Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 2, find verse 19. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy word of God. Verse 19. Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God. in the spirit. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we thank you for these truths that are laid before us to guide us, to shape us into a glorious church after your own design. Lord, we thank you for guiding us. Thank you for not leaving us alone. to make all these things up out of our own brains, but you've given us direction, so thankful for that, amen. Please be seated. As you know, we've taken a pause in our studies in the book of Revelation to take some time to examine the doctrine of the church When we get back to Revelation, you'll find that there'll be continuity as we find ourselves back in Revelation 20 and 21 and 22, which is really the crescendo of this whole series on the church and we'll find what God was doing all along with the church and the glorious consummation of God's love for his people. And so we will return to Revelation in time. But here we are in Revelation, or I'm in Ephesians chapter two, and in this passage, in verse 19, you find these three descriptive metaphors of the church. They all tell us the same thing, that the church is a treasure. They reveal her beauty, they reveal her complexity, they tell us the purpose, they give us a sense of her functionality and what she does. And they teach us all how to relate to the church of Jesus Christ. And this is so significant for us as a local church. Because all of us are involved in a building project. And we're using God's blueprints. And so when we come to these metaphors of the church, we see the beautiful textures and colors of these metaphors. And they show us how precious the church of Jesus Christ is. One of my motives for engaging in this study is that I want you to see in a fresh way how valuable the church of Jesus Christ is. Of course, I want us to see how we ought to relate to her. But what's happened is that God has brought his children into a kingdom. It's an institution and we are included in this kingdom, this nation, this household, this building. And so these metaphors are helpful because they show us, they show this church what we're doing and what we're actually building together so that we're just not building our own little kingdom. Even in this church that can happen. people come to the church with their own ideas, idolatrous ideas often about what the church should be. They think it's all about them, or they think it's like a food court. They think wrongly about the church, and so we're here to try to set down these pillars of truth. So I want us to take a fresh look at the church. But I, more than anything, I want us to see how precious the church is. And I want us to see the richness of what we have in the church. I want you to see the richness that we have in the church because there's something holy going on in his church. And so it's very, very practical in that sense. So, On the one hand, I want all of us to see what we have in the church. But on the other hand, I want anyone who is here to see what they're missing. If either A, they're not treating the church as she was intended to be treated, or B, if they're really not part of the church. If you're on the outside looking in, this can happen. You can go to church for years and still kind of feel like you're on the outside looking in. Most of the time, not always, most of the time that's because you're not in Christ. You're not really part of the church. You're just hanging out with the church. I also want to through these messages explain why you need a local church. Because there's no institution in the world more important than the church of Jesus Christ. The church is the only institution the Lord is building. The church is the only institution on the planet that the Lord is building, and you want to be a part of it with your whole heart, with both feet, not just one foot in and one foot out. It's not a human institution. It's not subject to human laws. It's divine, and the Lord Jesus Christ promised his disciples in Matthew 16, 19, which will become a critical text that we'll handle later, He said that the church will never fail. If you invest your life in the church, you're investing in what will not fail. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. Is that the way that you think about the church of Jesus Christ? She does seem frail, but she isn't. So far, we've engaged Three particular matters in this study on the church, and I just want to review them You have an outline in front of you. You can see where I'm going with this, but first I wanted to make sure that this church had a sense of Christ's love for the church and To put on the mind of Christ for the church. I want us I want us in this local church to put on the mind of Christ Not not our own minds But to think about the church the way that Christ thinks about the church. To love the church the way that Christ loves the church. And I went to some length to explain different ways that he loved the church. You know, Paul urges a church, the Philippian church, to have the mind of Christ. He says, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. So the first matter that we covered was Christ's love for the church. And my question, if you remember it, if you were here, was do you love the church like Jesus Christ loves the church? Do you think of her like that? And then the second deposit I wanted to make was to understand what we are. Because we are a group of sinners, of broken people, stones thrown on the ground. The church is the community of the converted. Conversion is really the first mark of Christ's love for the church. He converts sinners. And our text was 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 11, where the Apostle Paul talks about the Corinthian church and he says, some of you were homosexuals, some of you were idolaters and adulterers, and some of you were liars and thieves, but you're not like that anymore. He's saying that the church is a community of converted sinners who are being sanctified. And then thirdly, we discussed the diligence of a highly focused people. And we went back to Acts 2, verse 42, where we read that They steadfastly devoted themselves to four things. To the apostles doctrine, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. And these are the things that characterize Christianity. This is what the church does. And the church does it steadfastly devoted. In other words, the church is not something on the bypass. The church is on the main road of your life. The church is the main thing, and the devotion to these four things particularly is so pivotal in your life. You know, all of this really has to do with the high view of God. Jeffrey Johnson in his book, The Church, he begins the book by saying, a high view of God gives a person a high view of the church. A low view of God gives a person a low view of the church. But what we're dealing with here is a high view of the church. It's God's view of the church. And we've mentioned various metaphors too along the way just to help us think about it. Metaphors that the church is a body, the church is a temple, the church is an assembly, the church is a holy nation, the church is a flock, the church is a vine, the church is a kingdom of priests, the church is a pillar, it's the pillar and ground of the truth, and the church is a bride. Well, we'll get to that in Revelation when we loop back to Revelation. So let's look at these metaphors here in chapter two, verse 19 in Ephesians. And there are three in this one verse. We'll see how far we get. A nation, a family, and a building. So let's begin with the first metaphor. The church is a nation. We are fellow citizens with the saints. Now, we know from Peter that the church is also a holy nation. You bind these two together, the idea of a nation and citizens, you get the idea. The church is likened to a national entity. And this national entity is composed of fellow citizens who are saints, holy ones, ones who are living holy in Christ Jesus. and this is a kingdom, a nation. We're given these illustrations to help us understand divine things. These are earthly illustrations. There are many implications of this. One is that the church as a nation means that there's a distinctive people who exist as citizens of another kingdom. Most of you are citizens of the United States, not all of you. But you are fellow citizens of another kingdom. You're not just U.S. citizens. You are citizens of another kingdom. Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. And the church and her members are not part of the mass humanity in the way that everyone else is. The church does not take her instructions from the world. The church has no fellowship with the world. The church exists as strangers and aliens in the world. In fact, the kingdoms of the world are not usually very comfortable with the kingdom of Jesus Christ and her followers. They actually do not like the church growing in their kingdoms. At least, they might like the church, a kind of church to grow. But they do not want a holy church to grow in the world. And we have many illustrations of that. So, in a holy nation, It means that you're set apart for a particular purpose. So the church is set apart for a particular purpose. In the Bible you have various uses of this word holy. You have holy ground, you have a holy city, you have a holy mountain, you have a holy temple. All these things really speak of elements of this holy nation. And so the church, and this is very important to understand, you who are interested in church government and American government, the church is a separate state with its own polity. The church does not adopt the polity of the nations of the world. We'll get to matters of church government later on, but what is polity? Polity is a word It's a Greek word that means city. And it refers to administrative centers, which are, or cities in Greece, like Athens and Sparta. But polity refers to an administrative center. And that's why when we refer to church polity, we mean church governance and administration. But there's one thing that we need to recognize about polity. Polity implies separation and boundaries between nations and cities. There are different rules in different polities, different states. You even have to have passports to go from one country to another. And there are rules of immigration. And there are rules of citizenship. And this is the same thing with the Church of Jesus Christ. You know, some of our members are, we hope, are about to receive their U.S. citizenship from Canada. There's a reason that they wanted U.S. citizenship, and it had partly to do with polity, and it had to do with ecclesiology. And, you know, you've seen the news. We've been watching announcements of 190,000 Russian troops at the Ukrainian border. Well, there's a border there. There's a separation. There's a boundary. There's a nation there, and there are 190,000 troops poised on that border. Who knows what was going to happen? But every nation has property lines and boundaries, and so does the church. You need to know who's in and who's out, who's in that kingdom, who's in that nation, and who's out of that kingdom. Now, when we gather together, we always want to help people to understand whether they're in or out of the kingdom. We preach the gospel of the grace of God and the repentance of sins, and we celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday, and when we do that, we ask the unbelievers not to take, it would be taking in an unworthy manner, because there are boundaries, there are rules, there's separation, And even on a Sunday morning, the elders of this church plan to separate the flock to make the sheep understand who they are and the goats understand who they are. This is one of our great responsibilities, but we don't have an option. In a local church, you also have a family, a nation within a nation, and you have The kingdom of this world walks in the door with people who have not submitted to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God walks into the door. The nation, you have separate nations in a local church all the time. So the churches, is governed by its own polity and it's not governed by the polity of the secular state. The church cannot adopt the rules of the American Constitution or any worldly constitution. We don't operate the same way the state operates. Don't look for this church to operate like the American government. We don't care about the American government and the church. We care about the polity of the church. It's a nation. It's a nation with laws and boundaries and it's a distinct and holy nation. It's not like any other nation. And the whole flow really of Ephesians 2 is that you have These people that have come together as one, this is unity, that's really the focus. And you're no longer strangers, but you're fellow citizens and you're part of a kingdom. And when you're part of a nation, the citizens have duties and the citizens have privileges. This is also true of the church. I think the Lord gives us this illustration to help us understand that. You know, as Americans, we have privileges as Americans, and we have duties. They're things that we do as citizens of this nation. And what's very obvious is that nations treat their citizenry very differently. Christ treats his citizens very differently. Christ is the shepherd. He is full of grace and truth. He gathers his flock together and he loves them. He blesses them. He prospers his citizens. You know, and as American citizens, we have duties. We pay taxes. We obey civil laws. And the fellow citizens in the church also have their duties, which we'll elaborate on. You know, as Americans, if you're charged with a crime, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to counsel. You don't have that in all other nations. You're entitled to a jury. You don't get that in every nation in the world, but you get that here. We're beneficiaries of a very prosperous nation. We have the right to ownership of property. You don't have that in every nation the way that we have it here. Properties are confiscated in other nations. We have a brother in our church here who comes from a country where the confiscation of property is just the norm. That's what the government does. Here, it would be a great surprise, and it would cause a great uproar. But in some countries, you don't have that right to private property, at least until the government decides they want your property. So like the nations, The church has a unique culture. We are a nation within the nation. We operate completely differently than the rest of the world. But nations, they have their different cultures and local churches have cultures too. I often ask, what's the trajectory of the culture of this church? That's a question I always have to ask. Well, where is this church going? Because cultures really matter and the nations have different cultures too. You know, 10 years ago, Debra and I took, we went to the island of Barbados for our 30th wedding anniversary. We went there because the gospel came to Debra's family in the 1800s on the island of Barbados. And then so many of her family became Christians and I got to marry her. And so she grew up knowing the gospel actually in her family for generations. So we went to Barbados to go to the places where the gospel was preached to her relatives. But it was so interesting to go to that island. We noticed there were just very distinctive differences. One of the great differences was the way that the people in Barbados use their horns. I mean, you know how New Yorkers use their horns? That's not how the people in Barbados use their horns. In Barbados, they use their horns to say, after you. They use their horns to say, hello brother, please go in front of me. That's how they use their horns in Barbados. Well, cultures are different. And we wanna develop a Christian culture, a truly Christian culture in this church. It's different than the culture of the world. And it's a holy culture, it's a holy nation. And frankly, I'll just say it, the laws of this nation called the church are the best laws. They're the most wonderful laws that any institution has ever known. These laws are a blessing to all the people within the culture and also to the nations surrounding the culture who have a look in it. And it's very interesting, you know, even today, we have people in this room from Brazil and Sri Lanka and Canada and China and California and New York, different nations. And, you know, but we've all come into a different kingdom. You know, there is hope for New Yorkers. I don't know about Californians. But in every nation, there's a way to get in to that nation. You have to have a passport to become a citizen with the saints. You know where I'm going. There's only one way in. By faith. In Jesus Christ. Becoming a repenter of your sins. You must be born again. That's how you become a citizen. Of this kingdom. And you must be washed. You must be justified. and you're brought into a kingdom. To get in, you have to have your wedding clothes on. The bright white linen of the righteous robes of Jesus Christ, not your own righteousness, but his righteousness. You must be given a new heart to be in this kingdom. You know, Jesus said to Nicodemus, the wind blows where it wishes, but you must be born again. That's how you get into this kingdom. So, what should we say about this? The church is a kingdom, it's a nation, there are citizens. And there are, there's a culture to embrace. There are laws to be obeyed. There are duties as citizens and there are benefits as citizens. So if you are a part of this nation, this is your country, it has the best laws. settle in within her boundaries, embrace her people, embrace the fellow citizens of the saints. So the Lord does not want us to miss the diversities of the beauties of the nature of the church, and the church is a nation. So now, let's move to the next item here, the next metaphor. The church is not only a nation, but it's also like a family. Remember, these are illustrations. These are earthly illustrations to help us to understand who we are and what's happening with us. So the church is a family. You see the language here. We are members of the household of God. We are members of the household of God. The church is a family. Spurgeon said, don't you know there are mansions for homeless souls? Stones thrown on the ground, homeless souls brought into a home. So in this metaphor, we see the church from a different angle. The relationship we have with the state is a little bit different than we have with the family. The family is more personal, smaller. The metaphor of the state implies a general relationship and inclusion and entry with a large number of people. In a nation, you can't know everybody, but in a family, you do know everybody. There's implied here intimacy and knowledge, relationship, authority, all these things are mixed into this metaphor of the household of God. When you became a Christian, you became part of the household of God. and there are ways to operate within the church. The apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 3, 4, he says, I write these things that you might know how to conduct yourself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God. And there are many family rules. Families all have rules. And this family also has rules. But this family doesn't just have rules. This family has other things that bind us together. What is it that binds us together? We have the same father. God is our father. all of us together and we are his children. So this fellowship is very personal. In verse 18 in this chapter, we read, for through him we both have access by one spirit to the father. So we are a family and we have a father. And what do fathers do? Well, in the Bible, it's very clear what fathers do. They protect, they teach, they correct, they provide. That's what fathers do. And our fellowship is with the father and with his son. This is the brilliance of our lives together. We have a father and we also have been saved by his son. God, as somebody put it, is a family man. In the family of God, there's God the Father, there's God the Son, and there's God the Holy Spirit. And so this is how it is with God's household. It's very personal, but it's very real. When you're in a family, you know it. You know who your father is. And when you're in the church, in that family, you know who your father is. It's very personal. And how do you get in the family? You're adopted. You're adopted. In chapter one in Ephesians, we are told that he predestined us to adoption as sons. And so we're a family, and we were adopted, and we are children, we have brothers and sisters, and we know one another, and we get into this through adoption. And we know we've been adopted because something happens in our souls. In Galatians chapter four, verses four through seven, we're told what that is. How do you know that you have been adopted? And it's that your heart cries, Abba, Father. This is experiential. There's something in you that wants your Father in heaven. And you want His authority. And in, In Galatians chapter four, you have this remarkable, beautiful picture that the whole context is that a redemption price has been paid, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are born under the law. So you have the redemption, it's all part of this adoption and the price is paid and why that we might receive the adoption as sons in verse 6 in Galatians 4 and because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying out Abba father therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. So we were predestined for adoption as sons, that's Ephesians 1.5. And then we were redeemed for adoption, that's Galatians 4.5. And the Apostle Paul elaborates this when he is instructing the Roman church, and he says this, Romans 8, 15, he says, For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. There's a voice that cries out. It's a voice that is engaged by the spirit of God, and it's the voice in your heart that says, I have a father. He redeemed me. He adopted me. Now, when Paul says a cry out, it's not like lamentation. This is crying out like, oh Lord, thank you. I have a father. There are no truly fatherless people in the church. They have a father, but they also have spiritual fathers in the family. And they have spiritual mothers in the family. And nobody's without a family in the family of God. You might come from the most broken family in the county, in the world. And in Jesus Christ's family, you have a father in heaven. And the Bible actually calls the church your mother. The church is your mother. And then you have brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. You know, there's a very beautiful explanation of adoption in James Fisher's catechism. And the catechism goes with a pattern of a question and answer. And the first question is, what is adoption? And the answer is, adoption is an act of God's free grace. whereby we are received into the number and have all the rights and privileges of the sons of God. And then, and the next question is, what does the word adoption signify among men? And the answer is, it signifies taking of a stranger into a family and dealing with him as if he were a child or an heir. And then another question is, what is to be understood by special adoption? It is a sovereign and free translation of a sinner of mankind from a family of hell or Satan into the family of heaven. Isn't that great? Into the household of God with an investiture into all the privileges of the sons of God. The next question, by what act or authority is this translation accomplished? Translation from a family of hell to a family of heaven. By the act and authority of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And what is the instrument by which God receives of mankind into his family? What's the instrument? In other words, how? By the means and instrumentality of faith, you are children of God by faith. It goes on. I think there are over 50 questions on adoption. It's beautiful. Now Jesus spoke about what it means to be in his family. in Matthew 12, 46. There were people all over the place in Matthew chapter 12. He's talking to the multitudes. His father and mother are outside. Somebody says, hey, your father and mother and your brothers are outside, Jesus. And Jesus says, who's my mother? Who are my brothers? It's kind of a shocking thing to say. But then he stretched out his hand toward his disciples. And he said, here is my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. So behold your brothers, those who do the will of God. This is the family of God. The family of God is composed of the people who do the will of God. Of course not perfectly, but their heart's desire is the cry, oh Father, help me to walk in your ways. And the family member, the family member in the family of God is someone who has come out of the family of the world. And Paul makes that very clear in his instruction to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 17. He says, therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. Where? Into my family. And then he says, I will be a father to you You shall be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty You cannot be a part of the family of God until you have come out of the world You have no father unless you have renounced the father of this world You have no family in God unless you have entered into the true family of God through adoption, by faith, as evidenced by doing the will of God. That's how you know you're in the family of God. You know, all my life, since I read it in my teens, I've loved Psalm 84. It has to do with this family. How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. And this is the part that I love so much. Even the sparrow has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young By the way, the sparrows and the swallows, those are people. These are metaphors for people. Even your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. And then in verse four, blessed are those who dwell in your house. they will still be praising you. This is the family of God. It's the family of people who praise God. They get together and they thank God. They bless one another. They take the cup of blessing with which we bless. It's the family of God. So this is your family. You are brothers and sisters. And it's a family where everyone learns how to love with true love, because all of us learn false ways of love, false impressions, false emotions of love. And God brings us into his family to teach us what love really looks like and how it really works. And he provides this perfect environment of sinners, redeemed sinners. People with all kinds of false views of love come into the church. That's God's design. In other words, don't worry too much about the messiness that happens in the church. Don't worry about it. That's the way God designed it. He designed a lot of messed up people to come together and through sometimes sinning against one another, sometimes doing the wrong thing, they learn together as a family how to love. And it takes time. Here's an implication of this for single young people in our church, in this church. Often, young men and women, particularly when they get near the marriage age, they just feel really awkward. They don't know how to relate to each other. They're just not sure. They don't want to be too forward. They don't want to be too backward. They don't want to be too this. They don't want to be too that. But here's the answer. Here's the answer. Treat one another like brothers and sisters. God has given you the way. Look at the commands of scripture. All those apply to you. You have brothers and sisters. When you get to marriageable age, then that's how you relate. In other words, relax. Just relax. Don't worry about it. It's a brother. It's a sister. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a really beautifully written book. called life together and he talks about our being together as a family man was created a body the Son of God appeared on earth in the body he was raised in the body In the sacrament, the believer receives the Lord Jesus Christ in the body, and the resurrection from the dead will bring about perfected fellowship of God's spiritual, physical creatures. The believer, therefore, lauds the Creator, the Redeemer, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the bodily presence of a brother. The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of the fellow Christian, a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God. Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body. They receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord in reverence, humility, and joy. They receive each other's benedictions and the benediction of Jesus Christ. But if there is so much blessing and joy, even in a single encounter of brother with brother, how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God's will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians. So God makes us a family that we would have fellowship in the body, not remotely online. We have fellowship in the body, we are together, and we're a family. So, just to make mention of this matter of the building, now the church is not only a nation and a family, but it's also a building. We'll cover this in much greater detail later on. But you see the metaphor, I just wanna mention it, just to leave it as a placeholder. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone. Everything in the church is centered in Jesus Christ. So the church is not only a nation, not only a family, but it's also a building. And this is a building that is growing, and it's growing by cast-off stones that God places within the building. It's an interesting metaphor, isn't it? Stones don't grow. Except in the church, the stones grow. It's a miraculous thing. So we're in a building project. So, the church is a nation of citizens with citizenship and inclusion and privileges and duties and laws and authorities and passports. and polity and her polity is the most superior of all polities in the world. And the church is a household, it's a family with intimacy and knowledge and authority and the church actually is the best run household when Jesus Christ has all the authority. It has the very best family rules. And this is your family. These are your brothers and sisters. Love them like a true family. And if you want to get into this nation, then you'll know that you, no longer walk like the nations walk. And to get into this family, you are adopted and brought in by faith. And how do you get into the building? You're dressed in the righteous robes of Jesus Christ. So there you have it. Do you see why you need the local church? Do you see the value of her citizenship? Do you see the value of being into this family and being adopted? Do you see the value of being led into the building that is the church of Jesus Christ? I hope your part in it is becoming clearer. And I hope you'll say, like David did, behold how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. Bonhoeffer also wrote, the physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. Let him thank God on his knees and declare, it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren. Praise the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for helping us to understand what you're doing with us, where you're going with it, our part in it, our inclusion in it, the boundaries, the rules, the ways of the kingdom. We love your kingdom, Lord. It's a good kingdom. And we love your family, Lord. Pray that you would teach us how to love your kingdom and your family the way that you do. Amen.