So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. We are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord. in whom we also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the
Spirit. And that is the text we're looking at today from the second chapter of Ephesians, continuing where we picked up last, or left off, rather, last week. I was reading this week a brief... paragraph about the Washington Cathedral, which I guess more properly is called the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It is a large edifice that was begun, believe it or not, in 1907 and is not yet completed. In fact, they say that it probably won't be completed
until the turn of the century. a few more years in the building process. Perhaps you have stood in that cathedral. I have not. But I understand that it is quite beautiful with its stained glass and lovely ornaments. It is a magnificent structure that inspires, it is said, worship. Now, we all know that God doesn't live in a church. God's address is not 1310 West County Road B2, Roseville, Minnesota. God doesn't live in the structure where we are. But where the church does meet
can be used of God to inspire worship. God has created us so that aesthetics mean something to us. Aesthetics strike our senses, and all of our senses should be involved in the act of worshiping God. A beautiful building does not necessarily mean that God has worshipped there. That's for sure. But the beauty of a building can enhance the worship of God's people. To be very frank with you, there's not a whole lot here in this room that inspires worship in me.
It is a beautiful room and adequate for our purposes for this time. But I look forward to someday when we might be able to construct a building that would... more aesthetically stimulate worship in us. We're going to try to do something with this room to make it a little more such. There are a couple of ladies in our church working on some banners depicting various stages of the life of Christ that we eventually will have hanging in here, which I think will kind of break it
up a little bit. But really, this room was designed to be a gym. We've had visitors come in and say, oh, it's beautiful. When's it going to be finished? Well, you know, this is it. This is it for the way it is right now, at least. But the fact is that God doesn't live in this building. We are the building of God, or in the terms of Paul's paragraph here, we are the new temple of God, his holy temple that he is constructing in this age. Last time together we saw the substructure
of it, the foundation. of the apostles and prophets, and the fact that Jesus Christ himself is the cornerstone of it all. Today we want to pick it up at that point and move ahead and talk about the stones in this living temple. He tells us here in a couple of verses who the stones are. In verse 20, or backing up to the thought in verse 19, he says, You are, fellow citizens and saints, having been built upon the foundation. And then again in verse 22 he says, in whom you
also are being built together. And so the stones of this living temple are you. You who are the saved by grace through faith. Every Christian is a living stone in this temple that God is constructing for himself during these hundreds of years of this age of grace. If you go back with me to 1 Peter once again this morning and just look briefly, you'll see that Peter also
says this. He says in verse 4 of the second chapter, 1 Peter 2, 4, And coming to him, Christ, as to a living stone, skip on to verse 5, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house. Our coming to him refers to our coming to him in faith. He says, coming to him who is the living stone, you also then are made living stones. And God is building you up into a house. God is, in the terms of Ephesians 2, putting you together as a temple for his habitation.
In the Old Testament, the building was indwelt, but in the New Testament, God indwells the individual stones of the building. He is the divine stonemason, if you please, who is putting each of us who is saved into the body or the temple as it pleases him. For some, he puts them into a conspicuous place, a place of prominence or visibility. Others of us he puts into an ordinary place, a plain location where routine work is being done, but
essential work. And then some of us God is pleased by his own sovereign choice to put us into a hidden place where only he sees our value. But he is able to accurately measure our significance even in a hidden place to the whole of his work. The point is not whether we're in a visible place or an ordinary place or a hidden place. The point is that we're in a place. And that where God places us is his choice. God has mined you and me from the query of sin and has fit us by grace
into this temple. There's a marvelous thing that we've sung this morning. That God is the friend of sinners. Jesus is the friend of sinners. He can set you free. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ reached down into the quarry of sin. He's able to take a sinner like you and me and to make us new creatures. To cleanse us from our sin. Give us a new purpose in life. And to invest in us spiritual gifts and then to add us to the temple. It's a marvelous thing. We are the stones
of this temple that God is building. Let's think thirdly about the superstructure of the building, that which is visible, the main part of a building that we see. We've seen the individual parts. We're the stones. But let's think now about the superstructure itself. Now, when Paul wrote about that in verses 20 and 21, he may have had in mind the Jerusalem temple, which was still standing
in his day. On the other hand, he may have had in mind the temple of Diana or Artemis, the Roman Greek goddess whom the Ephesians in their paganism worshipped. There was a temple there in the city of Ephesus that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. There was a structure that was just unbelievable in its beauty and sadly wicked in the worship that was practiced there.
but they would be quite well aware of a temple -type metaphor, even if they had never been to Jerusalem and had seen the temple of Herod there in that city. He says to them and to us, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing. into a holy temple in the Lord. Seems to me that he gives us here a four -fold depiction of this temple.
Notice that he tells us first that it's massive in its dimension. He speaks about the whole building. Kind of reminds you of that commercial a few years ago, the whole thing that the person ate, right? Well, he's talking here about the whole building. It is massive in its picture here. He describes the dimensions of it in that very
simple phrase as being very complex. It could be read this way, all the building or each individual building, which is very suggestive to us because it refers to a great temple with many porches, courts and towers, etc., all that goes with it. Each of these is connected. With the great bond of the substructure that's underneath it. If you have ever seen a picture in a Bible dictionary of Herod's temple, you understand the picture that Paul has in mind here. The huge foundation
that was under that complex of the temple. It tied it all together. But the temple itself had many porches, and there were lots of rooms in it, not just the Holy of Holies and the holy place. There were courts outside and many steps leading up to it. It was quite a beautiful structure. And that is the picture that Paul has here. He says, now God is building a living temple. The whole building, he says, in its dimension. And in saying that, he is saying that what God is
building in this age is vast. It is vast. It's vast in time. It stretches from the day of Pentecost until that day when Jesus will come again. It is vast in terms of the numbers of people, a multitude that cannot be counted. It is vast in terms of the kinds of people it reaches, the high and the low, the black and the white and the red and the yellow. Those who come from civilized countries, those who have never known civilization. It is a vast building that God is putting together.
He is calling out a people today through the preaching of the gospel. He is calling out a people to become living stones in this whole complex building he is putting together. And then he says that it increases in its cohesion. He says the whole building being fitted together. That term is only used one at a time in the whole Bible, and that's in chapter 4 and verse 16, where he uses a very similar phrase in verse 16 as it's in the English. It says, being fitted
and held together. The linguistic key of the Greek New Testament says regarding this particular verb, in construction terms, it represents the whole of the elaborate process by which stones are fitted together. the preparation of the surfaces, including the cutting, rubbing, and testing, the preparation of the dowels and the dowel holes, and finally the fitting of the dowels with molten
lead. When they built one of these huge edifices in that day, they took very much care in preparing the stones so that they would fit right into place. And then the stones were held in place. They would drill holes down into the stones and fill those holes with molten lead so that there was not only a heavy stone put in place, but it was held there by the lead dowel. Now that is the picture that the apostle has in mind. He pictures a building that is being carefully
fitted together. It is a building that binds itself into greater solidarity as it is put up. It is not a building that's just thrown together where stones are piled one on top of another, but carefully the stones are put into place so that progressively the building is made more tight. As each stone is put into place, it is joined more firmly together so that the building is consolidated. Now, we must expect that to be the case because God is the great architect
of it. And he knows where every stone is supposed to be. He knows what every stone is supposed to look like. In other words, he knows just how he has prepared you and me to be placed into this living temple. He knows how he has gifted us so that we play our role in the building that he's constructing in the spirit. The pyramids of Egypt were also the wonders of the ancient world, and they are still wonders today in the 20th century. I have never been privileged to
see them, but I'm fascinated by them. These tremendous monuments to the ancient pharaohs and kings of Egypt have stood through thousands of years, and there is no mortar that holds those stones together. They were so carefully fashioned and crafted by skilled men back in those days that where those stones were placed, some of them weighing five tons, where they were put into place by their well -advanced engineering methods,
those stones have stayed. Now, they have been partially buried at times by the sands of the desert blowing up against them, but they have stayed in place and they are preserved to this day. you can enter into those pyramids and see the rooms that are there. In some cases, see the vaults and the burial rooms where these leaders were placed. And even in some of them, you can see the paintings on the walls still. How carefully those were fitted together. The same is true,
by the way, of Solomon's temple. It's interesting to read about it in the Old Testament because... It tells us, the Holy Spirit tells us there, that when that temple was put together, there was not the sound of a hammer with an earshot of the temple. The stones were all cut and then polished and carried to the temple so that when it was put into place, there would be the sound only of a rock being slidden into its spot, not the sound of a hammer. So carefully... were those
stones prepared. And my friend, that's exactly what God is doing in your life and mine today. Now there are times when you and I say, ouch, to what God is doing as he works on this living stone. And it seems to grind us a little too much on occasion. But you and I can be sure of this, that what he is doing is for our good and for our glory in Jesus Christ. Because he is preparing us, he is fitting us, to be put into
place in this temple that he's building. It increases in its cohesion as it is built up, and then it grows in its extension. He says here, the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple. Present tense there. It is growing. All the time it is growing. It is increasing in its extension. The term growing here is a biological term. That would be inconsistent if Paul were speaking of a structure of stone. But he's talking about people. He's talking about
living stones. And so he says, we as living stones are growing because the church is an organism, you see. As members are added, it enlarges. As I've already said, it began on the day of Pentecost and through the centuries. Despite fire, despite sword, despite prison cells, despite persecution and suffering, the church has grown and grown and grown and will continue to grow until that day that it's finished. And it will be finished
one day. In Acts 2 .47 it says, The Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. The church is intended to grow and to keep on growing. I am absolutely perplexed by some churches that make decisions not to grow anymore. I have a friend, a shirt -tail relative by marriage, actually, who moved to Lexington, Kentucky. One of the things that he and his wife
had to do was to relocate in a church. And he came back one time and shared with me, he said, you know, I just can't understand this one church that we visited. He said, they let us know when we came that they were very content with what they were and the size they were, and they were not interested in growing anymore. And he said, that's not the kind of a church I want to be a part of. You know, it's interesting, they did go to that church. God brought in a new ministry,
and the church is growing again. But how sad it is when... an attitude or a spirit, if not even a decision is made, at least the attitude is made in the parts of people, we've grown big enough. That is never the plan of God. Now, a church may not always grow quickly. There may not be growth by leaps and bounds in a church, but the plan of God is for the church to keep on growing as it is being fitted together. You see, a church never maxes out in its growth until
it decides mentally that it's done that. And then it's done. God intends for the church to keep on growing. One of the concerns, frankly, that I have regarding our ministry here is that we have come to the point once more where we really cannot grow. For two reasons. One is our
parking. Now, we've tried to attack that, and some of you are really helping us on it, and we appreciate that so much, your willingness to park at the high school and ride back here so that we can keep spaces open for new people, visitors who are coming. The last couple of weeks, that has really worked well. We've had a few extra spots, both between the services and at critical times during the morning. and that has
meant a great deal. But even more important than that is the fact that we're out of space for small churches to grow anymore. We have some small churches that badly need to divide, and we cannot do that without changing our morning schedule, not our worship schedule. But some of the small churches, I think even today, are being asked if they're interested in moving to another hour, like at 8 .15 in the morning. Frankly,
what we need is more space. But I'm not sure that I'm ready for another building program right now. I'm not sure that you're ready for that either, frankly. Now, if the Lord should bring in someone this week with a million dollars and say, I want to start a building fund, I wouldn't turn it down. You understand? I could probably get in the mood fairly quickly if that were to
happen. But just as I stand here this morning, I'm not real excited about starting a new building by June or something like that, I'll tell you. What we really need is for that next phase, the CE building next door to us here to be put up two or three stories as a part of our original design for our church here. I don't think we're ready for that. So if we're not ready for that, how are we going to keep growing? We've got to provide for that growth. If we don't, we'll level
off. And frankly, when a church decides it's going to level off, it doesn't level off. You know what happens. It goes downhill. There is no such thing as leveling off. I've heard of churches that entered into a maintenance time. You know, they just kind of maintained themselves. I pastored a church for a while that got into that frame of mind. Well, you know, we're just not going to change anymore. We're just going
to maintain. And for the two years that I was there and they tried to maintain, they went just like that. You can't maintain. That's an impossible concept in a church. A church is either growing or it's dying. And it's not the will of God for it to die. A church dies when the people of the church make up their mind they're done growing. They're not going to change anymore. They're not going to do what is necessary so the growth
can continue. Now, in our case here, because we're not ready to build again, it means that we're going to have to ask God to give us grace that we might be able to change and experiment, be creative in meeting at some different times, perhaps, some of us at least, so that we can continue growth because there will be space for people to sit. You say, well, there's still room here in the auditorium for worship. Yes, there
is. And we can continue to grow here for some time by adding more chairs and putting the chairs we have close together, for that matter. We can continue to grow in worship, but you see, coming to the worship service is not being a part of the church. If you're going to be a part of the church, it means being a part of a small church and getting involved in the life of the church. And that's where, right now, we're at a real bottleneck, and we need God's wisdom about that.
You'll hear tonight one of the things we're doing. is putting together some deacon commissions, and one of those commissions is a long -range planning commission, which some of you will be asked to serve on. And these are the kinds of things we need to be thinking about, how we're going to allow for the Spirit of God to continue growth and life and vitality in our church at a time when we cannot yet, as far as we know
today, right now, build another building. God's plan is for the church and its superstructure to grow in its extension, to reach out to new people. A church never gets to the point that it doesn't need additional people. It does always need people because there are people that need the church and who need the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, that's the point. When we get to that position and think, well, we can just maintain now. We've gone far enough. We're big enough.
What we're saying is there are people out there who need the Lord. There are people out there who need the ministry of the word of God, and of course that's a fallacy. There are many churches in our Twin Cities area, but there are many, many hundreds of thousands of people who have not been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's why we're here. And so we need to keep in mind that God's put us here to grow.
This is what it says here in his word. And then he tells us, fourthly, that he would describe the superstructure as holy in its description. He says that we are growing into a holy temple in the Lord, a holy temple. The word temple here is not the word for the temple complex, but it's that word for the inner sanctuary of the temple, the place of the presence, the shrine, as the
pagans would have put it there in Ephesus. It was that inner shrine which was dedicated to the goddess that they worshipped in their heathenism. In terms of the Jewish temple, it would refer to the Holy of Holies, that innermost cubicle where the Ark of the Covenant was placed and where God was pleased to manifest his presence with the Shekinah glory. Now he tells us here that we are growing into a holy place. A holy
shrine in the Lord. This same picture is used in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 16 and 17, where he says, Do you not know that you are a temple of God? Now, he's writing to a local church, and he's saying that to them as a body. We can easily say today, You, Grace Church Roseville, do you not know that you are a temple, a holy... shrine, a holy place of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys this temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple
of God is holy, and that is what you are. The superstructure that God is building is a holy superstructure of people. And he says, that we as a total church, capital C, all of us saved in this age, and we as a local church, the visible earthly expression of the church, we are also a holy temple to the Lord, a sanctuary to the Lord. Really, this room is not a sanctuary. We call it the worship center. Because the sanctuary you see in this age is in us as we gather together
to worship the Lord. We become the sanctuary when we are here. When we leave, the sanctuary is gone. Now in verse 22, the apostle gives us the scheme of the building. He says that God has done all of this so that we might be his habitation in the spirit. The Spirit of God is the great unifier. He ties us together so that we are a permanent abode of God. That word again, habitation, is found only one other place, and that is in Revelation 18 .2, the very negative
context there. But it's used many times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint. And there it is used of the place where God rests. It is the place where God settles down. That is his habitation. And so he tells us here that we, as the living temple, the holy temple, are God's habitation. We are his resting place where God is pleased to settle down. John's testimony this morning, and he's not in here, but I'll say this. I appreciate the emotion.
of his testimony and the fact that sharing about his salvation experience causes that kind of feeling in his heart. God help us when we can talk about our conversion and it's just like the newspaper. You know, it doesn't have a lot of meaning to us. But he was saying that as he went into that church, Wooddale Baptist Church, and met with that group, there was something different about it. Well, of course, because that's where God was, you see. He sensed the
presence of God. There's not a greater compliment that can come to a congregation of people than for someone to come in and say, I sense the presence of God here. That's exactly what God's plan is, you see. He wishes to settle down, to abide in the church. He says that we are being built together for that purpose. Similar phrase to verse 21, but a different one. He says built together, but the emphasis is on the togetherness of it. The importance is that we are a fellowship in
a local church. God has not created us as his people to be lone rangers. I've had people say to me, well, I can worship God out there in the woods as I'm fishing on Sunday morning. Well, you can worship God anywhere, but the point is that if you're a child of God, God says to worship together in a church, in a congregation of his
people. That's his plan. God has not created us as living stones to be thrown out there and be isolated, but he has created us as living stones to be placed into a body of people with whom we interact and with whom we worship. There's great unity that's involved here, which God creates, and which we then are exhorted to keep over in the fourth chapter of the book of Ephesians. We are told to keep that unity that God is building
together in us. One may not be divisive or be a troublemaker in a church and yet not be contributing to the unity that God is building. So how can one contribute to the unity? Simply by exercising the gifts of the Spirit that he has in the fellowship of that local church. That's why God has gifted us, so that we can exercise those gifts in the dynamic of our relationship together as an organism. And as we do that, we are going to grow and the whole body grows. He talks about that in the
fourth chapter. We'll get to it eventually. So how can I contribute to the unity of this local church by exercising your spiritual gifts here? God hasn't created the church to be a spectator arena. Where people come together and they observe others doing the work of the Lord. The church is to be a place where all of us as living stones are contributing together. He is together building us. He is together fitting us into place. So that we share ministry together. That's God's
plan. That's the scheme that he has in mind. You know, there is something that amazes me about some folks who come to our church, and I don't say it in criticism. I simply say it rather in astonishment because I've never seen it before now. We have not a few people who come to our church and who are involved in ministry in our church, sometimes in rather significant ways, and who have made significant financial commitments to our church who are not even members of our
church. Now, honestly, in all of my ministry, I've never seen that before. On one hand, I'm glad, because I'm glad people have confidence in the leadership of the church, in the ministry of the church, in its vision, so that they want to do that. On the other hand, frankly, I'm puzzled by the fact that people will do that much, even contribute of their money, which is usually the very last thing that comes, and yet they don't want to become a part of the church as a member,
or at least they neglect to do that. In a few minutes, I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond to that, by the way, some of you who have been in that position. It would sure help me and decrease my perplexity. I would appreciate that. Well, listen, we have to move ahead because he has concluded here what he wants to say about the church as the holy temple. Dr. Mull says,
thus closes the special revelation. of the plan and nature of the great living sanctuary, built on the Son by the Spirit for the Father to be the scene of the manifestation of his glory to whatsoever spectators eternity shall bring to see it. Last week we had sung for us that beautiful, beautiful song, The Holy City. And it describes there in musical terms what is set before us. Revelation chapters 21 and 22. I don't understand all that's in those chapters. But it is a beautiful
scene, the city that is described there. Some 1 ,500 miles in its dimensions, whether you see it as a cube or a pyramid or a sphere, however you may choose to view that description. It is an immense city. You know what it says about it? The angel says, come here, John. I want to show you the lamb's wife. His bride. You see, that city that is there is the place you and I are going to live for eternity. It's our home. It's where we who are part of his bride will
live in the eternity future. The new Jerusalem, the holy city. Well, right now God is building that city over there. But right now in a spiritual sense, God is building it in us. We are his temple, his habitation. And in light of that, there's just one word of instruction that I want to close with, and it's found over in 2 Corinthians. I'd like you to turn there with me. In 2 Corinthians 6, verse 16, he says, What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple
of the living God. Then in chapter 7, verse 1, he summarizes his words. He says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. He talks here about our separation from sin. And he says, because we are a holy temple of God. God wants us to be separate from sin. He wants us to perfect holiness in our lives. Perfecting
holiness in the fear of God, he says. Cleansing ourselves of the filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit because we're a holy temple. Folks, because what God has called us to be, what he is fitting us to become, where he has placed us, in the new temple. Let's allow our lifestyles to reflect the fact that we're a holy temple. For not only are we as a congregation a holy temple, but we in our bodies, we are holy temples. Our bodies themselves are holy to the Lord. He
has purchased us. So let's live the kind of lives that reflect who we are in Jesus Christ. View the building, see it rise. The work, how great, the plan, how wise. Nor can that faith be overthrown that rests upon the living stone. Let's pray. I wonder how the message this morning may be used of the Spirit of God in your life. Are you built on the living stone? Is your faith in Jesus Christ? Have you come to him in faith so that
he can make you a part of the new temple? And you, my Christian brother and sister, are you living a holy life? Are you in your body a holy temple? Are you contributing to the unity of this new temple God is creating? What is it that's withholding you from membership, taking that step in this local church today? Is God leading you to make that step? Heavenly Father, I pray that you will deal with us personally, lovingly, patiently, as only you can, in such a beautiful
way. And by the Spirit, give us the right desires in our hearts and the willingness to follow through in obedience to your plan for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. I'd like us to sing in closing number 451. And as we do that, we're just going to sing a verse or two. First of all, I want to give you an opportunity if you've never trusted the Lord
Jesus Christ to do that this morning. And to come here in the front where I'll be standing and I'll introduce you to a counselor who can take you aside privately and can answer whatever questions you have as to how to become a real Christian. the kind of a Christian that stood before you and gave his testimony this morning. It may be that you're here today and you've come
to this fellowship. You're even a contributor and you're a minister in the sense that you're participating in some ministry, but you're not a member of the church. I want to open up that invitation today for you so that you can come and publicly say, I want to become a part of this church, and we can start that process for
you today. You say, do I have to do that? No, you don't have to, but this is an opportunity to get started so that you may not neglect it anymore as you perhaps have been in the past. I urge you to come for that purpose this morning and not feel ashamed in coming, but be glad to come and to join with us in the work of the Lord here at Grace Church as a member of this local body. Let's stand together as we sing 451, All to Jesus I Surrender.