Good morning everyone. Welcome to Vita Springs.
My name is Tony Rand Vessel and the lead pastor here.
As the lead pastor, one of my jobs is to bring order and
sanity back to the church. That's why I'm wearing what I'm
wearing. You can disregard Gordon and
everything he just said. We're going to be re evaluating
his employment here. Josh, you too.
You can't hide. I'm just messing.
Fun game last night. I hope you didn't stay up to the
end because then you'd be super tired.
But and after it's 41 to nothing, it's like you can just
go to bed. You know how this thing's going
to end. So all right, seriously though,
why don't you take out your Bibles?
We're going to be in the book of Ephesians today.
We're taking a break from our preaching series through the
book of John. We've been in the book of John
for months now. We're taking a seven week
hiatus. We're going to be teaching
through a series called Church Anatomy One O 1.
So the human body is, it is an amazing thing.
You probably didn't know this, but you have in your body
somewhere around 30 to 40 trillion cells, not billion
trillion cells, 600 muscles, 206 bones, 78 to 80 organs.
People are, they don't know if this is an organ or not.
So there's a little range there and 11 organ systems.
So a lot of different parts, many different parts and pieces
and they all do different things, but they all work
together in harmony so that you can live, so that you can grow,
so that you can function and so that you can flourish.
Now, when a part of your body, even if it's a small part of
your body is not working, right, it's off it's sick, it gets
hurt, that negatively affects the whole, right?
You've experienced that. I had a little, some kind of a
little virus this week, not sure what it was.
I told my wife I felt like I had a cup of water sloshing around
in my head all week long, right? And it just, I felt off because
of that. You know this, if you've ever
gotten up to go to the bathroom at night, you decide you're not
going to turn the lights on and you kick the dresser with your
pinky toe, right? I mean, that will like ruin your
life for a while. And it's just your pinky toe.
But a part of the body got hurt and now the whole body is
suffering. So in this series, we're going
to be talking about the, as I said, the the body, but not the
physical body. We're going to be talking about
the body of Christ. This is one of the most frequent
images used in the Bible to describe the church.
We are the body of Jesus Christ here on planet earth.
The church body is composed of parts, and those parts are
people. They're me.
They're you. They're Christians.
Every Christian is a part of the body.
We all do different things. We all have different
responsibilities when we work together, the church functions
properly, the church grows, the church lives, the church
flourishes. And likewise, when part of the
body is off or sick or hurt or not doing its job, then the
whole body actually suffers, it's affected.
So we're going to be in this series for seven weeks.
It's going to be kind of a two-part series.
The first three weeks we're going to be focusing a lot on
our identity and our purpose as the church, as the body of
Christ. So today we're going to be
talking about our identity, how we are a Kingdom, we are a
household, we are a temple. These are some images that the
apostle uses to describe what the church is.
Next week we'll be talking about how we are a holy people.
Then we'll talk about how we have to be a missional
community, right? A community that is on mission
together. And then for the four weeks
after that, we'll be talking some about church membership,
how all the parts are necessary, church discipline and church
accountability in the midst of membership.
What is your job as members? And then how as members we have
spiritual leadership that is a gift from God.
So that's where we're going to be going for the next 7 weeks as
we really unpack this series. And our hopes are very simple.
We want to help us understand the identity and the purpose of
the church. It's important.
The church is the hope of the world.
The church has been entrusted with the gospel.
We have a very important job to do.
And so it helps when we know what are we and how are we
supposed to be doing this together.
And we're going to talk a bit about your need for becoming a
member of a local church, how that really is important.
That is something that every Christian should be pursuing.
And then we're actually going to be launching our new membership
series in October. So we'll be talking about that
as that gets closer. But as far as today goes, in
Ephesians chapter 2, let me kind of Orient us a little bit before
we dive in. We're going to be looking at
verses 11 through 22, the verses previous chapter 2, verses one
through 10. The apostle Paul has been
sharing the gospel message with the Ephesians, reminding them of
this powerful, powerful truth that all of us are born dead in
our sins, but God in love, by his grace through faith in
Jesus, makes us alive together in Christ, right?
This gospel truth. And then in the following verses
11 through 22, he he shares some of the implications of our
salvation, including these three very vivid images describing our
identity together. And so when Jesus saves you, you
were born again and you become a Christian.
We actually become citizens of God's Kingdom.
We become members of his household or his family, and we
become stones in His holy temple.
OK, so three very good, powerful images we're going to be
unpacking today. Before I read the text, I want
to give us a brief moment of quiet just so you can take a
minute and gather yourself and clear your head and focus your
heart on Jesus. Open yourself up.
We're about to hear from God through His scriptures.
This is a very, very important moment.
I would say this is the most important time of our week
together as a body that we hear from God together.
And so let me give us about 15 or 20 minutes, seconds, not
minutes of silence. And then we'll just go home
after that, no seconds. And then I'll pray for us.
I'll read the text and then I'll I'll pray for us.
So let's take a moment. Ephesians chapter 2 starting in
verse 11, Apostle Paul writes, He says, 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 are 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
the prophets. Christ Jesus Himself being the
cornerstone 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. Let's pray, Father, help us to
get this. We live in a nation and in a
world that glorifies independence.
I, I am my own man. I could do what I want and leave
me alone and that. But that's not what you call us
to as Christians. You rescue us from sin and
death, and you place us in this body, this precious temple, this
household, this Kingdom that you yourself are building.
And Lord, we want to play our part and so help us and teach us
this morning and over the next seven weeks.
And I pray for a great strength of unity here at Veda Springs
Church that you would be pleased to bless us and to dwell among
us. And so we give you this time and
we pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.
OK, so in this text, starting in verse 11, we see Paul is telling
the Ephesian believers what they were before Christ.
And so as we hear this, we are hearing here's what we were
before Jesus saved us. Very simply stated, we were
separated from God and we were separated from God's people.
That is very, very bad news, OK? He says in verse 11 it says
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, pause there.
So he is speaking to Gentile believers.
So in this day there were two major people groups or people
divisions. There were Jews and there were
Gentiles. The Jews were God's people,
God's chosen people that he was in covenant with.
And the Gentiles were pagans. They didn't worship the God of
the Bible. You could call them spiritual
outsiders. OK.
The Jews are God's chosen. The males had the mark of
circumcision. So when you were a little boy,
you were born when you were eight days old, mom and dad
would bring it to the temple and you were physically marked with
the mark of circumcision. And that was a kind of a
physical marker that showed a spiritual reality, OK?
It shows that you and your offspring, hence the location,
are in covenant with God, OK. The new mark of circumcision is
baptism. OK, That's what it is in the New
Testament. You go into the water, you come
out of the water. That is the marker that you are
now in covenant with God. So what are the covenants, very
briefly to the biggies in the Old Testament or the covenant
that God made with Abraham first, way back in Genesis, that
God would give him a land, He would give him many descendants,
many offspring, and that the whole world would be blessed
through Abraham. There's God makes a covenant
with Moses, and the essence of the covenant was with Moses is
that if the Jewish people would follow the laws, would follow
the commands of God, they would be blessed by God.
He also makes a covenant with David.
He tells David that there would always be a descendant of David
who would rule as king over God's people.
OK, so if you're a Jew, you are circumcised.
It shows you're in covenant with that God who made those
promises. The Gentiles were uncircumcised.
They're called the uncircumcision, right?
It's a derogatory term. They're not in covenant with
God. They're worshipping false gods.
The New Testament tells us they're actually demons.
They're cut off from the one true God and from his people and
from his promises. OK, so that is not good.
He rubs this in verse 12. He highlights this, emphasizes
this, reminds them of this. He says, 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.
So as a Gentile, you had no Christ, you had no people of God
who were in your corner. You had no promises to rest in.
You had no hope. You had no true God.
And this is as bad as it gets. If we're thinking soberly,
spiritually, this is as bad as it gets.
This is worse than losing your job.
This is worse than getting dumped by your boyfriend or your
girlfriend. This is worse than getting a
cancer diagnosis. To be separated from God, His
promises, His people, and His hope is the worst news possible.
He's reminding them of their previously spiritually hopeless
condition before God rescued them in Christ.
If it feels like a downer, it's because it is, right?
It's a huge downer. The good news of the gospel
starts with bad news, and that bad news is that apart from
Jesus, we're hopeless. We're hopeless.
We have no hope, we have no future, we have no people, we
have no God. That's as bad as it gets.
And I'll just a kind of a minor point of application here,
because we're getting into the good news.
The good news starts with bad news, right?
The gospel is good news. It starts with this bad news.
If you go to a church and all they tell you is God loves you
and he wants to make you happy and he wants to make you rich,
and that's why God exists. It's for your happiness and for
your joy. But they never talk about sin.
They never talk about separation from God because of sin.
They never talk about the reality of hell.
They're not actually telling you the good news.
They're giving you a little bit of the good news, but they're
not giving you the whole story. The gospel good news starts
with, not us. It starts with God, right?
God is holy. God is just.
We are not. We are unrighteous.
We are sinners, Romans tells us. No one is righteous, not even
one, because we have sinned against our holy God.
We have earned right punishment, right judgment, because of our
sin. To be right with God, you either
need to follow the law perfectly, which nobody can do,
or you have to have your sin, your crimes atoned for by a
sacrifice so that you can be forgiven.
And if you've ever read through the Old Testament, there's a lot
of blood in that book. There's a lot of dying, there's
a lot of animals being sacrificed because you know why?
There's a lot of sin among God's people and that sin must be
atoned for. It must be paid for, that there
would be justice. So the good news actually starts
with very bad news, all of sin and fall short of the glory of
God. The wages of sin is death.
This is where every human being, whether you are a Jew or a
Gentile, finds ourselves because of our sin.
This is very bad news. We're not right with God.
But again, it's not where the gospel ends, thank goodness,
because then we're all depressed.
We leave. We have no hope.
The gospel doesn't stop with the bad news.
We see in the next verse in verse 13 this beautiful glorious
reversal. Look at verse 13.
Now we see what God has done. He says.
But now turning point in the text, this is what you were, but
now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, IE you
Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
So people who were separated from God because of their sin
have now been reconciled to God, brought back into right
relationship with God through the blood of Jesus, through
faith in Jesus. So the sin that earned us our
condemnation and our separation from God is forgiven.
It's paid for, it's atoned for. The unholiness that we lived in
is cleansed. This is why I say we are
cleansed by the blood of Christ. Jesus became our substitute.
He followed and fulfilled the law of God perfectly, what we
were supposed to do, but we never could.
And then He died on the cross in our place.
That's where we were supposed to be for our crimes against God.
Jesus swaps places with us and He gives us as a gift His
righteousness and he takes upon himself our sin and our shame,
and he is judged by God in our place on the cross.
That's why the cross is the center of our faith and our life
as Christians. It's where this exchange happens
and we are made right with God. He goes on in verse 14 through
18 and let me just kind of read this whole text and then just
give a couple thoughts about it. He says for He himself he's
talking about Jesus is our peace, who has made us both one
and has broken down in his flesh.
The dividing wall of hostility, that wall that used to be there
separating Jew and Gentile, has been ripped down.
He did this by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in
ordinances that He might create in himself. 1 Newman in place of
the two, so making peace and verse 16 and might reconcile us
both to God in one body. There's that image. 1 body
through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
And he came and preached peace to you who are far off.
That's the Gentiles, and peace to those who were near.
That's the Jews who grew up with the word of God.
Verse 18 For through him we both have access in one spirit to the
Father. So this wonderful image of unity
and reconciliation that Paul is unpacking here, that he has made
US1 Jew and Gentile, the, the the insiders and the outsiders
have been brought together. The wall has been ripped down
between us. People who were separated from
each other by their religious differences are now reconciled
to one another. It's no longer the law keeping
Jews and the Pagan Gentiles. The wall of the law that
separated them is now fulfilled in Jesus.
Through faith in Jesus. We have peace with God because
our sin is forgiven. It's wiped away.
It's cleansed. We have peace with one another
because now we're in the same spiritual family.
The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
You know, the image that kept coming to my mind this week as I
was reading this text and studying this text is Jesus
coming to his world that he created and seeing all of these
broken people separated from God because of their sin, separated
from one another because of their sin, or different races.
There's all this division and it's like Jesus comes and to
those who believe Jew and Gentile both, it's like he, he
wraps his arms around them and he squishes them together.
You ever like when you were a kid, if you had siblings, did
your dad ever like grab you and squish you together with your
siblings? And it's like, and then he lifts
and then he lifts us up to God, right?
That's what he's doing with his people.
He comes and he, he, he just squishes us together.
And he says, now you're mine. You're my family, you're my
body, You're reconciled to one another.
We're going to do this together. And then he lifts us up to God
and reconciles us to God, right? This beautiful image of unity
and love and togetherness. This is what God came to do.
This is what Jesus lived for and died for.
This message is for all people, no matter what your background
is, no matter what your previous lifestyle was, no matter what
country you came from, no matter what color your skin is, no
matter what political affiliation you have, no matter
your education level, your income level.
Jesus came and he died for sinners, and if you trust in
him, you will be reconciled to God first foremost and
reconciled to his people as well.
He came to build a family. If you put your trust in him,
this can be true of you. This can be true for you.
And now as Christians, just a just a quick point of
encouragement for those of you who are in Christ and you've
trusted Jesus and you're following Jesus.
Please realize in Christ you have been linked with God and
his people forever, OK? You have been linked with God
and his people forever. You have become a part of his
body. You have been adopted, right?
Paperwork has been signed, lawyer stamped it.
It's legal, it's good, it's done.
You have been reunited. Roman says We've been grafted in
like a branch. We've been grafted into the
tree. We've been attached to him.
We're bound to him and his people forever.
And that's true of you when you're doing really well.
As a Christian, you'd say I'm on fire right now, I'm waking up,
I'm reading my Bible, I'm praying, I'm serving, I'm not
sinning as much as I usually do. You know, I'm doing good.
And it's also true of you when you're struggling.
And we all go through seasons, right?
There are times when you're more on fire and there are times when
you're not so on fire, but if you are truly in Christ by
faith, you are always a part of His family.
You belong to Him. You will not be left behind.
You will not be cast aside. In John chapter 10 verses 27
through 29, Jesus says my sheep hear my voice and I know them
and they follow me. I give them eternal life and
they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my
hand. My Father who has given them to
me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out
of the Father's hand. Those are strong words of
security for you if you are in Christ through faith.
God is a gracious, loving, patient Father, and He loves us
as His children, whether we're doing amazing spiritually or
whether we're struggling spiritually.
He accepts you. He loves you because this is a
great news about grace. His love for you is not based on
your performance. You know, you're kind of
Christian spiritual metrics. His love for you is based upon
himself. And he is perfect in love,
abounding in steadfast love. And so even when you're
struggling, you don't have to worry.
Oh no, Is God mad at me? Am I out of the family?
No, you're part of the family. You've been saved by grace
through faith. And once you're a part of the
body, you will never not be a part of the body.
So stop striving to earn His love and His favor.
It has been given to you, poured out for you in Christ.
So this is what God has done. He squished us together and He
lifted us up, reconciled us to God.
Now because of this, we have a new identity, OK?
We have a new identity and this is what we are now.
So look at verse 19. So then he's drawing us to a
conclusion with his language. So then you are no longer
strangers and aliens. Stop there.
At one time they were strangers from God and strangers from God,
people, God's people. They were aliens.
They they were not natives, but God rescued them from that.
And he's making you into something beautiful, says you're
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, In him, in Christ you also are being built together into a
dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So we have these three images of our new identity.
We're citizens of a Kingdom, we're members of a household,
and we are stones in a holy temple.
I think the Bible gives different images because they
help us understand different aspects of our new identity in
Christ. What are the benefits?
What are the responsibilities of of those things?
And you know, pictures worth 1000 words, right?
And so God gives us some pictures, some images to help us
understand, to visualize what it actually means to be a part of
the church. First, let me list a few
features, if you will, of these images that I we just saw in
that in that passage. And then I'm going to unpack
each of those images individually.
So first, some features. Number one, in all three of
them, God is building them. OK, God is building them.
These are the church is not a man made institution that will
eventually be corrupted and fail because God is building it.
It will endure forever because what God builds will endure
forever. He's the perfect master builder.
You know, you think about permanence, right?
And there, there are some things that feel very permanent to us,
but in the grand scope of history, they're actually not
very permanent. Like Paul is writing this to,
to, to Christians who are ruled over by Rome.
And in that day, I mean, it was like Rome.
I mean, Rome was everything. Rome was almighty.
I mean, Caesar was viewed as a God.
Nobody ever thought Rome was going anywhere.
What happened to Rome? Rome fell.
What happened to Egypt? In Egypt?
This world power that somehow however many thousands of years
ago could build those pyramids. I mean, the kind of ingenuity
and technology and wealth and power of of that society.
And then you like what happened? Things that feel very permanent
to us are actually not very permanent.
Countries rise and fall. You know, businesses, they are
born and then they close down. Anybody remember Blockbuster
videos? You know, I mean, I'm born in
the 70s, child of the 80s. It was like there's a
Blockbuster Video on every single corner.
Those of you who are millennials and beyond, you actually had to
go to a video store. If you wanted to watch a movie,
you had to drive to a video store, you had to buy this
clunky plastic bot rectangle and you had to bring it home with
you just stick it in a box that had wires that went to your
television and you'd hit play and then it was always like, you
know, then the thing gets all like the film gets all messed up
and you got to rewind it. It's like so inconvenient.
We have streaming. This is this is a whole business
was built around videos and now is there.
I mean, I don't even think it exists anymore.
There's no blockbusters. It came, it went rise and fall.
I think about my own last name, the renvestal name.
You know, there's not a lot of us.
There's a few in Chicago, there's a handful in
Gainesville, and then the rest of us are in Sicily.
I'm trying to keep my name alive.
I have 5 kids, you know, trying to pass pass it along.
I have three sons. So there's some hope.
But there could very well be a day, in fact anyway, that the
Rand Vestal name ceases to exist.
Same for you, for your your last name like it's but what God
builds. You realize this is going to go
on forever, forever and ever and ever.
This Kingdom, this household, this temple is going to go on
forever because God is building it #2 verse 20.
He says they're built on the foundation of the apostles and
the prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone. So these images are actually
built on the Scriptures. That is the foundation of the
apostles and the prophets, right?
So this is how we know what to do, how this all works.
We go back to the Bible. God has spoken to us about His
church. Jesus is the cornerstone, the
most important stone, the anchor stone that sets the course for
the whole thing. It's built on Scripture.
This is why every time we gather, we open this book
because we need God to tell us what to do, what not to do, and
how to do it. And then finally, verse 22, He
says in Him you also are being built together.
So only those who are in him, who are in Christ through faith,
are a part of this Kingdom, this household, this temple.
The church is not the building, OK?
It's not the walls around us. The church is not even all of
the people who are in the building on a Sunday.
OK, that's not quite accurate. The church is actually verse 19.
The Saints. Who are the Saints who Jane's
like I am The believers you are. You're one of them.
Saints are the Christians. So isn't it strange to think
that just because we're you're sitting in this building right
now, if you're not in Christ, you're actually not a part of
the church. You're in the church building
and we're very, very glad for that for you.
But the church is actually the believers, right?
The body of Christ is those who are in Christ by faith, those
who've been made righteous through faith.
So now let's unpack these images.
We start with citizens of a Kingdom, verse 19.
You're no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow
citizens with the Saints. As Christians, we belong to an
eternal Kingdom that God is building.
OK, we belong to an eternal Kingdom that God is building.
There's a story in Daniel chapter 2, and this will be up
on the screen for you. A few verses the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar has a very disturbing dream and Daniel is a
prophet. He tells Nebuchadnezzar what his
dream is, which is impressive and then he interprets the dream
for him and listen to so listen to this story.
First is the dream that Daniel is telling Nebuchadnezzar.
He says as you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand and
it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them
into pieces. That image was this kind of
statue that represents all the kingdoms of the world, right?
All the different rulers and leaders and nations.
So this stone is cut out by supernatural hands.
It strikes the image and it breaks those kingdoms into
pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the
bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken in
pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors,
right when you separate the wheat from the husk, and the
husk just blows away. And the wind carried them away
so that not a trace of them could be found.
But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth. So that's the dream that
Nebuchadnezzar has. And now Daniel goes on, and he
interprets what this actually means in verse 44.
He says, And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven
will set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall
the Kingdom be left to another people.
It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to
an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a
stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke
in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the
gold. A great God has made, noted, has
made known to the king what shall be after this.
The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure.
He is saying the kingdoms of the world are going to fall, even
the strongest, most mighty among them.
But the Kingdom that God is building will never be
destroyed. Can you believe it?
At some point, at some point in the future, the United States of
America will no longer exist. Does that feel impossible?
It's like we're so big, we're so mighty, we're so stable.
We have so much land and so many soldiers and so much money, so
much debt, right? But but a day, there will be a
day where there is no more United States of America, that
Kingdom is going to fall. But the Kingdom of God is never,
ever, ever going to fall. As Christians, you become a
citizen of that Kingdom. When you trust in Jesus, you
become a citizen of that Kingdom, that that Kingdom
becomes your homeland. And it comes with a lot of
benefits. And just like living in our
nation, there's benefits to living in our nation.
Being in a Kingdom of God, there's benefits.
You get to be ruled by a wise, compassionate, powerful, just
king, King Jesus. He will lead you.
He will provide for you. He will protect you from evil.
He gives you an identity, He gives you a homeland, and as a
citizen of a Kingdom, He gives you eternal security.
Those are benefits of being in His Kingdom.
We also have responsibilities, though, just like as citizens of
the United States of America or of Florida or of Alachua County
or of Gainesville, there are responsibilities that come with
citizenship. As citizens, we are to submit to
his rule, right? Humble ourselves and put
ourselves under his rulership. We're to contribute to his
Kingdom, right in the city. It's like to be a citizen of
this country, It's like I got to, I got to work a job, I got
to pay my taxes, right? Because I'm, it's not just about
me, it's about helping the whole, I have a responsibility
to, to vote, right, to help choose leaders.
If you ever get called into jury duty, anybody ever get called
into jury duty, you can't say no to that one.
You know, it's just part of your responsibility as a citizen.
We help with arbitration, with making those decisions.
As citizens, one of our responsibilities is to live and
work together in peace, right? To maintain peace, to be good
ambassadors. There are responsibilities that
come with being a part of the Kingdom.
Same with the church, God's people, right?
It's not just about me. It's not just about you.
We, we serve together, we give together.
We, we maintain peace with one another as much as we are able.
We seek to be good ambassadors, good representatives of King
Jesus who rules over us right now.
This Kingdom that Jesus is building is a spiritual Kingdom.
It's a spiritual Kingdom. But a day is coming when Jesus
will return. He and he will establish his
rule and his reign on the earth as it is in heaven.
OK, that day is coming. In Revelation we see a glimpse
of that chapter 21. This will be up on the screen as
well. The apostle John has this vision
of this new city, a heavenly Jerusalem where King Jesus rules
and reigns. He says I saw a new heaven and a
new earth for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away
and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, a new
Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. So this city coming down from
the sky and planting itself on on the earth.
And I heard a loud voice from where the throne where the king
is, He says, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with
man. He will dwell with them, and
they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as
their God. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain, for the
former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the
throne said, Behold, I am making all things new also.
He said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and
true. And I love verse 6.
And this is where we get our name for Vita springs from.
And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end to the thirsty.
I will give from the spring of the water of Vita without
payment. The one who conquers will have
this heritage and I will be as God and he will be my son.
It's Christians. That's our Kingdom.
Now. Jesus is our king and that is
the Kingdom that we are citizens of.
We should seek to represent our king well as we live in this
Kingdom now. I love that he ends with he
shall be my son because that kind of segues us into the next
image that Paul gives us in in Ephesians in chapter 19, he says
you're going to be members of the household of God.
OK, We're going to be members of the household of God.
So it's Christians. We belong to a new household, or
you could say a new family where Jesus is our head.
First John chapter 3 verse 1, John says, see what kind of love
the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of
God. And so we are, we have been
adopted into his family. So the church is a household
that has a perfect father full of members, brothers and
sisters. Who are learning to love, to
serve, to forgive. Who are growing together in
maturity and grace. There are great benefits to
being a part of this household and this family.
We get to share loving relationships with one another.
Care, support, affection, help, encouragement, companionship,
belonging. We get to have fun together.
We had a group of people praying before the service for the
service and we, the first few minutes were just laughing
together. And then someone said the first
prayer was thank you, God that we get to be a part of a family
where we have fun together, right?
We just, we just love each other and we love doing this together.
We get to bring discipline into one another's lives.
Just like in a family, there's loving accountability from our
Heavenly Father and from one another.
We get the benefit of shared wisdom.
We get a big family and lots of joy.
There's a lot of benefits that come with being a member of the
household of God. You know, Vita, there's, there's
I think we excel at loving community.
There's just so much interchange that happens between our people.
This is not a church where you just come on Sunday morning and
you're just an anonymous person in the seat.
I mean, people really get into each other's lives and help each
other and share time and energy and money and resources.
And you know, Kurt just started this tools and stuff GroupMe for
guys. So guys, if you need tools and
stuff, talk to Kurt and you'll be added to the list.
And then we can share our tools and our stuff with each other,
right? Because sometimes you need some
tools and you need some stuff and you're like, I don't have
it. And there's got to be a guy in
the church who does. You know, if you move from this
house to that house, this apartment to that apartment,
there will be people who show up on moving day to help you move.
If you have a baby, you will be fed, OK.
We will have an army of people bringing you food.
There's great benefits to being part of the body.
There's also responsibilities. There's also responsibilities.
We're to care for one another and it's, please hear me, it's
not the pastors are supposed to care for all the people.
We can't. There's just four of us, but we
are to care for one another. That's going to be what we're
talking about in our small groups this fall.
We're going to be getting into the many one another versus in
the New Testament, learning. What does it mean for us to do
this for one another to one another?
We have to share responsibility for the homestead.
You know, in my family we have a chore chart and everybody's got
their weekly responsibility because everybody's got to
contribute so that our household can function well.
It's the same thing in the church.
We all do our part. We serve somewhere so that we
together can function well. We have a responsibility to live
in harmony, to know other people and be known by other people, to
love one another and be loved by one another.
We give up our freedoms for the sake of one another.
We speak the truth in love to one another that we might grow
up into our head who is Christ. You know, one of the greatest
blessings in my life regarding the church has been the family
that the church has become for me and my family through the
years. You know, we live 900 miles away
from my parents, my brothers and Sarah's parents and her brother
and sister. That's a long ways away.
It's an annoyingly long drive and, and especially when our
kids were were smaller and you know, you need child care,
something comes up, you need support.
We couldn't, we couldn't rely on them for that.
But the church stepped up big time.
The church became our family. The church is our family.
We have been so blessed by God's people, his family.
Sometimes the bonds in our church family actually go deeper
than the bonds in our earthly family because we have been
united in this spiritual family under one head who is Jesus, and
then bless you. And then the third image, it
says in verse 21, So this structure is being joined
together and it grows into a holy temple.
It's a holy temple, which in verse 22 is a dwelling place for
God by the Spirit. So we are stones in a holy
temple as Christians. We are being built into a temple
where Jesus is worshipped and glorified.
First Peter chapter 2, he says you yourselves, like living
stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy
priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, to worship
God, you had to physically go to a temple.
The temple was where the sacrifices were offered to God
through the priests, and that's where God manifested his
presence among his people. Now it's not the same.
Now the church is the temple. Now when God's people gather
together, we offer a sacrifice, not of a lamb or a goat or a
dove, but we offer him a sacrifice of worship.
We offer him the sacrifice of our lives.
And when we do so together, it's wonderful.
God is with us. We're two or more gathered
there. I am with them.
He manifests his presence, his love, his power in the church
body as we gather together. There's great benefits to being
a part of the temple. You get to be a part of a place
where God is worshipped. That's amazing.
The God, God Almighty is worship week in and week out and you get
to partake in that. Don't forget what a privilege
and an honor that that is that we can do what we do and lift
our voices together and offer our lives together as worship to
Him week in, week out as a part of His temple.
You get a front row seat to the goodness and the glory of God.
You get to watch Him save and transform other people as they
come into His family. You get to enjoy His presence.
Isn't it sweet when we're together and we're especially
when we're singing and it feels like, oh, God is among us in a
unique way, in a powerful way, You get to use your life to
build something big and beautiful and lasting, far more
lasting than your own little personal Kingdom.
But you are a living stone. I am a living stone in that
temple. We have responsibilities as
well. Basic responsibility is to show
up and be in your spot, right? I would say that is the most
fundamental calling of the Christian is just to show up, to
be at church, to to be at small group, to be there for God's
people just show up. There are problems.
If you think of the physical building, there are problems
when there's a brick missing, right?
You start to have problems like the weather gets in the the
cockroaches get in when there's a brick missing.
Can you imagine if there's a whole course of bricks missing,
There's 10 or 12 or 14 or 20 bricks missing.
Now that wall has just lost stability, and that wall might
come down, right? It's actually very important
that as a stone, you take your place.
Now, it doesn't mean I got to be at church every single Sunday.
I mean, vacation happens, sickness happens.
I understand that. But by and large, see it as your
responsibility as a Christian. I'm going to show up.
I'm going to be there. They can count on me.
We have a responsibility to be as strong of a stone as we can
possibly be, to stay linked with the stones next to us, right?
God is building a temple. I want to show you a few
pictures as I get ready to close here.
And this is from Westminster Abbey in London.
I actually got to visit Westminster Abbey back and I
think it's 2004, so it's been a while now, but I was just
absolutely floored by the beauty and the glory of this temple.
And there's the one of the the main entry way that, you know,
just you look and it's just astounding.
It just eats like it envelops you go to the next photo, a
couple of the outside. I mean, just absolutely
breathtakingly beautiful. You know, it's cool.
All these old cathedrals are in the shape of a cross too, and
the altars right in the center. And they did that very, very on
purpose. This is where we go to meet with
God. But do you realize that temple
is nothing apart from the stones that build it?
You start pulling stones out and that thing, like any other
building, will just fall to pieces.
It requires that the stones are present, the living stones.
Please understand, you are a living stone in God's temple.
You have a place, and I would just encourage you and urge you
to step up and take your place in this temple of worship that
God is building for His glory. Jesus died so that these things
could be true of us, that we could share this new identity.
Sinful humans separated from God and one another are now brought
back together again into a Kingdom, a family, and a temple.
We have a new identity. We have a new purpose.
We have a wonderful future. He's going to build it.
It's not going to fail. So I want to encourage you to
pursue being a part of Jesus Church with all of your energy.
It's worth it. Don't just quote, go to church.
Anybody can just sit in a building on a Sunday.
Be the church. Step into the role that God has
called you to as a citizen, as a family member, as a stone, and
be a part of what God is doing with his people.
It's a wonderful privilege. We're going to worship God
together. Now why don't you stand up with
me? Worship team, come on forward.
One of the key ways we worship Him is through song, lifting our
voices together in unity. We're singing the same words.
This is not just your own kind of private little worship
session and you just happen to be in a room with a bunch of
other people. This is we're doing something
together this morning. We're lifting our voices
together in unity to worship the God who has unified us to
himself and to one another. Keep that in mind as we're
singing. Let me pray for us.
And then we'll worship with the band, and then we'll have a time
for prayer at the very end of our service.
So, Lord, we just thank you so much for your gift of grace.
Jesus, we thank you that you willingly went to the cross and
willingly suffered and died so that we could be forgiven of our
sin, so that we could be made righteous through faith in You,
so that we could become a part of your Kingdom and your family
and your temple. And so I pray Lord, you would
help us to live that calling out as well as we possibly can.
Let there be a great strength of unity here at Vita Springs
Church, and I pray as this particular local church, we
would represent you very, very well.
And now, Lord, as we lift our voices to you together, I pray
that you would be pleased, that you would be blessed, that you
would be glorified, and that you would also encourage us.
We love you, King Jesus, and we pray all these things in your
name, Amen.