Episode Transcript
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My brothers and sisters. Let's turn
to Ephesians chapter two. Now I'm going
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to read where we left off last
time, beginning in verse eleven, and
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read to the end of the chapter. So Ephesians two eleven through verse twenty
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two. This is the word of
the Lord. Let's hear it with faith.
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Therefore, remember that at one time, you gentiles in the flesh called
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the uncircumcision by what is called the
circumcision, which is made in the flesh
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by hands. Remember that you were
at that time separated from Christ, alienated
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from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers
to the covenants of promise, having no
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hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus,
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you who were once far off,
have been brought near by the blood of
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Christ, for he himself is our
peace, who has made us both one
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and has broken down, in his
flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing
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the Law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one
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new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us
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both to God in one body through
the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
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And he came and preached peace to
you who were far off and peace to
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those who were near, for through
him we have access in one spirit to
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the father. So then, you
are no longer strangers and aliens, but
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you are fellow citizens with the saints
and members of the household of God,
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built on the foundation of the Apostles
and Prophets, Christ, Jesus himself being
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the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being knit joined together, grows into
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a Holy Temple in the Lord.
In Him, you also are being built
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together into a dwelling place for God, by the Spirit Amen, he may
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be seated. In order to understand
this passage, you have to understand a
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few things about the context in which
the Ephesians were living. It's not a
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dry or boring context. It's exciting
life. It fits in within the redemptive
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history of the world's really important things, and it helps she'd understand who the
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Ephesians are in the place that they're
in so that we can think about who
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we are in the place that we're
in. Just a few things to mention.
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The most important one is that these
ephesian Christians were not Jews. That's
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what this whole passage is about that. These not Jews, these gentiles,
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and he describes them in various ways, have been brought into this very special
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community of people. To understand the
significance of that, think about your bibles.
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Think about however, since the very
beginning chapters of just genesis, God
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had been setting aside a family for
himself, eventually centered particularly and grounded in
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Abraham and his children, a family
which would grow and grow and become very
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numerous, but was very much a
family with sons and daughters, people divided
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up and to clans and tribes,
households. If you've ever wondered what is
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some of the purposes are one of
the purposes of the genealogies of the Bible.
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It's to emphasize that point. You
have to belong, you have to
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belong to this family. It matters
very much who you what, if you
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came from Abraham or if you have
not. This is emphasized throughout the Old
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Testament in many, many ways,
some of them Paul brings up here,
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and he's so. He speaking to
these Ephesians, these people, these non
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Jews, who are part of the
Roman Empire, and he's addressing them in
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this unusual way. Notice how he
begins, remember that at one time you
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gentiles in the flesh called the UNCIRCUMCISION, by what is called the circumcision,
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right. So He's saying this was
your name, this is how you were
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known by the Jews, the Jews
who were marked by this sign, by
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circumcision, a sign that had been
given to them by God. These people
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knew you in this way. We
all have various identities, ways in which
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people recognize us and refer to us, some Nice, some not so nice,
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some more neutral, someome less neutral. But the gentiles, one of
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the ways that they were referred to
is the UNCIRCUMCISION. You Uncircumcised, Philistine,
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right, a sort of angry a
thing that a Jew might say when
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when going to battle. These they
were marked as people that did not belong,
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and is those who did not belong
to God's special family, as we
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thought about this morning. Meant that
those were people who were outside of God's
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special family, outside the promises,
outside the Covenant and these kinds of things.
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How else does Paul describe these gentiles, these non Jewish people? Well,
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he says that they were alienated from
the Commonwealth of Israel. He talks
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about it not only in terms of
family, but in terms of politics or
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a city. Right, you did
not have citizenship the Commonwealth. That's a
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political term, the Commonwealth of Israel. You were alienated from it. You
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were strangers to the covenant of Promise. In verse nineteen he talks about that
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again and talks about in the transition. So then you are no longer strangers
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and aliens but now fellows, citizens
with the saints and members of the household.
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For a long time the promise of
the Covenant had been the promise that
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God had made with the Covenant of
it with Abraham, was a covenant that
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included promises for the gentiles. He
says to Abraham, you will be the
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father of many nations. From you
the it to the ends of the Earth.
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The peoples of the earth will be
blessed. But there's a way in
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which they were always separated, always
far off, and though we see hints
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and aspects of people coming in,
of people belonging and and enjoying that salvation
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that was belonged to the Jews,
it was always a separate kind of thing.
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It was a unique thing, special
cases. But when the spirit of
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the Lord came at Pentecost and fell
down upon the apostles and these prophets,
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who then spoke this gospel to all
the nations. And as this word was
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going out, something new was happening, something in history was changing. Something
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that for thousands of years had been
the same, year after year, century
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after century, Millennia after Millennia,
was now changing. God was doing something
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new, and he was not just
he was throwing open the doors, even
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sending people out to the gentiles,
not just one Jonah, one prophet here
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at this one time, but many
people, and not just going to these
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places, but establishing churches here and
here, and here and here, all
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throughout Asia minor and in Ephesus as
well. It's important to remind ourselves of
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these facts, because we are just
like these Ephesians, two thousand years after
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the Gospel started going out in this
way. I think sometimes we become kind
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of used to this fact as gentiles, least I think most of us here,
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Non Jews, we get sort of
used to the fact that, Oh
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yeah, of course we're here.
Maybe we even think from time to time
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that this is really a non Jewish
kind of thing that were involved in.
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That's not true. That's not true, Paul says, and a Romans Chapter
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One, that the Gospel is the
power of God and to salvation for all
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who believe, first to the Jew
and then to the Greek. Throughout history,
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even in the sending forth of the
Gospel. That's what the apostles first
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did as they went into the synagogues. They talked with the Jews, they
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convinced the Jews, they called them
to faith and repentance in Jesus himself,
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a Jewish man, himself the son
of David, himself a child of Abraham,
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who was the mediator of this new
covenant, a better covenant, something
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that had been anticipated and was now
coming into fulfillment. The New Testament church
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isn't a plan B, it's the
same plan that always was. God's grace
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being extended through these promises is not
sort of restarting or something happening anew.
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It is flowering up into full bloom, a seed that began even back in
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Genesis, a three fifteen, when
God promised, made that promise to eve
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and to Adam the sun would come
and crush the head of a serpent.
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He was now here and through this
son, the even the very son of
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God and also the son of man, he was here to do his work
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and had done his work, and
now something new was happening, the fulfillment
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of all of these things, and
the gentiles were being brought in. You
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were being brought in. The fact
that we are here at Church largely filled
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with gentile believers should make your jaw
drop, should make you wonder at the
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graciousness of God that I belong to. This is a wonderful thing and that's
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how Paul is speaking to hear,
he's speaking to us when he talks about
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these things. He says to the
effusions, you were the UNCIRCUMCISION and you
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were aliens and strangers to the Covenant, the covenants of promise. That was
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a big deal. Why? Because
of the next thing he says, having
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no hope and without God in this
world. Many of us have the Ben
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the fit of having had Christian parents. Some of you that's not the case.
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You're the very first Christian in your
family, in your family history and
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your family line, the very first
gentile called out of the nations and from
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your clan, in your tribe and
your people, as far as you know
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anyway, to come into the Lord
Jesus and belong now to Israel. Some
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of US can't think to a time
when our family wasn't Christian, wasn't trusting
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in the Lord Jesus in one way
or another. But all of us,
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gentiles, all of us, when
we go back far enough, what will
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you find? You will not find
God fearing Jews, people that have belonged
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to the Covenant Promises. You will
find that your and my ancestors were people
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out in the woods worshiping trees and
rocks and calling this animal a God and
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that son of God and fearing the
things of this world and bound by evil
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and demonic forces and and all the
rest, without hope, without God in
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this world. That's who we are. This is our family. Until it
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wasn't until that word, that transition
in verse thirteen, but now, in
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Christ Jesus, you, who are
once far off, have been brought in
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Near. I want to move to
the second part of my sermon by talking
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to you about what are the benefits
that we receive? One are the Ben
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at some of the benefits that Paul
mentions here and being brought into the covenants
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of promise and being brought into being
brought near by the blood of Christ.
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Well, start with the one that
connects us with what we were thinking about
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this morning. I'm going to mention
three so you know what to be prepared
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for. Starts with. Let's start
with the temple. What does he say
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here at the end? He says
that we, who are no longer this
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is verse, Nineteen, Strangers and
aliens, but fellow citizens and saints,
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the members of the household of God, built on the foundation. Now this
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is building language right, built on
the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets,
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Christ, Jesus himself being the cornerstone
in whom the whole structure, Jew and
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gentile, being joined together, grows
into a what a Holy Temple in the
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Lord in him, you are also
being built together into a dwelling place for
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God by the whole Holy Spirit.
So, for those of you who aren't
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with us this morning, that's fine, but I want to just draw your
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attention to this language that we have. We considered earlier. What is the
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temple? What is its place in
this world? It is the dwelling place
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of God. It's where he reveals
himself in these saving ways. He allows
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us to draw close through a mediator, through shed blood. But the Old
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Testament temple is no longer because it
is flowered forth, it is given way
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to something new. And what is
it? It's you. The Old Testament
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temple is now flowered forth, is
fully bloomed into this great temple which no
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longer has a inscription on the wall
which says gentiles, keep out and if
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you come in and you die,
it's your own fault. But instead of
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dividing us, brings us all in
and not only brings us into the temple
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complex but says you are the temple, you are the dwelling place of God.
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How close does God want to get
to us? How close does he
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come to us in his saving power
and revelation? That close? Close enough
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that he can say that we gentiles, along with our brother and sister Jews
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who are believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that Together, through one faith,
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one baptism, one mediator, one
shed blood, are being brought into
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one dwelling place for God. You
are a dwelling place for God. The
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Holy Spirit is doing this work.
This would have been, I think,
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particularly meaningful to the EPHESIAN Christians.
The temple to Artemis, which we have
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mentioned a few times as we've been
going through this book, was categorized by
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the ancients themselves as one of the
seven wonders of the world, seven places
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you got to put on your bucket
list if you could travel a whole world,
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the temple in Ephesus. You have
got to see the it was a
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it was a magnificent place, it
was a beautiful place. It was one
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of the largest buildings in the ancient
world, probably about four times larger than
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the Parthenon and Athens, if you've
seen pictures of that, a huge that.
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You don't get to be one of
the seven wonders of the world without
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standing out right. And it was
not only important in sort of its size
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and its placement, but you know, in other ways it was important as
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well too. It was the center
of this city, it was their cultural
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life, it was their identity,
politics, economy. That we see this
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in the pages of scripture itself.
You wouldn't Paul is an ephesus. The
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EPHESIAN idol makers, a Silversmith in
particular, get very upset that Paul is
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preaching against these false gods and talking
about one true God. They stand up
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they say, Hey, this Guy
Paul, he's going to ruin all your
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business, he is going to destroy
our economy. Do you not realize that
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all of us are bound up,
wound up and intertwined in this temple.
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Imagine, you know, there are
some cities like this, usually not large
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ones, but sometimes where the holy
economy is tied up in one particular thing,
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maybe not every single point of it, but largely so. You know,
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we've seen this in various places where
an automaker goes out of business or
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a steel mill closes and the whole
town sort of falls apart. It's kind
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of the argument that's being made there
in Ephesus. He's saying, if we
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have live this temple stop functioning,
we're all going to be in for it.
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We're going to lose our jobs,
poverty, etcetera, etc. And
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they're angry at Paul, really angry. You'll have to go read about that.
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And Acts. There's crowds, a
riot, almost an insurrection. It's
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a big, big deal. The
point is that the temple that I'm trying
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to make right now, the temple, was central to these Ephesian Christians,
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not to them personally, but their
life as Ephesians. This was part of
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their identity. This is how they've
grown up. Their fathers, their mothers,
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their aunts, their uncle's, they
were all somehow, in some way
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connected to this place. As Christians, increasingly disconnected, finding ways to disassociate
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themselves from the old ways, from
following after the old Gods, from now
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worshiping the one true living God,
not in temples made with hands, but
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now. When you think about that
in their context, imagine what it would
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mean to somebody who every day is
walking by and aware and sensitive to this,
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this place and where. Paul says, don't worry about it. You
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are the temple, you are the
place in which the one true living God
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dwells. That's what you have in
Christ. Isn't that an amazing thing?
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It's not a thing to pray is
him for that we don't have to go
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to some manmade thing and serve manmade
God's but that God has come to us
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and changed us so that we can
serve him. He's building us up into
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a temple far greater than the temple
of Artemis. If it's impressive that it
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was four times larger than the Parthenon
and Athens, let it be impressive to
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you of what we read in revelation
this morning, that the Temple of God
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is a cosmic Temple that will fill
the heavens and the earth and it belongs
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to you. In some ways.
It is you and US together in one
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body, one temple. The second
thing I want to mention a benefit of
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us being brought into God's presence and
brought into his family, as this,
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this point about citizenship that he makes
in Verse Nineteen. You're no longer strangers
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and aliens, but fellows, citizens, fellow citizens. A citizenship is still
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a very meaningful category in our world. Indeed, it's playing out in our
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newspapers every day. Questions about what
does citizenship mean? What does it mean
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to belong and to not belong?
In our country in particular, how do
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we enforce that? What does that
mean? How do we categorize as people?
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Same was true in Rome. Their
citizenship was different in some ways,
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but it was similar in this that
it marked differences, marked who belonged and
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who didn't, and right you would
have and rights that you wouldn't. Things
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that belong to those who were Roman
citizens were things like a right to vote,
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right to stand for office, make
contracts, certain kinds of tax immunity,
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I'm freedom to marry certain kinds of
people, access to the court system
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in better ways than was allowed at
non citizens. More justice, better justice,
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more equitable justice if you are a
citizen. These are the kinds of
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things that you got, as well
as limitations in punishment. You couldn't be
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whipped, you couldn't be tortured if
you were not a citizen. However,
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these things did not belong to you. And the interesting thing to know about
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Ephesus is that not many people were
citizens. In the second century. It's
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estimated that about well, there's one
inscription that we have that this sort of
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praise to I forget who it was, but praised to this man for inviting
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all one thousand and twenty four of
the citizens of Ephesus to party, big
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party. A thousand and twenty four
citizens. At that time. There were
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about two hundred and Fiftyzero people in
Ephesus. So we talked about the one
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percent. It's about four percent of
the population had Roman citizenship. Nah,
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very few people were citizens. Right, you would probably know who all of
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them were if you lived in Ephesus. Right, you would know who was
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and who wasn't. Now, that's
in the second century. Like what likely
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this was even smaller, maybe about
by half. In the first century the
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population about a hundred twenty five thousand. That's like a big Yuma, for
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example, or a small temp not
a huge you know, not a big
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metropolis like we often have in various
American cities, but a sizeable place.
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But a very small portion of people
had these rights. The rest were resident
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aliens, people that were living in
the city had a certain kind of rights
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to a certain extent, but very
limited. You might even be generations living
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in a place you might call ephesis
home, have lived there for generation after
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generation and still not have this kind
of citizenship. There would still be a
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separation in your your Roman identity,
all the more so for aliens. People
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that weren't just didn't belong there,
but we're passing through. For them,
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your rights were very much tied to
just probably how good you were with the
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gift of Gab. How could you
were it influencing people and making friends?
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That is about it. You would
be your your protections, your safety,
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your ability to get anything done would
be tied to the people that were there
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and the Roman citizens that that held
that place there. The similar things were
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true when Israel belonged, not as
aliens in Rome or resident aliens in Rome,
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but belonged and had sovereignty over their
own place, when they ruled their
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own country and had sovereignty of it, there were these kinds of distinctions as
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well. Gentiles would pass through from
time to time, there would be people
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that would live in the land but
not really belong and there were again various
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kinds of rights and and and rights
that you wouldn't have as a non citizen.
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Well, with that kind of context, the context that the EPHESIANS would
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have understood, is what it means
to be a citizen. Very very small
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percentage of people with very, very
important rights. Now, Paul says to
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them, your citizens no longer strangers, no longer aliens to the to,
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to God's people, the Commonwealth of
Israel, but you now belong. You
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have all the rights that every other
child of Abraham has. Now this,
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of course, didn't affect their Roman
citizenship at all. In fact, it
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may have made it worse to be
identified as a Christian. But who really
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cares when, ultimately, your hope
is not in the, you know,
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artem is temple up the street,
but in the great cosmic temple that God
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is going to reveal on the last
day? When your hope is not in
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this Caesar or the next, but
in Jesus Christ, the Ruler of Heaven
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and earth, who is the true
God and Savior of all people. When
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your hope is in him, there's
only one kind of citizenship that you really
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want, there's only one kind of
citizenship that you should hold on to and
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be willing to renounce all others for
the sake of this one, and that
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is to belong to the Lord Jesus
Christ, to belong to Israel, to
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belong to that people, because that
is where God is making his blessings known,
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and that is what he says to
US gentiles. He says it's yours
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that one too. And if that
wasn't enough, we'll mention a third one,
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and that's not only do we belong
now to the temple, the dwelling
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place of God, not only do
we belong as citizens of fellow citizens in
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the Commonwealth of Israel, but now
we are also saints, or, I'm
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sorry, we are now also members
of the household of God and the Ephesian
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world, households were big. They
had a lots of different people. There
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would be distant relative slaves, freedmen, various kinds of servants. Households can
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be quite large. But notice what
he says here at particularly in connection with
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what we read in effusions chapter one. We are not when we belong to
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God's people, we're not merely members
of his household. You remember that.
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What are we? which kind of
member of the household are we? He
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says children, yes, sons in
particular, coairs with Christ. You're not
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just outside the house, a neighbor
happening to stop by. You're not just
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a slave in the house or or
a guest of the house. He takes
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gentiles and through faith, the same
faith that Abraham exercised when he put his
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faith in the Covenant Promises, you
are elevated all the way up to the
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top to belong as an inheritor,
to be a coare of the inheritance,
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of of the estate, so to
speak. You're not even just one of
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the many children. And somewhere along
the pecking order you are elevated to the
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point of inheritance with the son of
God himself, Jesus Christ. That's what
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it means to belong to Jesus.
That's how important we have become. All
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finished by asking you to this simple
question. What's the foundation for all of
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this? By what means are.
What ground have we been elevated to such
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a high place? Is it because
we were of noble birth or important people
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or wealthy, or able to speak
well or fast in our minds or anything
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like that? No. Why was
it because of the sheer love of God
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that, as we read in a
Fusians one before the foundations of the world,
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he set his love upon us and
he chose us to be adopted,
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to be brought in? We should
marvel at the wonderful grace of God.
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The foundation of all of this is
Christ himself, as we've read through up
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this chapter. It is by his
blood that peace has happened. In the
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Old Testament, the Canaanites, those
on the borders of Israel, were those
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to be pushed out and eliminated,
killed in warfare, crushed, destroyed,
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put to death. That was our
place, people to be destroyed by the
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judgment and wrath of God, by
God's people, that hostility between us and
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God. We were the Goliaths,
we were the Philistines, we were the
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people constantly encroaching upon the Lord and
his anointed son and his anointed people,
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trying to break apart their bonds.
But now we are people who have been
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brought into the family, brought into
the nation, brought into this household,
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brought into the temple itself. This
is a great wonder indeed, and it's
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happened because Christ shed his blood,
as Paul says, that we might have
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peace. Verse Fourteen, he himself
is our peace. By shedding his blood,
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he forgave our sins. By shedding
his blood, he opened up the
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doors and he is, as Paul
says, the cornerstone of the temple.
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We're not out here in covenant old
PC sort of cobbling together some new tower
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of Babel, the stone and that
stone, trying to pull it all together
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and raise something up great for the
Lord or for some God of our imagination.
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We are being built by the spirit
of God. That's what he says.
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We are being built by the spirit
of God up into this living temple
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and the found not only is the
work or God himself, but the foundation
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is God himself, Jesus Christ,
as the cornerstone. Kids, the cornerstone
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is the one that you put right
at the bottom. It's the thing that
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helps you to have those straight lines
so that at the end you end up
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with a cube, like we talked
about this morning. It's the thing that
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gives you the ability to keep things
square, to keep things true, to
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keep things Orthodox, to keep things
right, to keep things centered in God,
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to think keep things reliant always on
our savior, and nowhere else.
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He is the cornerstone, and him, with the Apostles and the prophets,
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of the foundation, will we have
as the word of God, now here
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before us. The temple is then
built up, and this is how the
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work of God is done. He
says the US in his word. The
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word goes fourth into the world and
Jew both Jews and gentiles, are called
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in. The temple is built up, we are brought close with God,
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we receive all the benefits of sons
and the and God is praised. It's
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simple, it's wonderful, it's life
changing. What do you rely on?
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Your citizenship for this world? If
you if it came down to it and
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you had to prove it, what
would you do? What would it all
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come down to? Piece of paper, birth certificate, database somewhere? What
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is your citizenship in the Kingdom of
God? Rely on the blood of Christ,
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the promise of God. How much
more reliable is that? How much
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more sure is that? Trust in
him trust in no other put your hope
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in no other place, not in
the kingdoms of this world, not in
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00:34:24.829 --> 00:34:31.030
any other mediator or antichrist that would
come and present himself to you. Trust
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only in this one, and all
that he has earned for you will be
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given to you, and indeed already
has. Let's give him praise.
