Unity Through Commonality
Ephesians 2:19-22
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Sermon Summary As Christians, our common identity in Christ is what truly unites us. We are now part of the same nation, the same family, and the same building, with the same Spirit within us all, growing us together in the faith. |
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Ephesians 2:19-22
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 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.
My wife has been a real asset to me when it has come to my social ineptitude. She’s always excelled in her ability to communicate and relate to people. She tells me that the key to making a connection with someone is finding the one thing that you have in common. I believe she is right. My only problem is finding that one thing in common.
But I know she’s right because that is the tactic that the apostle Paul has been using to meld the two most factionary groups in the world together.
Last time we were together, we began to see how these Jews and Gentiles could come to connect in one church. How can these two groups, who are in many ways diametrically opposed to one another, really begin to have meaningful social interaction? Paul told us it was by recognizing just how much they have in common. They didn’t have just one thing in common; they had much in common.
This morning we are going to see that Paul has much more to say on this subject. These Jews and Gentiles may have some differences, but what they have in common far surpasses whatever they think may stand between them.
And mind you, this is not merely about Jews and Gentiles. What Paul says here is fundamental to all of God’s people. The syndrome of schism has always existed in the church. We should recognize that if the Lord was able to bring together these two groups of people (Jews and Gentiles), then he can meld together any other God-fearing people.
This morning I want us to consider the four things Paul says that we have in common. And I want us to reflect on them so that our fellowship becomes all that much more knit together. As a church that has quite a few differences, it is important for us to remember the common ground we share. That is the key to our unity, and the key to our survival as a church, just as it was for the Ephesian church.
What do we have in common? The first thing Paul mentions is our identity.
I. We share a common identity [19]
Now, it wasn’t that these Jews and Gentiles weren’t focusing on their identities. They were. They were identified as Jews and Gentiles. The problem was that they were not focusing on the right identity. What they needed to know is that they shared a common identity.
In verse 19, Paul gets us thinking about the identity that we have in common. He uses two images to describe us.
The first image Paul uses is that of national affiliation. He starts off by saying that we are “no longer strangers and aliens.” Instead we are “fellow citizens.” Here is our commonality: we all have equal standing in the kingdom of God because we are all citizens of it. There was a time when we were not. We were strangers and aliens. Our citizenship was in the world. We were the children of the devil (as we studied at the beginning of chapter 2). But all that has changed.
Now, I don’t know if anyone else in this group is avidly watching World Cup soccer, but if you want to see the beauty of unity, all you have to do is turn on a game and watch the fans. People who probably wouldn’t be caught dead next to each other on any other occasion can be seen hugging and high-fiving each other. The only reason is that they have the same national identity and are rooting for their country’s team.
What Paul says here is that we all, as Christians, share a unique citizenship. We are all a part of the commonwealth of Israel.
If you were here last time, you may remember that from the previous verses. This is an important point. A lot of people make much of Israel as a country today. They have some hope in a Jewish state.
But what you find Paul saying is that the commonwealth of Israel is no longer something that has regulated borders, nor is it about a specific territory in the Middle East. It is much bigger than that. The real Israel of God is all over the planet. It encapsulates people who are Jews and Gentiles; it includes people like you and me.
All of God’s people are citizens together in this great kingdom, and each of us belongs to it. And since we have this in common, we should recognize that we have a duty to align with one another.
Yes, we will have our differences. We are not going to deny that. Just like any bunch of people in a nation, there will be some things that are different between us. Paul’s not saying that these Jews and Gentiles are to completely ignore their cultural backgrounds and have complete uniformity in everything.
What he’s saying is that we all share in the kingdom of God. God has brought each and every one of us into this special realm. We now share in something that is bigger than our differences in that we each have the same King. That should go a long way in helping us overcome any animosity we have toward one another.
So we have to put an emphasis on our “national identity” as kingdom citizens.
The second image Paul uses is that of the home. You see that he says that we are also “members of the household of God.” The first image was one of national standing; this one relates to the family and our being a distinct part of that family.
Now, one of the things I love about our congregation is that a significant part of our population has been adopted. I hope that that continues and that all of our families have a vision for building homes with many children and adopting children.
But this is a special thing to note. That’s because what Paul says here is a reference to our adoption into the household of God.
You may remember that there was a time when Paige, Geneva, and Truman were not a part of our family. Even though it might have been a short period of time in their lives, they were not official members of our household. It wasn’t until a judge gave a specific order that they became full-fledged members of our family. Ever since they entered our home, they have had the exact same standing as Katelyn (my biological child). Paige, Geneva, and Truman are not loved any less, nor are they afforded some second-class status in our family.
And this is the image that the apostle Paul uses here. The Lord has adopted each one of us. Paul says that this was not our natural state. We were not originally a part of God’s family, but we were brought into the household of God. God chose to bring us into his family and he provided all the legal necessities in order to do that.
Now you have to love this family imagery and understand what Paul is getting at. You don’t easily disown your family, do you? If there’s one thing about family, it is that you are willing to endure a lot grief and overlook a multitude of wrongs. Why is that? It’s because that’s your brother or your sister, and you simply can’t get rid of them.
As a matter of fact, we have this saying: Blood is thicker than water. What do we mean by that? It means that family loyalties are much stronger than other kinds of relationships.
That’s the kind of relationship that Paul is getting at with this identification. We need to see ourselves not as mere friends or acquaintances. We need to see ourselves as family. We are born into the family of God, and the bonds between us should be some of the strongest bonds conceivable.
So when it comes to who we are, we need to start there. How will we survive as a church? It’s by remembering the identity we have.
But not only do we share a common identity, we also share a common body of truth.
II. We share a common body of truth [20]
Look at verse 20. Paul says that we are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.”
Now, you might say that a third image is being used here, the image of a building. This image is going to extend to the end of our passage this morning, but I want to break it up because there are so many important things contained in this image. The first part of the building is the foundation. The foundation is the fundamental part of the building. It is perhaps even unique to the building because it is what the building grows out of.
So we might ask, what does Paul mean when he says that we are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”?
Paul is referring to the the Word of God, the Bible. God has spoken through apostles and prophets. The Bible is the product of the NT apostles and the OT prophets, and these sacred words are our foundation. This body of truth has been delivered through these men by means of the Spirit.
The thing about a foundation is that it is the main thing that unites a house. The whole house coalesces around the foundation. Once you lay the foundation, that’s basically it. You know where the house is going from there. It is going up. It doesn’t go out any further. So each part that is added is going to be centered upon that foundation.
This is what Scripture is to us. It is the foundation for our lives. We as Christians coalesce around it because it serves as the basis for everything that we are to believe and do.
Now, let me pause here and say that this verse has typically been one of the main verses for what we call “cessationism.” Cessationism is a word that refers to God’s having ceased giving further revelation. He has ceased revealing new things.
This is one of those doctrines that is somewhat debated among Christians. I used to be a Pentecostal and involved in churches that were Charismatic, and these types of churches typically say that revelation has not ceased. They say that God continues to reveal things (so they are known as “continuists”).
These churches say that God can speak to us personally to reveal his will. They will likely affirm things like speaking in tongues and prophecy. Some might even go so far as to say that there are still apostles in our day. But the thing that they all agree on is that God continues to reveal truth beyond the Scriptures.
Most of them would say that these things are not on the same par as Scripture, but this is a distinction that is a little hard to maintain. After all, it is supposed to be the Word of God. I think you can understand that there cannot be things that are revealed that are more inspired than others. If it is from God, it is from God.
But, as I said, this verse is one of the verses that is often cited to refute the idea that prophecy and new revelations continue to be given. Why is that? It is because of this idea of a foundation. God has given us everything we need in the Old and New Testaments. He has laid a perfect foundation through the prophets and the apostles. And once you lay the foundation, you don’t add anything to it. You take great care when laying the foundation because once you do that, the building is literally set in stone.
Now, I recognize that I’ve been talking about a number of differences. Maybe you are one who says, “Well, Matt, I do think that God has a future for a nation of Israel.” Or maybe you are not overly convinced about what I’ve said here about God having ceased giving forms of revelation. Maybe you think I’m wrong on that and that God does continue to speak in different ways beyond the Scriptures.
That’s okay. We can still be united because we believe in the authority of this book. We might differ in some different ways of understanding what God has revealed here, but we still hold to the truth of it.
That’s the thing about the Bible: when it comes to the essential truths and main doctrines concerning the nature of God, the nature of man, the way of salvation, and the way we are supposed to live, all of these are very clear. And we are certainly united on the fact that this book is to be the foundation for what we believe and do.
The gospel and the basic truths of Christian faith give us the basis for our unity. When the Scripture is compromised and the truth of the gospel is distorted, that’s when we can’t have unity. That’s when we have to part ways and say bon voyage.
So we can have unity if we are a Bible-believing Presbyterians and Pentecostals. But if we deny the Trinity or say that we are justified by something other than faith alone, then our fellowship has come to an end. The best we can hope for is a friendship. We certainly are not able to worship together and maintain any kind of ecclesiastical ties. But as long as we have the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there’s nothing that should hinder that fellowship.
There’s a third thing that Paul mentions. When it comes to our life together, we know we should have an indivisible bond because we share a common mystical experience.
III. We share a common mystical experience [21]
The word “mystical” is not one we typically use. It’s not part of our everyday language. It means anything that pertains to the spiritual. It has to do with things that are a little mysterious, especially when it comes to contact with God.
Now, I just said that we do not have God speaking to us through new forms of revelation. But this does not mean that the Lord is not active in any way. He most certainly is, and this next verse makes that abundantly clear. Look at verse 21. It says, “In whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
What I want you to zero in on is the words “being joined together.” These words are drawn from the world of architecture. They carry the idea of a mason setting bricks exactly in place or a carpenter who cuts two boards and then sets them in perfect alignment.
I even like the language of the KJV. The KJV says, “fitly framed together.” I like that translation, except for one thing that it’s missing. The word in the original language is in the passive tense. It would be more accurate to say “being fitly framed together.” That puts it a bit better because it emphasizes that we are not the active agents; God is. We are completely passive in this. We are being acted upon. It is God who is joining us together, just like a mason, when building an edifice, sets each brick in place.
A few years ago, I was working at a factory in town. The building had two floors and it needed an elevator. It didn’t have one, so they had to build one, and they called in a company to install it.
The first thing they did was lay some cement blocks up to the second story to create an enclosure for the elevator. One thing I noticed is that not one of those bricks jumped up there by itself. Each block had to be hoisted up and set exactly in place by the bricklayer.
That’s what is going on in the church. God, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, is working to join us together more and more. You might not see it. You might not feel it. But there is a supernatural power at work among us. Each day, we are experiencing something divine as the Lord works to fasten us together.
Not long ago, there were all kinds of attempts to create individual local churches based on some unifying principles. They were usually based on some cultural demographic. For instance, the pastor or board would come together and say, “Who or what kind of people are we going to reach in this area?” So they would study the city’s demographics and then make a plan to reach a particular segment of population.
So you ended up having highly niche churches, like the white middle-class suburban church. Then you would have things like the “biker church” which was created for those who wore leather and rode Harley Davidson motorcycles. One guy even created a cowboy church. His goal was to reach ranchers who wore 10-gallon hats. They met in a barn and sat on hay bales rather than wooden pews or chairs.
What was that all about? It was all about finding some common link in the culture or the people. These ended up being highly homogeneous in their makeup and expressly focused on what could bring them together.
What you find here though, is that there’s not something that is in the culture or the person or the demographics that unites Christians. The thing that unites us isn’t something that is of this world. The only thing that really brings people together is God.
And thank God that he does, because he is able to make real unity in the midst of diversity. He can take a hodgepodge group, who really would have nothing else in common, and make them to love being together. That’s because he works in their hearts to make them believe the same things, worship the same God, and pursue the same kind of holiness. But when you look at it, you can understand that our union transcends any kind of earthly friendship.
That’s because it is mystical. It is all due to the mysterious, invisible, and spiritual working of God among his people.
There’s one last thing that Paul mentions. There’s one more thing we all have in common, one last basis for our unity and fellowship with one another. And I really want you to catch the significance of what he says.
We have a common identity, a common foundation (the Scriptures), and a common mystical experience. All these are wonderful things, but they pale in comparison to the end of verse 22, which tells us of our common indwelling.
IV. We share a common divine indwelling [22]
Paul says we are being built together to become a “dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
This is by far the most profound statement in these verses. God, perfect and holy, the great infinite and glorious one, condescends to the point of taking up His residence within us.
This, you might even say, has been what this whole passage has been driving towards. Think about it again. He started out talking about us being citizens. That should have been an amazing thing. But it wasn’t enough. So he then changed the imagery to that of a family. That made it more intimate.
Citizens, technically, can live all over the world. They could be spread out and detached to some degree. But a family is a family no matter where they are. Families are known to be right up in each other’s faces. You can stop being a member of a country, but you can’t stop being a member of a family. That’s how close you are.
But even that imagery wasn’t enough. After all, families often grow apart. Kids grow up and they move away. Some family members are estranged. Even though they continue to be family, they might drift apart. So he changes the imagery again to that of a building.
One might say that it is a step backward, going from a family to that of an inanimate. It is a bit cold; it’s lacking that relational warmth. But when you talk about the bricks of a building, you cannot deny the fact that they are closely knit together. Bricks do not leave each other. They are always packed closely together.
And to understand that these bricks are part of a very sacred temple, and that we are built upon the cornerstone of Christ, this reminds us that we have a great intimacy with God.
But even that imagery was not enough. Even though Paul communicates a depth of closeness to God, it is not enough. He goes yet one step further to say that God has come to dwell within us.
And herein lies the greatest argument for our unity. If God is living in you and he is also living in me, how then could we have any kind of separation? Each of us has to be drawn that much closer to each other. If God is this close to us, is it possible for him to repel himself? Absolutely not. If God lives within us, then we must be bound together in the utmost purity.
And let this be what fills our minds the rest of the day. God has not just given us a common identity. He has not just given us a body of truth to share. He’s not just working upon us through his Spirit to bind us together. But this is what should produce awe and wonder: that he has seen fit, not just to come to us, but to actually enter into us and make his home within us.
When the reality of that hits home—when we really understand the depth of communion we have with the Lord, our communion with each other will be all that much sweeter.
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 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.
My wife has been a real asset to me when it has come to my social ineptitude. She’s always excelled in her ability to communicate and relate to people. She tells me that the key to making a connection with someone is finding the one thing that you have in common. I believe she is right. My only problem is finding that one thing in common.
But I know she’s right because that is the tactic that the apostle Paul has been using to meld the two most factionary groups in the world together.
Last time we were together, we began to see how these Jews and Gentiles could come to connect in one church. How can these two groups, who are in many ways diametrically opposed to one another, really begin to have meaningful social interaction? Paul told us it was by recognizing just how much they have in common. They didn’t have just one thing in common; they had much in common.
This morning we are going to see that Paul has much more to say on this subject. These Jews and Gentiles may have some differences, but what they have in common far surpasses whatever they think may stand between them.
And mind you, this is not merely about Jews and Gentiles. What Paul says here is fundamental to all of God’s people. The syndrome of schism has always existed in the church. We should recognize that if the Lord was able to bring together these two groups of people (Jews and Gentiles), then he can meld together any other God-fearing people.
This morning I want us to consider the four things Paul says that we have in common. And I want us to reflect on them so that our fellowship becomes all that much more knit together. As a church that has quite a few differences, it is important for us to remember the common ground we share. That is the key to our unity, and the key to our survival as a church, just as it was for the Ephesian church.
What do we have in common? The first thing Paul mentions is our identity.
I. We share a common identity [19]
Now, it wasn’t that these Jews and Gentiles weren’t focusing on their identities. They were. They were identified as Jews and Gentiles. The problem was that they were not focusing on the right identity. What they needed to know is that they shared a common identity.
In verse 19, Paul gets us thinking about the identity that we have in common. He uses two images to describe us.
The first image Paul uses is that of national affiliation. He starts off by saying that we are “no longer strangers and aliens.” Instead we are “fellow citizens.” Here is our commonality: we all have equal standing in the kingdom of God because we are all citizens of it. There was a time when we were not. We were strangers and aliens. Our citizenship was in the world. We were the children of the devil (as we studied at the beginning of chapter 2). But all that has changed.
Now, I don’t know if anyone else in this group is avidly watching World Cup soccer, but if you want to see the beauty of unity, all you have to do is turn on a game and watch the fans. People who probably wouldn’t be caught dead next to each other on any other occasion can be seen hugging and high-fiving each other. The only reason is that they have the same national identity and are rooting for their country’s team.
What Paul says here is that we all, as Christians, share a unique citizenship. We are all a part of the commonwealth of Israel.
If you were here last time, you may remember that from the previous verses. This is an important point. A lot of people make much of Israel as a country today. They have some hope in a Jewish state.
But what you find Paul saying is that the commonwealth of Israel is no longer something that has regulated borders, nor is it about a specific territory in the Middle East. It is much bigger than that. The real Israel of God is all over the planet. It encapsulates people who are Jews and Gentiles; it includes people like you and me.
All of God’s people are citizens together in this great kingdom, and each of us belongs to it. And since we have this in common, we should recognize that we have a duty to align with one another.
Yes, we will have our differences. We are not going to deny that. Just like any bunch of people in a nation, there will be some things that are different between us. Paul’s not saying that these Jews and Gentiles are to completely ignore their cultural backgrounds and have complete uniformity in everything.
What he’s saying is that we all share in the kingdom of God. God has brought each and every one of us into this special realm. We now share in something that is bigger than our differences in that we each have the same King. That should go a long way in helping us overcome any animosity we have toward one another.
So we have to put an emphasis on our “national identity” as kingdom citizens.
The second image Paul uses is that of the home. You see that he says that we are also “members of the household of God.” The first image was one of national standing; this one relates to the family and our being a distinct part of that family.
Now, one of the things I love about our congregation is that a significant part of our population has been adopted. I hope that that continues and that all of our families have a vision for building homes with many children and adopting children.
But this is a special thing to note. That’s because what Paul says here is a reference to our adoption into the household of God.
You may remember that there was a time when Paige, Geneva, and Truman were not a part of our family. Even though it might have been a short period of time in their lives, they were not official members of our household. It wasn’t until a judge gave a specific order that they became full-fledged members of our family. Ever since they entered our home, they have had the exact same standing as Katelyn (my biological child). Paige, Geneva, and Truman are not loved any less, nor are they afforded some second-class status in our family.
And this is the image that the apostle Paul uses here. The Lord has adopted each one of us. Paul says that this was not our natural state. We were not originally a part of God’s family, but we were brought into the household of God. God chose to bring us into his family and he provided all the legal necessities in order to do that.
Now you have to love this family imagery and understand what Paul is getting at. You don’t easily disown your family, do you? If there’s one thing about family, it is that you are willing to endure a lot grief and overlook a multitude of wrongs. Why is that? It’s because that’s your brother or your sister, and you simply can’t get rid of them.
As a matter of fact, we have this saying: Blood is thicker than water. What do we mean by that? It means that family loyalties are much stronger than other kinds of relationships.
That’s the kind of relationship that Paul is getting at with this identification. We need to see ourselves not as mere friends or acquaintances. We need to see ourselves as family. We are born into the family of God, and the bonds between us should be some of the strongest bonds conceivable.
So when it comes to who we are, we need to start there. How will we survive as a church? It’s by remembering the identity we have.
But not only do we share a common identity, we also share a common body of truth.
II. We share a common body of truth [20]
Look at verse 20. Paul says that we are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.”
Now, you might say that a third image is being used here, the image of a building. This image is going to extend to the end of our passage this morning, but I want to break it up because there are so many important things contained in this image. The first part of the building is the foundation. The foundation is the fundamental part of the building. It is perhaps even unique to the building because it is what the building grows out of.
So we might ask, what does Paul mean when he says that we are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”?
Paul is referring to the the Word of God, the Bible. God has spoken through apostles and prophets. The Bible is the product of the NT apostles and the OT prophets, and these sacred words are our foundation. This body of truth has been delivered through these men by means of the Spirit.
The thing about a foundation is that it is the main thing that unites a house. The whole house coalesces around the foundation. Once you lay the foundation, that’s basically it. You know where the house is going from there. It is going up. It doesn’t go out any further. So each part that is added is going to be centered upon that foundation.
This is what Scripture is to us. It is the foundation for our lives. We as Christians coalesce around it because it serves as the basis for everything that we are to believe and do.
Now, let me pause here and say that this verse has typically been one of the main verses for what we call “cessationism.” Cessationism is a word that refers to God’s having ceased giving further revelation. He has ceased revealing new things.
This is one of those doctrines that is somewhat debated among Christians. I used to be a Pentecostal and involved in churches that were Charismatic, and these types of churches typically say that revelation has not ceased. They say that God continues to reveal things (so they are known as “continuists”).
These churches say that God can speak to us personally to reveal his will. They will likely affirm things like speaking in tongues and prophecy. Some might even go so far as to say that there are still apostles in our day. But the thing that they all agree on is that God continues to reveal truth beyond the Scriptures.
Most of them would say that these things are not on the same par as Scripture, but this is a distinction that is a little hard to maintain. After all, it is supposed to be the Word of God. I think you can understand that there cannot be things that are revealed that are more inspired than others. If it is from God, it is from God.
But, as I said, this verse is one of the verses that is often cited to refute the idea that prophecy and new revelations continue to be given. Why is that? It is because of this idea of a foundation. God has given us everything we need in the Old and New Testaments. He has laid a perfect foundation through the prophets and the apostles. And once you lay the foundation, you don’t add anything to it. You take great care when laying the foundation because once you do that, the building is literally set in stone.
Now, I recognize that I’ve been talking about a number of differences. Maybe you are one who says, “Well, Matt, I do think that God has a future for a nation of Israel.” Or maybe you are not overly convinced about what I’ve said here about God having ceased giving forms of revelation. Maybe you think I’m wrong on that and that God does continue to speak in different ways beyond the Scriptures.
That’s okay. We can still be united because we believe in the authority of this book. We might differ in some different ways of understanding what God has revealed here, but we still hold to the truth of it.
That’s the thing about the Bible: when it comes to the essential truths and main doctrines concerning the nature of God, the nature of man, the way of salvation, and the way we are supposed to live, all of these are very clear. And we are certainly united on the fact that this book is to be the foundation for what we believe and do.
The gospel and the basic truths of Christian faith give us the basis for our unity. When the Scripture is compromised and the truth of the gospel is distorted, that’s when we can’t have unity. That’s when we have to part ways and say bon voyage.
So we can have unity if we are a Bible-believing Presbyterians and Pentecostals. But if we deny the Trinity or say that we are justified by something other than faith alone, then our fellowship has come to an end. The best we can hope for is a friendship. We certainly are not able to worship together and maintain any kind of ecclesiastical ties. But as long as we have the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there’s nothing that should hinder that fellowship.
There’s a third thing that Paul mentions. When it comes to our life together, we know we should have an indivisible bond because we share a common mystical experience.
III. We share a common mystical experience [21]
The word “mystical” is not one we typically use. It’s not part of our everyday language. It means anything that pertains to the spiritual. It has to do with things that are a little mysterious, especially when it comes to contact with God.
Now, I just said that we do not have God speaking to us through new forms of revelation. But this does not mean that the Lord is not active in any way. He most certainly is, and this next verse makes that abundantly clear. Look at verse 21. It says, “In whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
What I want you to zero in on is the words “being joined together.” These words are drawn from the world of architecture. They carry the idea of a mason setting bricks exactly in place or a carpenter who cuts two boards and then sets them in perfect alignment.
I even like the language of the KJV. The KJV says, “fitly framed together.” I like that translation, except for one thing that it’s missing. The word in the original language is in the passive tense. It would be more accurate to say “being fitly framed together.” That puts it a bit better because it emphasizes that we are not the active agents; God is. We are completely passive in this. We are being acted upon. It is God who is joining us together, just like a mason, when building an edifice, sets each brick in place.
A few years ago, I was working at a factory in town. The building had two floors and it needed an elevator. It didn’t have one, so they had to build one, and they called in a company to install it.
The first thing they did was lay some cement blocks up to the second story to create an enclosure for the elevator. One thing I noticed is that not one of those bricks jumped up there by itself. Each block had to be hoisted up and set exactly in place by the bricklayer.
That’s what is going on in the church. God, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, is working to join us together more and more. You might not see it. You might not feel it. But there is a supernatural power at work among us. Each day, we are experiencing something divine as the Lord works to fasten us together.
Not long ago, there were all kinds of attempts to create individual local churches based on some unifying principles. They were usually based on some cultural demographic. For instance, the pastor or board would come together and say, “Who or what kind of people are we going to reach in this area?” So they would study the city’s demographics and then make a plan to reach a particular segment of population.
So you ended up having highly niche churches, like the white middle-class suburban church. Then you would have things like the “biker church” which was created for those who wore leather and rode Harley Davidson motorcycles. One guy even created a cowboy church. His goal was to reach ranchers who wore 10-gallon hats. They met in a barn and sat on hay bales rather than wooden pews or chairs.
What was that all about? It was all about finding some common link in the culture or the people. These ended up being highly homogeneous in their makeup and expressly focused on what could bring them together.
What you find here though, is that there’s not something that is in the culture or the person or the demographics that unites Christians. The thing that unites us isn’t something that is of this world. The only thing that really brings people together is God.
And thank God that he does, because he is able to make real unity in the midst of diversity. He can take a hodgepodge group, who really would have nothing else in common, and make them to love being together. That’s because he works in their hearts to make them believe the same things, worship the same God, and pursue the same kind of holiness. But when you look at it, you can understand that our union transcends any kind of earthly friendship.
That’s because it is mystical. It is all due to the mysterious, invisible, and spiritual working of God among his people.
There’s one last thing that Paul mentions. There’s one more thing we all have in common, one last basis for our unity and fellowship with one another. And I really want you to catch the significance of what he says.
We have a common identity, a common foundation (the Scriptures), and a common mystical experience. All these are wonderful things, but they pale in comparison to the end of verse 22, which tells us of our common indwelling.
IV. We share a common divine indwelling [22]
Paul says we are being built together to become a “dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
This is by far the most profound statement in these verses. God, perfect and holy, the great infinite and glorious one, condescends to the point of taking up His residence within us.
This, you might even say, has been what this whole passage has been driving towards. Think about it again. He started out talking about us being citizens. That should have been an amazing thing. But it wasn’t enough. So he then changed the imagery to that of a family. That made it more intimate.
Citizens, technically, can live all over the world. They could be spread out and detached to some degree. But a family is a family no matter where they are. Families are known to be right up in each other’s faces. You can stop being a member of a country, but you can’t stop being a member of a family. That’s how close you are.
But even that imagery wasn’t enough. After all, families often grow apart. Kids grow up and they move away. Some family members are estranged. Even though they continue to be family, they might drift apart. So he changes the imagery again to that of a building.
One might say that it is a step backward, going from a family to that of an inanimate. It is a bit cold; it’s lacking that relational warmth. But when you talk about the bricks of a building, you cannot deny the fact that they are closely knit together. Bricks do not leave each other. They are always packed closely together.
And to understand that these bricks are part of a very sacred temple, and that we are built upon the cornerstone of Christ, this reminds us that we have a great intimacy with God.
But even that imagery was not enough. Even though Paul communicates a depth of closeness to God, it is not enough. He goes yet one step further to say that God has come to dwell within us.
And herein lies the greatest argument for our unity. If God is living in you and he is also living in me, how then could we have any kind of separation? Each of us has to be drawn that much closer to each other. If God is this close to us, is it possible for him to repel himself? Absolutely not. If God lives within us, then we must be bound together in the utmost purity.
And let this be what fills our minds the rest of the day. God has not just given us a common identity. He has not just given us a body of truth to share. He’s not just working upon us through his Spirit to bind us together. But this is what should produce awe and wonder: that he has seen fit, not just to come to us, but to actually enter into us and make his home within us.
When the reality of that hits home—when we really understand the depth of communion we have with the Lord, our communion with each other will be all that much sweeter.