We're today finishing up chapter 2 in Ephesians verses 19 through 22, so turn there with me. This is really an extension of last week's message that my dad taught on on Unity. So we're gonna be looking at some of the same things, but just kind of in a different light with this analogy we have here. So I'm excited about it. I'll read the passage and yeah, we'll get going. Starting in verse 19, after Chase sits down, he's, can't focus. Verse 19, So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. in whom the whole building being joined together is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Let me pray. Father, open our eyes to your word in this teaching you've given us on unity that we cannot just hear it, but be doers of it in our own lives where we fall short and to realize that we have to be unified together with one another. And it's all made possible through your son, Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Anything that has to do with, uh, the way that we live or the things that we do or where we grew up, the things that we know. Typically, I think we think naturally that we're the best in those things. I think that's an innate thing to think that the way that you do it is the right way or the best way. For instance, for us, Texas natives, it's Texas forever, right? We're the best and nobody beats us. But then you have people like my wife, Jessie, who's from California, who we all know she can't help it. That's where she was born. She can't help it. But she'll say things like the West Coast is the best coast. And so I have to say no coast needed. The South is undefeated. But anyways, the point is that our surroundings and what we know rubs off into this mindset of thinking that we can be better than the others. And if you think about the times in which this was written, I think it was maybe sort of that same way with the Jews and the Gentiles, but on steroids. They not only thought that they were the best, but they each hated each other. The Jews wanted no part with outsiders. They didn't even want part with those that were half Jews, the Samaritans. If you weren't a pure blood, then we don't talk to you. The Jews were very, very race oriented because in their minds it was this, God picked them to be the chosen race. And they followed specific rules. And God gave them that, nobody else. And so we don't associate with you. That was really their attitude. If you remember back in Acts when Peter saw the vision of the sheet descending and the animals coming down and God saying, rise, eat and kill. And then Cornelius' servants show up and then he goes to this guy's house. And what does he tell him when he shows up? He said, guys, you know how bad it is, how unlawful it is that I'm even talking to you right now. This is how they felt towards outsiders. Well, on the flip side. That was really a mutual feeling that the Gentile world felt. They felt the same way right back at them. And a lot of times we don't think about that. But from their point of view, the Jews just thought they were God's gift to earth. They were so clean and pure and righteous with their chest out in a way. Wow. You guys are just amazing. Well, and this is what they were thinking, you are really the minority. We are the majority. No one else in the world follows these strange laws. We live normal. We can eat meat. We can lift a finger on a Saturday. We live common lives and you guys are the odd ducks in a way. And for many, this became really a hatred toward the Jews for being so different. I took a class in college called Jewish history, and the history of the Jews is this, it's persecution. and hatred. It's deep within because people do not like them. They never have. All throughout time, they've been attacked. And still to this day, they are, we see it. The Gentile world is against them. So here you have these two sides that do not associate with each other. They do not like each other. And you can just envision that there becomes a big, big issue when salvation is now offered to the Gentiles too, but the Messiah from the line of David came to deliver the pagan world from their sin too? What? That's a hard pill to swallow if you're an Israelite. They were the chosen ones. The Savior was coming through them and for them, and this was not for sharing. No Israelite ever wanted this, and this goes way back. We talked about it last week a little bit, and we studied it here last year in Jonah. Jonah would have rather died than to see any Ninevites saved. So this was a deeply ingrained mindset of animosity toward the Gentiles. But now Jesus came, he died, and when he rises again, what does he tell his disciples in his ascension? He says, go and make disciples of all nations. Salvation is for everybody, the whole world. Well, that was a hard, hard thing to process. And it was for both sides. It wasn't just the Jews. They each still carried bias from long, long generations past and they were not naturally ready to just extend with open arms one another and embrace each other and be one. No. They were everything but that. And I think that's why unity is preached so often in the New Testament, because it's not something that comes naturally. It's natural to hate and to be against and to think that we're the best and others aren't and we're on different teams. So we have to fight against that, against our natural tendencies and be constantly fed the truth of the unity that we all have together, and it's all made possible because of Christ. He is the only thing, and we saw this last week. If you were here, my dad taught. Jesus is the only thing that can break down that barrier and bridge the divide, bringing two sides like this together, the Jews and the Gentiles. Maybe I think one of the best analogies of this, of the unity that we have in Christ, is in our text today. Paul uses this analogy of a house. that God is building this one singular home, and it's anchored by Jesus. And He's using each one of us as different as we may be to build it. So let's look at this house, and we're gonna have four points, and maybe you could say it's a little cheesy on the points, but I'm in construction, and plus it's too late to change. But about 15 minutes ago, I thought, hmm. Okay, anyways. The first is the construction material of God's house. Second is the start of construction on God's house. Third is the progress of construction. And fourth is the end of construction. So starting with number one, the construction material. Look at verse 19. So then Paul says, you're no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. And what I really wanna look at here is at the end of that verse, when Paul says you are of God's household. If you look at the definition of that word in the Greek, which is what the New Testament was written in, in the Greek, to be of someone's household, it says on line one, that this is referring to the things of the house, or the house's goods that make up that home. So what we're looking at here the household of God, well, what are those things then? What are the goods that make up his house? And you'd think that in his house, it would be beautiful things, marble, glass, gold, the best of materials. But no, he tells us actually in verse 19, that it's the saints who are of God's house. The saints are the ones that make up the things or the goods that God is using. He's not using brick and mortar to build His home. He's using people that He sets apart. The saints, the holy ones is what that word means. It's the people that God has picked out and He's put them here, set them apart to be used as His building blocks. In 1 Peter 2, Peter says it well, you yourselves are like living stones. being built up as a spiritual house. The saints, they're material like stones, but living stones that God is using to build his home with. And what Paul is telling these Ephesians is that this is you. You're now likewise a building block, a good, or a thing that God has picked out to use with all these other saints. And maybe you've once viewed some of these other people as enemies, or you may have hated them, or you may still carry bias towards them, but you have to realize that you're in the same family. This is no longer foreign verse domestic. You're no longer, he says in verse 19, a stranger or an alien. You are now a fellow citizen, united together in the family of God. Going back to that word of the household in the Greek, it's really referring to someone's family, their immediate family. a sister, mom, dad, brother. And it's an intimate word that's different than just being a good friend. This is blood. You're of the same house. And that's us now. What Paul's saying is that we are blood in God's family, his immediate family, with all these other family members, like brothers and sisters. If you think about your family, you share the same blood. I think about this from time to time. When I look at my kids, wow, like they're half me, half Jesse. This is crazy. We share, I have that thought on a few different time to time that you see that in them. You share the same DNA and it's different with them versus other kids, obviously. Well, that's us now. With other believers in this world, it should be different because we share that same blood. If you're from Ephesus, Philippi, Galatia, Judea, all over, it doesn't matter is what Paul's saying. We are all one family and we're being joined together to build up one home. And as I thought to myself in studying this, I've been convicted in my own life that on how I view other brothers and sisters, the family, the same house of God, because a lot of times I don't do that. You know, I've seen where I'm quick to down other people that go to other churches. Oh, you go there? Wow. Are you even a Christian? And I'm not saying that out loud, but I think that. And I've realized that I have bias in my own way towards others that they don't do it like me. And that it's Trinity Bible or the highway in a way. And I'm not talking about discernment, obviously there are churches that are not great, but the point is, if we aren't careful, we can pit true churches and believers against each other as if we're not of the same house. And not just other churches, but even within our own church, we see this where this can happen. People think they know more than the next, and we know how to do church right. And why aren't you handling it this way? Why aren't you doing it how I want? And if you're not going to do it like I'm saying, then I'm out. There's all different types of situations where we can breed disunity, and that is what Satan wants. To come inside of God's house and to set people against each other, and that's why Paul says, make my joy complete in this, be unified. Don't let this happen because this is one house, one family, and we're being stacked upon each other like living stones. mortared together and how important it is to be tight. We cannot have pieces against each other. A house divided doesn't work. And from a practical standpoint, how do we do this? I've thought about this and I really think this unity starts with pride. We have to come humbly praising God for even choosing us in the first place to be a part of this. I don't deserve to be a part of this family for my sin. Like a son to him and a father to me. And for him to use me as a building block, praise God that I am. And if he wants to choose from this pile, those people, or certain bricks and stones from this, then great. I need to be all on board. And we have to realize that there are no foreigners in his house. It's one. And together, we are all the material that he uses to build his home with. So that's point number one, the material of God's house. And now to point number two, the start of construction. Verse 20, he says, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. We all know that construction starts at the foundation level. That's the first thing you begin with. And what Paul's saying is that this house, what began this house was the apostles and the prophets. They're that first layer. In Matthew 16, Jesus says, Jesus started with the apostles. They were the rocks at the bottom of this home formed together to make the foundation that the church was built on. An apostle was someone sent forth. And we said earlier that in Jesus' ascension, he said, go and make disciples of all nations. But up until that point, they were not doing that. No one was. The Jews were keeping it close to their chest. But now Jesus commissions these people, the apostles, to go out and to spread my word to everybody. They were the beginning of this, the first people that started the spread of His Word globally. And they were the builders, you could say, in a way, the builders of God's house. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul calls himself a skilled master builder who laid a foundation. These men laid the groundwork by taking God's Word out to the nations, all the nations. And alongside of them, these apostles, verse 20 says, there were the prophets too. It was the apostles and the prophets who began this work together. A prophet is someone who takes God's word and proclaims it out. What God has to say, and it's not their own words, they're just the messenger of God. And I think a lot of the times, if you're like me, we only think of Old Testament prophets. because these were people that spoke of a future time, of things before they happened. But a prophet, the word in its definition, is a foreteller of the divine will, God's will. And it doesn't necessarily entail foretelling. A lot of times it did and does. But foretelling is of things to come, something in the future. And that's what the Old Testament prophets were doing, speaking of Christ to come and other events that hadn't happened yet. But forth-telling, which is the definition of a prophet, is just proclaiming forth the divine will, what God has to say. And that's what these New Testament prophets were doing, but really it's the same thing. In the Old and the New, this was a prophet, somebody who was a messenger for God. And to me, when you look at these two together, the apostles and the prophets that laid the foundation work, they almost seem the same. that both were just proclaiming God's Word. So what's the difference? Well, an apostle was someone sent forth. They were the ones who went out into the world, like Paul, to all these different places, and they planted churches. But when they left, the prophets were still there. The prophets stayed. They were more local. And they were the ones that proclaimed the Word and continued on the work there. So these two work together in this unique link, hand in hand. Paul says a couple of chapters later in Ephesians 4 that God gave some of you as prophets, some of you as apostles, these spiritual gifts that different people had, unique to their own person. But God used them both and worked alongside of them together with the common goal of spreading his word. And this is the foundation of God's house. But in understanding that, it's important to know, the most important to know, that these men did not build anything in their own power. John Owen says it well, that these prophets and apostles, they laid the foundation, but not in their persons, it was in their doctrine, which was Christ crucified. The church is not built on men, but on the eternal truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ who binds it all together. No one's personal strength. can build God's house. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is already laid, Jesus Christ. If you look here at the end of verse 20, Paul says, Christ Jesus himself being, talking about that foundation, the cornerstone. It was Christ Jesus at the corner, and these men preaching Him, that is what laid the foundation. He was the true beginning of this house. The first piece, the head angle is what that word cornerstone means, the chief angle. And for anyone that doesn't know what a cornerstone is, and I might talk too much about construction here, but I think this is important to see. When you start out on a foundation, the first thing you do, literally the first thing you do when it's just dirt, is you stick four pins in the ground, the outside four corners of the building. And really before that, the first thing you do is you stick a pin in the head angle. And then you take all your points based off that head angle. And if you get that head angle wrong, then you can end up with a house that's slightly crooked like Keenan's. Actually, wait, I'd build that. But the point is the cornerstone, the first use of it was alignment. You have to get that point right or else the whole house could be off. Second, the cornerstone, In modern day construction, it's a little bit different than this, but in the old days, the cornerstone was typically the largest piece. And it being set in that spot, the first stone in the corner, it was carrying all that load. So the second thing the cornerstone would do is it would bear the weight of the building. And the third thing, this was a corner piece. It was an L piece. It wasn't a flat piece of stone like those bricks back there, it was a corner. And so it would receive the front side and the backside. And once everything was mortared in, it would be that anchor point that would bind and hold that building together. So the cornerstone was a huge part of construction. And if you take that piece out, the house falls. It doesn't stand. Well, that's Jesus. Yes, the apostles and the prophets laid the foundation, but without him at the corner, there is no foundation and there is no house. He provides the alignment. He holds the weight and he binds the sides together. He is the reason we have unity and can have unity. And if you're trying to take two sides like this, the Jews and the Gentiles with age long bias and hatred, how can you bring them together? It's this right here. the cornerstone of Jesus, understanding that He is there at the start, holding us, binding us, aligning us, bracing us, and it doesn't matter our background or history or cultures, we are all tied in by that same hinge point, Jesus. We're all sinners saved the same way, through Jesus. He makes us the same. This is how anyone could ever be able to look past differences and bias and see the oneness that we have. without Jesus in the corner spot, anchoring, the house doesn't stand. He's the true beginning and the start of construction, so that's point number two. Now, to point number three, the progress of construction. What's taking place right now on God's house? Verse 21 tells us, in whom the whole building, he says, being joined together is growing. God is still growing His church, and He's not done yet. There's still work to do. And Paul says He's joining together pieces. There's this idea of God like a master mason, fitting and picking the right stones to put here and there. uh, having a master plan that he knows exactly what he wants to do and put this piece here and that goes right where I want it. And he's placing the next on the next, on the next, and just continuing to grow and to grow and to grow. And if you think about it, how big is this house? This is huge over thousands of years. And you think by now I've thought, you know, why is God still building? Why doesn't he just wrap it up and let's all go to heaven? Why is he still growing this thing? 2 Peter 3.9 tells us, The Lord is not slow. He's not taking a long time to build His house, as some may count slowness. But He is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. The reason God's not done building, and He won't be, is because He doesn't have all His people gathered to Him yet. And He's not slow as we may count slowness. He's gracious to give lost souls time to repent just like He did us. And until that point, and we don't know when that will be, it could be soon, could be far from now, His work is gonna continue on. And as His house progresses, we need to realize that picturing this house being built, we're at the top of it. We're the most recent row of stones to have been laid. And we need to help play our part in continuing the progress, to be active in helping grow God's kingdom, just like the people before us did, and the people before them did, all the way back now. Think about the massive number of believers before us that helped in progressing God's work that he used. Recently, I was building this townhome project. It was a three story deal. And, um, I was there one day and the guys were up on the roof and they wanted me to look at something. I couldn't see it. And so I had to climb up all this scaffolding and, uh, I'm not a heights guy. I'm not a heights guy. Uh, and if you've ever been three stories up looking down, it's a lot higher looking down than it is up here or down here looking up. And Tim knows he's a roofer. Um, But I remember thinking to myself, looking over there, like, wow, we've built a decent amount of stuff. There's a lot before us. And this isn't an empire state building. Imagine something huge. And I think if you, you know, the house of God in a similar way, you think about being up on that scaffolding, looking back down at all that's been built before us, who we sit on, who had an impact on bringing you to the Lord. And then the people before them and before them. And before them, all the way back down, you'd eventually run into church history names, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and so on. The countless names, not just the names everybody knew, but the people that lived for God and they passed the baton. All of these believers we sit on, and it goes back to the same foundation level of these apostles and prophets, the cornerstone of Jesus, really, who anchors it all. We're a part of the same house we're reading about. How amazing is that? To be united together like this. And when you think about it this way, to me, there's a sense of duty that we got to continue on in that same work like these others did. Obviously, we know that God alone builds His church. It's only Him, but use me, Lord, like you did these others to continue on the progress of your house. And this for me, as well, is very convicting in studying this because I think about, okay, what am I doing in my life? I'm focused on progressing my work and my kingdom and what I'm doing. I see that in my life. And I remember a month or two ago when Adam Ashoff was here, I think it was Adam Ashoff who spoke on the Lord's prayer. But in the Lord's prayer, when Jesus tells us how to pray, one of the things he says is, your kingdom come. And I remember Adam saying that when we pray that, what we're saying to God is, help me build your kingdom. and not much, because how focused can we get on building ours, can't we? And not focused enough on progressing His. So may God help us to do that in our lives and to use us in the progress of His construction. That's number three, the progress. And now to the last point, the end of construction. Look at verse 21. In whom, Paul says, the whole building being joined together is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord. We're growing into, this verse says. The word into has this meaning of moving towards a purpose. We are moving towards a goal, an end goal. And here it's the future time when the build is going to be complete and it's done. And we're going to be finally made into the goal of a holy sanctuary in the Lord, where all of his people from the fullness of time his church will be. And what he says here is that that end goal is gonna be a holy temple. That's what a sanctuary is, it's a temple. And a temple is where God dwells among his people. We looked at the temple a little bit last week with my dad's beautiful things that couldn't hold up here. But in the Old Testament, the temple was a place where God dwelled. among the Israelites. And obviously God is not confined to a building, but the temple was still a very holy picture that God was there among them. And all throughout the Bible, the temple is such a sacred place because of that. It lifted it up more than anything, because this is where holy God was. And that's why later on in the Old Testament, David, he had this urge to build God a house, because if you remember, the temple started as a tent that they just put up and fold down and carry. He wanted to put God in a nice building. But actually it wasn't him, it was Solomon who ended up building this building. And this building was beautiful. We saw a picture of it last week. They put so much effort into building the temple. It was a wonder of the world. And the Queen of Sheba came to see things like this, the beauty of it. Has anyone ever been to Israel though? We went like eight years ago. If you've been, the temple's not there. It's a pagan shrine that sits where that temple sat. And that dome of the rock has been there, I looked it up this morning, 1,330 years. None of the temple is there. It's all been torn down. It was rebuilt and it was torn down again, but none of it still stands. And what Paul is saying to these Ephesians and to us today is that all of that was just a picture of what's to come anyways. that the temple of where God dwells is no longer, and really never was, a place of physical material. Now, he says, God's temple is a spiritual house made up of people, of living stones. And we, as a body collective of believers, are becoming that dwelling place, the temple in which he is going to live forever. The old temple just pointed to this. We are all united as the house of God in which he's going to dwell one day. And we're all moving into that, his holy temple. That's the end of construction. The future inheritance that is to come that we all look forward to where we're going to be God's own possession and he will live amongst us. But in the meantime, look at the end of verse, or the end of this passage, verse 22. He says, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. He says you also on a personal level. It's not just the entire church is growing into this temple, but verse 22 says you also specifically individually are being built into a temple where God actually lives and resides in the Spirit, you. We saw that same thing back in Ephesians chapter one. Two, when we studied this a couple months back, verses 13 and 14, Paul says, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who was given to you as a pledge of your inheritance. That end inheritance to come where we're gonna be his temple, where he lives, we're actually given a down payment of that inheritance now, and it's the Holy Spirit, the mark of God in our lives. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us to build us up and prepare us for that day, molding us into God's image where we're gonna be together as His dwelling. We all have that right now if we're believers, God within. And that's an amazing thing. If you just sit and think about it, that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you if you are a believer. And in thinking about that, what kind of people ought we to be? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you that you have from God? You're not your own. You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. and seeing all this, it's really made me think more than ever, I've got to likewise be holy because holy God dwells within me. My body is a temple. It's what Paul says, where the Holy Spirit of God is. So we better make sure we are as pure as possible and that we get rid of any and every sin that we have in our lives because this is where the one and only God has chosen to be on the inside of you and me if we're his. And not only that, but as a collective group, we're all growing together into what the Old Testament temple pointed to, a place where God is going to live forever in heaven. We have to be, all of us, living in light of that, being unified in holy life. So that's the end of construction and In wrapping all this up, as I've studied this, I've been thinking to myself, okay, how does this pertain to my life? And we've talked a little bit about it. Obviously, we are not dealing with Jew and Gentile stuff. We are dealing with Texas, California stuff. But within the church, we all do have our own battles of unity and our biases towards other people. And I've been convicted in my own heart where I fall short. And I would say, I think the majority of churches issues today revolve around not being unified. It's exactly what Satan wants. You know, I think back, and I don't know if I should say this or not, but on the whole Lawson fiasco, what came of that was disunity. I remember thinking when I started out, I was like, okay, well, he wasn't a false preacher. Like what is Satan getting out of this? He's getting disunity. And we can't let that happen. And I actually think within our own church, we become more unified because of this. But if you look on Twitter, which I don't actually have, there's a lot of people that are not unified, and Satan's just eating his popcorn. We have to be one house, and that's why Paul says, Nate, my joy complete, be unified. And the way to do it is what we've studied today, this analogy on the house of God. Number one, do we see other believers as family, like brothers and sisters? Do you see the people in this room and not even that, but other people who you know are believers like blood, but you're being used together as material stacked upon each other to build God's one house. Number two, do we see the oneness that we have built on that same foundation of Jesus who was anchored in at the corner spot, the start of construction that binds us all? Do we see him as the reason we are all the same? Because if so, that's what helps us be unified. Number three, do we see that his house is not done yet? It's still growing. And do we want the Lord to use us alongside of our brothers and sisters to together collectively help build his house? We know he alone builds it, but use us. And fourth, do we see that our bodies are a temple in which holy God lives? And as a whole, we're all being made into that final holy dwelling of God. To me, this is how you can be unified. You study this. And honestly, as you read it and you hear it, it's easy to go in the head and stay up here, but it's a lot harder to practice it out in real life, to be unified, to love the brothers and sisters. It's a challenge because like we said earlier, it really involves setting aside our pride. We think we're the best. We know how to do it. We're right. Unity only happens when people are humble and they come together like this, a part of God's house, not their own house. So may God help us to do this, to be unified together. Let me pray. Father, thank you for your teaching. Thank you that we have your Word, your spoken Word, that we can study it. Still to this day, we're built on the same house that what we read about here was built on. The foundation that the apostles and prophets started, but it was you alone through your Son, Jesus, who anchors us all in the corner. And I pray that in our own lives, the bias that we have, that I know I have, would be thrown out the window in thinking about the oneness of Jesus Christ who holds us and binds us and aligns us all together. Use us to help progress your kingdom and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.