
will come
and indwell believers.
And he indwells us
individually
and as we gather
together
the glory
that dwelt
in the center
of the tabernacle
the glory
that lived
in the Holy of Holies
is now meant
to be seen
burning in our hearts
and on display
as we gather
together
in worship.
It is an incredible
privilege
that we would be
the place
between now
and what is to come
where God is showing
his glory
in this world.
And we know
one day
because Revelation 21
tells us this
Revelation 21
1-5
one of the most
important passages
in all of scripture
talking about how
one day God will
make everything new
and there will be
no more tears
and no more
because a new heavens
and a new earth
will come down
and God is going
to bring it all
together
and there won't
be the separation
anymore
and in the middle
of it
the angels
announce
now the dwelling
place of God
is with man
and in a way
that I can't even
fathom
God himself
is actually going
to live among us.
The only parallel
I know
is what I could only
imagine it was like
for Adam and Eve
when they walked
with God
in the cool of the day
but we know
that that will be true
and that's the end
but in the meantime
God has called
his church
to be the place
in which
he shows
his presence
in this world.
This is the dwelling
place of God
and it is an incredible
privilege
and an incredible
thing
that God has done.
So how are we
to respond to this
in closing?
First of all
we should be
in awe
of this.
You wake up
in the morning
to think
I'm a part
of the dwelling
place of God
among this world.
Do you ever think
that?
I don't.
Usually
I'm like brushing
my teeth.
You know
but to stop
and to think
this is part
of what God
has called me
into
when he's
called me
into Christ.
The awe
of that
also comes
with a little
bit of
fearsomeness
because the
fearsomeness
of it
is that
God has
called us
as the dwelling
place
to live
in a way
that reflects
this God.
In some ways
the book of
Ephesians
is a beautiful
picture of it.
The first
three chapters
are about
who we are
what God
has done
for us
and how
he has
called us
to be
his people
and then
in chapters
4-6
he says
okay now
that you
know who
you are
let me
tell you
how to
live.
So he's
going to
say
church
live in
unity
with one
another.
Church
grow in
godliness
in grace.
Church
learn how
to control
your tongue
and to
curb your
anger
and how
to be
kind
and gentle
to one
another.
How to
use words
to build
up
and not
tear down.
He's going
to instruct
us on
how to
live in
our very
core
relationships
as husbands
and wives
and parents
and children
for the
glory of
God
that we
would be
his people
in a
distinctive
way
because
God has
called us
to be
his special
people.
That doesn't
make us
great but
it does
put on us
a great
obligation
a great
burden in
some ways
for us
to live
this out.
But friends
this is the
great joy
is that
in Christ
God has
brought us
into his
household
and he's
made us
his dwelling
place.
A membership
in God's
family has
great
privileges
and great
responsibility.
Some of
you who
have read
the passage
carefully
are like
you missed
the most
important part.
I didn't
miss it.
I just
left it
to the
end.
The
foundation
of this
how do
we know
this is
true?
Because
it is
built
ultimately
on the
cornerstone
of Jesus
Christ
himself.
When you
lay a
cornerstone
I'm not
a builder
I've been
told
when you
lay a
cornerstone
the
cornerstone
sets the
lines for
the building
in every
direction.
If the
cornerstone
is level
the building
will be
level.
If the
cornerstone
is set
right
the walls
will be
straight
the angles
will be
proper
and the
building
will be
strong.
Jesus
Christ
his life
his death
his resurrection
his perfect
obedience to
the father
his love
in saying
I will
die for
sinners
in their
place
his resurrection
from the
dead
his victory
over sin
and death
is all
a work
whereby
he has
won
to himself
a people
and is
grounded
in that
and in
that we
find our
place of
belonging
and we
find our
greatest
identity
and in
that
in
Jesus
Christ
we now
have the
most
important
thing
where we
can live
from
and live
out of
so
friends
I hope
you're
encouraged
tonight
if you
have put
your faith
in Christ
these
things are
true of
you
you are
members
of the
household
of God
you are
the dwelling
place
where God
in his
by his
spirit
lives
in this
world
to be
his
agents
to be
the place
where he
displays
his glory
and at
the center
of it
all is
Jesus
and so
let us
continue
to make
him
the center
of all
that we
are
for his
glory
let's
pray
Lord thank you
for this
word and for
the encouragement
that it is
thank you for
the great work
that you've
done for us
in Christ
Lord we pray
that as we
go from here
that we would
remember
Lord that we
remember Christ
that he is
the great
foundation upon
which
the lives
of all
Christians
are built
Lord I
pray that
as we see
this great
gift that you
have given
us I pray
if there's
anyone here
tonight
Lord who
has not
put their
faith in
Christ
Lord I
pray that
they would
consider and
see what a
great thing
God has
done
Lord that
they would
come to
him in
faith and
humility
Lord I
pray for
those tonight
who maybe
have lost
their awe
and wonder
at being a
part of
God's
people
Lord who
feel
alienated
and strangers
within
God's
people
Lord will
you encourage
them tonight
with this
word
we pray
this in
Jesus name
Amen