The Household of God

THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD
Finding and Keeping Grace at Gateway
Ephesians 2:19-22


I’m always amazed at the way that God in His providence orchestrates events in my life so that they are directly informed by my daily bible reading. For instance, last January when we began this series in Ephesians, I had no idea that we would be discussing sharing our building with Grace Rumanian church, much less that I would be preaching this text the morning that they visited us.

I believe that as a pastor I am constrained to preach the whole counsel of God and if I preach through a book of the Bible chapter by chapter I will in due course cover every topic and theme relevant to the Christian life.

And so here we are today with Grace because God is bringing us together into one household. And what God joins together, let no man divide.

READ Ephesians 2:19-22 (pray)
No Christian would dispute that there is only on God. We believe in one God who is indivisible and apart from Him there is no other God. We believe also in the unity of the church- one holy apostolic church, indwelt and united by the Holy Spirit- indivisible… just like God.

Olive trees can live a long time. In Greece there is a hollowed out olive tree that is rumored to be over 2000 years old and it’s still alive. This tree is so old though, that it can barely produce an olive or two a year and maybe a single leaf. All around it are lush green olive trees that produce an abundance of figs

Do you know any churches like that olive tree? They resemble a church and once in a while they do things that are kind of like what a church should do, but in all practicality they have long ago ceased to perform the function that they were intended to do. They no longer produce any fruit of value and continue based on the fact that they have been around for such a long time. The life is no longer in them because the Spirit is no longer in them.

Did you know that in an old steam locomotive 96% of the energy it produced was to pull the locomotive and only 4% was used to actually pull the load? Churches become like that locomotive when they become inward and lose sight of their mission.

How does a church become inward? They become inward when every decision and every ministry and every form and function of the church is filtered through the minds of individuals as being all about them and their likes and preferences and feelings rather than about the church as a whole.

When that attitude crops up in a church, the church is doomed to myopacy (smallness), 96% of all its effort goes to the members and only 4% goes to reaching the lost. It becomes like that old olive tree- barely producing a single olive.
Someone once said, “The church is the only cooperative society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” (William Temple).
The gospel is the lens through which we must filter our decision making. It’s not about me, or you, or even us… it’s about the lost and it’s about being the household of God so that he will bring them in. No one can come to the Son unless the father draws them and the Father will not draw the lost to himself through a myopic and divided church.

That is what is so beautiful about what is happening with our two churches, God is building us together into one household, His household. So that we are no longer strangers to one another, but fellow citizens- He has torn down the wall that divides.

Let’s look at the text and I want to point out three things that we can learn and apply to what God is doing among us. First, we see that we are the household of God the Father (verse 19). Second we are being built together on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets and Jesus is our cornerstone… our chief cornerstone. Finally, we built together in unity because we are inhabited by God through the Holy Spirit.

So, just as God is one and indivisible- the church also must be one and indivisible. Therefore, the triune nature of God’s oneness is revealed here as the unifying force behind the church- there is unity with diversity, not division. Diversity is unity, division is not.

And what we believe and practice regarding the church reveals what we believe about God so that when we try to divide brothers and sister in Christ, what we are saying is that we believe that God can be divided- that’s apostasy.
That said, let’s unpack these elements of the unity of the household of God so that we can apply them to ourselves.

I. First, verse 21 says that this household, this temple… and I am not talking about this church building, I am talking about us- Grace and Gateway. This temple has been built, not upon our traditions, not upon some man made Apostolic succession, not upon some gushy emotion, or pragmatic opportunism. It is built upon the foundation of Scripture: the Apostles and the Prophets; the Old and the New Testament.

Remember when Jesus and his three disciples went up on that mountain where his clothes became white and Elijah and Moses (representative of the Law and the Prophets) appeared and talked with him? Then Peter put his foot in his mouth… again, and suggested they build a temple, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. What was Peter saying? He was implying that Moses, Elijah and Jesus were equals. But God thundered from heaven and said to Peter, “Behold my Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”

In other words, “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers through the prophets has in these last days spoken to us through His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he made the worlds” –Christ is the chief cornerstone that holds us together.

We are built upon the authority and unity of the Old and the New Testament… the oracles of God. And it is in them that we discover Jesus the logos-word of God and the gospel that he preached.

He is the cornerstone of this church (Grace and Gateway) so long as His gospel is preached and should we ever cease to make his word and his gospel the cornerstone, replacing it with man centered ear tickling we might just as well call ourselves, “Ichabod” the glory has departed. May that day never come to us and may we never be ashamed of His gospel. May our house be built on the Solid Rock.

“The Temple of God is holy which Temple you are” (1 Cor 3:17b).

II. Second, verse 22, in Christ we are being built together for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit.

We -Rumanians and English and Jews and Pilipinos and Dutch and Hungarians and Indians and Koreans- we are being built together. What miraculous power in the universe could unite the nations the way that God unites them in His church through His Holy Spirit?

Yesterday at our men’s breakfast and the guys helped me with my sermon. We talked about Spiritual leadership and how leadership is like navigating.

Today as Grace and Gateway chart a new course in our friendship, we need to learn the lessons of navigation.
1. We need to look forward to plan and to envision.
• What is God’s agenda
• Praying together
2. We must learn from the past and see how God works in History and Providence.
• Scripture
• History
3. We need to listen.
• To God
• To members
• This requires humility
4. Like any good navigator, we must examine the conditions to be sure that it is safe to venture forth into deeper commitments.
5. Finally, we must balance faith and fact.
• This means team work.
• This requires maturity and respect.