What Are We Doing Here?
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Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. It is a blessing to be here with you this morning whether in person or online. Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2.
We will be wrapping up this paramount chapter this morning - on Reformation Day - as we have been studying through Paul’s great explanation on the advent and make up of the church. Paul told us in verses 1-10 how we became Christians and capped it with the promise that we have been created in Christ for good works. Then, starting in verse 11, Paul launches into the explanation that we will complete our examination of this morning telling his readers how the church came into formation as the amalgamation of two previously estranged entities - and not simply estranged but hostile to one another. There may have been those who still insisted on suggesting that this salvation may have only been available to the Jews and so Paul has drives home the point that this salvation was available to all men by discussing the Gentiles inclusion - in verse 13 he says “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near”. Through Christ the Jews and the Gentiles were both brought to salvation and made into one body. Peace was established between man and man ultimately through the peace that was achieved between God and man. They were not saved to merely be included into the nation of Israel. Nor were they saved simply to remain as individuals. The Ephesians, like Christians all over the world and down through the centuries, were saved to be a part of something. They, like all of us, were saved to be a part of the church. In these short verses that we’re going to look at this morning, Paul gives us one of the most succinct and poignant examples of what the church is to be and what we are all doing here.
The church is at a crossroads - and it would be very easy, and in fact it is something I will admit that I am guilty of, to stand here this morning and highlight all of the bad things that are happening. If you watch the media, social media or current trends in Evangelical culture, it seems that we’ve traded our heritage for whatever the latest socially charged topic is - whether it is children at the border, becoming “woke”, putting an end to abortion or addressing the sexual revolution - for becoming what we were called to be. We are challenged repeatedly with stories of sexual assaults and, in the case of the SBC, the investigations that are taking place with our executive committee. We have issues like sermon stealing, outside entities doing much of the research and sermon preparation for celebrity pastors, women in the pulpit. And those things are sad and things that we should talk about as we discuss the church. But we shouldn’t forget the good things that are happening as well. We shouldn’t forget the missionaries being sent abroad by the International Mission Board. We shouldn’t forget the work being done by the Maddox family - training pastors in closed countries to be able to effectively handle the Word of God and when they are stateside working with trafficked girls and training people to work with this vulnerable and sadly increasing population.
The question for us this morning isn’t what is happening in the greater church - although we should be concerned and informed with that. The question for us this morning is what are we doing here at Dishman? Are we merely treading water, marking time until Christ returns? Are we slipping in our commitment and our desire for Him? Or are we constantly trying to grow, are we becoming the church that Christ desires us to be as He seeks to reach Spokane Valley with the Gospel? Throughout his writings, Paul addressed what the church is meant to be and I think a foundational passage is the one we’re going to look at this morning. So please take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians 2:19-22 with me. I’m going to read Ephesians 2:11-22 just to set the context.
So then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
Composition of the Church
Composition of the Church
Ephesians 2:19, Ephesians 2:11-12, Genesis 9:26-27
Paul is wrapping his statements up and he returns to the view that he had painted in verse 12 - even using the same words as if to point us back to those verses. But you are no longer strangers and aliens. “Strangers” and “aliens,” therefore, were outsiders without the full legal rights of citizens and often, at a more informal level, without social acceptance from the communities in which they lived. Paul tells them you are no longer on the outside looking in. They were once aliens from the nation of Israel and their status as God’s chosen people. They were not entitled to the same status as Israel and they were strangers to the covenant that God had made with Israel. Now though that status has been removed to the point that they aren’t even resident aliens but have achieved full citizenship.
The concept of citizenship and the privileges of citizenship are very much in the news today but the meaning of citizenship in America pales when compared to the meaning of citizenship for the Ephesians reading this letter. I looked up the benefits of American citizenship and this is what I found - we can vote in federal elections, we generally get priority when bringing family members and children born abroad to the US, we can carry a US passport and get help overseas, we can get some federal jobs and be elected to governmental positions and we get to show our patriotism.
Citizenship in the ancient Roman world carried much greater significance. Ancient lists of city residents, for example, ranked the privileges of full citizens (πολῖται) first, resident aliens (πάροικοι or κάτοικοι, katoikoi) next, and transient foreigners (ξένοι) last. Only citizens could own property, vote, serve in the military or enter into a legal contract and get a fair trial. Citizenship was generally only conferred at birth but could be purchased. What Paul is saying to them here is that while you are Roman citizens, you have a higher citizenship that you are citizens with the saints - both those who are living with you as well as those who have gone before and that you are members of God’s household. This is extraordinary. Have you ever really contemplated just how amazing it is to be a citizen of God’s household?
It is important to recognize that this is not a new plan or a shift in plans because the original plan through Israel had failed. This had always been God’s design. Look back with me to Genesis 9.
He also said:
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem;
Let Canaan be Shem’s slave.
Let God extend Japheth;
let Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem;
let Canaan be Shem’s slave.
Without going to deeply into the movement of peoples or the lineages discussed in Genesis 9 and 10 the people of Japheth, following the Tower of Babel incident, were scattered northward and settled in the Northern Mediterranean region and westward into what is now Europe. They were the antecedents of the Gentiles to whom Paul was writing. Genesis 11 tells us that it was through the line of Shem that Abraham was born. The prophecy says “let Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem” - let the Gentiles dwell in the tents of the Israelites, the Jews. All the way back to the time of Noah this citizenship that Paul is discussing had been in God’s plans - and even before that.
It is this citizenship that drives us here week after week - to sing songs of praise, to lift our hands in worship and to hear His Word preached because this is the closest we’re going to get to being home while here on earth. Here’s the thing though - it’s not simply supposed to be a weekly gathering of the saints.
Mike Fabarez story - the church is open too much.
It is great that we can be available for groups like Bible Study Fellowship and The Rock and Salt and Light Debate club but it is also to our detriment as a church that our building is so available to outsiders. We celebrate when we announce a new Bible study and we get 8-10 people to sign up. In truth we should desire to be together so much that we lament not being able to get enough books not fear that we’ve bought too many. The early church was together daily - the modern church has a challenge getting together once a week.
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts,
praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
And every day He added to their number. Why? Because we aren’t just citizens, we’re also ambassadors. I remember being in the Navy and every time we’d hit a foreign port there were two admonitions given to the crew. The first was the prevalence of diseases in the port and the second was that we were ambassadors for the United States. That our actions would reflect either poorly or beneficially on the view of the United States in that country.
And that’s the same view we should have as Christian citizens living here - because here we are strangers and aliens. Our citizenship, our home is elsewhere and we are only sojourning here until we are called there…but our purpose here is to be ambassadors to what He is still doing in this place. In order to be effective at that we have to come back to this place to grow and reconnect to what has gone before.
Now before I go on please understand me - I’m not saying that there is anything supernatural about our buildings. They’re just buildings. Nor is there anything supernatural about programs - the church is the gathering of the saints together. A wise man once told me that it was time to teach our kids that the church is people not a building. As beautiful a facility as we have - the church is this body of people gathered together, lifting their voices in worship as members of God’s household. The church is not programs, and maturity does not happen through programming. But it does happen through gatherings. It can’t happen unless Christians are in the same room together, whether that’s a coffee shop down the street, a living room or one of the classrooms downstairs. What we see in the New Testament is gatherings of believers - not simply for the sake of gathering but for the sake of challenging one another on to spiritual growth and good works. And all of that is great - but we have to get the foundation right.
Construction of the Church
Construction of the Church
Ephesians 2:20-21, Philippians 2:6-11,
You see this is not just something we dreamed up over the last 100 years or even the last 200 years. Paul goes on to say that we have been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets and it is interesting that he chooses these two classes of people. Now to be sure they are not the foundation of what we believe - it is their message that laid the foundation of what we believe. Paul highlights two offices in the early church that were given the words of God to speak to the people. The apostles were Christ’s messengers to the people following His resurrection. The prophets were not only His messengers after His resurrection but also before His advent to earth the prophets told of His coming and called the people back to God when Israel went astray.
This foundation that has been laid has continued being built upon by centuries of preachers who have continued to faithfully teach the Word of God and to defend the truth when false teaching threatened the sanctity of the Gospel. Men like Athanasius who stood against Arianism, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John and Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd Jones, R.C. Sproul, the list could go on and on but there are also longer lists of unnamed pastors who never wrote a book or have had their name at the head of major organizations but have faithfully labored at the Word week after week and year after year. It has been said that “the best pastors in the world pastor small churches and no one has ever heard of them”.
Men like Lewis Steed who came here to Spokane Valley in 1953 with 40 other members to found Dishman First Baptist Church. Within a year the church had grown to 156. Then in 1969 with Pastor Carlton Flowers as the Senior Pastor and they occupied a new building in 1973. This building. Expansions in 2006 brought us into this current facility - but this church is more than just a building. It is a ministry that has endured and flourished over the last 65 years.
The one consistent things among all of those men is the message they taught. Charles Spurgeon once said “Whitefield and Wesley might preach the gospel better than I do, but they could not preach a better gospel.” There is no greater Gospel that could ever be preached than that Christ died for the ungodly, the sinful man and has by His death and resurrection provided peace with His Father. Paul penned probably the most beautiful Christological statement ever:
who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
J.C. Ryle said it this way “You may spoil the Gospel by substitution. You have only to withdraw from the eyes of the sinner the grand object which the Bible proposes to faith, - Jesus Christ; and to substitute another object in His place… and the mischief is done. Substitute anything for Christ, and the Gospel is totally spoiled!... You may spoil the Gospel by addition. You have only to add to Christ, the grand object of faith, some other objects as equally worthy of honor, and the mischief is done. Add anything to Christ, and the Gospel ceases to be a pure Gospel!..."
It is all of Christ and nothing else. He is the Cornerstone of our faith. He is the stone the builders rejected. He is the most beautiful and most wretched figure in all of history. He is the most written about, most speculated about, most loved and most hated person ever. But our Captain is steadfast. He is the cornerstone that our faith is built on and He can not only take all of the animosity the world can throw His way - He endured much on our behalf - He can imbue us with the strength to endure.
Charles Spurgeon, in his last words spoken from the pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, said “He is the most magnanimous of captains. If there is anything gracious, generous, kind and tender, lavish, and superabundant in love, you always find it in him. These forty years and more have I served him, and I have nothing but love for him. His service is life, peace, joy. Oh, that you would enter it at once! God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus even this day!”
And if you’ve found Him, there is no better place to be. He holds you in the palm of His hand and He is building you up into the person He needs you to be. No matter what circumstances are happening in your life right now - He knows and He is orchestrating all of it to build you into the church He needs us to be.
Culmination of the Church
Culmination of the Church
Ephesians 2:22,
So what are we doing here? We’re here for the glory of God. It is simple as that.
Paul writes that we are being built into the temple of God, into a dwelling place for His spirit. Temples were a significant part of the ancient world and a point of pride for the people. The believers in the Ephesian church lived in the shadow of the impressive temple to the goddess Artemis. You will remember from Acts 19 a silversmith named Demetrius challenged Paul’s ministry saying “You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this man Paul has persuaded and misled a considerable number of people by saying that gods made by hand are not gods. 27 Not only do we run a risk that our business may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be despised and her magnificence come to the verge of ruin—the very one all of Asia and the world worship.” The temple in Ephesus much like the Temple of Babel was a matter of human pride and human attempts to reach god on their own terms. The first temple - the temple of Babel was a massive ziggurat that had a temple on top. These temples were all testaments to the capability and achievements of the human race. The temple in Jerusalem - the temple that Paul most has in mind as he writes this letter had a vastly different purpose. The temple, and the tabernacle before it, was the central location to the Jewish faith. It was the literal dwelling place of God on earth. Everything in the temple was built with specific dimensions and orders. The word for “fitted together” refers to the careful joining together of every component of a piece of furniture, building or other structure. Every piece is cut to specification and designed to fit snugly and perfectly.
What is happening now though is that we think we can add to the building of the church with our own ideas of how things should be. It’s like the story of the Italian sculptor who put a block of marble in the front of his shop and allowed customers to give him advice on what to chip and file away. Some said from here, some said from there and soon the beautiful piece of marble was a catastrophe. But unbeknownst to his customers the master craftsman had also been working on a sculpture in the back room and he pulled it out and sat it next to the monstrosity they had created. The beauty of the master’s work was even more striking and made the piece that the customers had input on all the more ugly in their eyes.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t participate in church as we certainly have a part to play, but the Master has laid a plan that we should follow without adding in too many of our own ideas and opinions. It’s all bound up in His Word.
But the church is not complete - there is still work to be done. There are still some rough edges that need to be trimmed off of some of us.
We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
The church building will also not be complete until each person who will believe in Him has done so. So there is work for us to do as well. Dr. Lloyd-Jones said it this way “There is all the difference in the world between just adding to the numbers on the roll of a church and the growth of the holy temple of the Lord... Men can add to the membership of a church, but God alone, can build, through the Holy Spirit, into the building of the church. This growing unto an holy temple is a vital process.”
Ultimately though - it is all being done for God’s glory. The same glory that walked the Garden with Adam and Eve, that descended on Mt. Sinai and caused Moses’ face to shine. The glory that filled the Tabernacle and the Temple after it. This same glory came to earth as a man and tabernacled among us. That glory lives in you and is yours to share. But its still all for God’s glory. If you look back at Philippians 2:5-11, specifically 2:11 - “and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.“ If Christ could come and endure all that He endured only to point all the glory back to His father - can we do any less as we seek to help Him build His church?
Conclusion
Conclusion
We are an incredible organism you and I. We were aliens and strangers but have now been made citizens of Heaven. We have a history that we can draw upon to comfort and guide us when we are in danger of losing our way. We have men who guide us even today through the faithful preaching of the Word of God. We have an immovable cornerstone - and no matter what comes against us we cannot be shaken. We are designed to fulfill a three-fold purpose. We are to glorify and worship God. We are to edify and grow the saints. All of that can be done internally amongst ourselves. But those are our upward and inward purposes. We also have an outward purpose. We are not to be passive in our faith. Our Christ said He would build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. I love the saying that a gate is not a weapon - it is a defensive structure. We should not be cowed by circumstances or the apparent degradation of our society but continue to share the Gospel - as it is truly the only hope anyone has. And we’re being built into a beautiful structure that houses the very glory of God - there can be nothing better.
But you must be a citizen first - are you one?