Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. And
if you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'm going to
continue through a series of messages that I've been preaching
out of the book of Ephesians, Paul's letter to the church at
Ephesus, chapter two. And I'm going to conclude that
series with talking about here in Ephesians two, beginning around
about verse 18, the household of God. the household of God. Now, obviously, what I'm going
to be talking about there is the church and the family of
God. And when we speak of the house
of God, the book of Hebrews deals with that, talking about sinners
who are saved by grace and who are believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, whose house we are, you see, if we continue in the faith,
that is, persevere by the grace of God and the power of God.
The house of God is not a building, a literal physical building,
or what we commonly refer to as a church building. That's
just a place where the household, the family, the people of God
meet. And the apostle here in Ephesians
2 has been talking about how, first of all, he laid the foundation
that salvation is totally and exclusively 100% a matter of
God's grace. It's a free gift. to the people of God. It's not
they don't earn it, they don't deserve it. Some people, when
they hear me say that, they kind of flinch, but you mean we don't
deserve it. We don't deserve any of the blessings
and benefits of God's salvation because we are sinners. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. We quote that verse
all the time. And so salvation is by grace,
and I spent some time dealing with that, and I quote this set
of verses so often in my preaching. In Ephesians 2 verse 8, for by
grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Even the faith that brings us to Christ is a gift of God's
grace. It's not natural to us. Faith,
believing in Christ, is not the product of our free will or our
just rising above the crowd and making a decision for Christ.
The people of God do choose Christ, but they choose him because he
first chose them. They must be born again, or they
cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. The new birth, regeneration
and conversion, is not the result of faith. Faith is the result
of the new birth. And the Bible teaches that. And
I've taught that so many times on this program and showed you
scripture upon scripture about it. But anyway, salvation is
the gift of God. It's by grace. And in verse 10
of Ephesians 2, He says, for we are his workmanship. Now,
a sinner saved by grace, an individual sinner saved by grace, and the
whole group of sinners saved by grace, the house of God, the
household of God, the family of God, they're the workmanship
of God. They're not self-made people.
They are not people upon whom salvation was conditioned. and
who met those conditions because by nature we're spiritually dead.
We fell in Adam and born into this world spiritually dead in
trespasses and sins, meaning that we have no propensity, no
desire, no inclination for the things of God that glorify God. Now, that doesn't mean we're
not religious. That doesn't mean that we are not moral in the
eyes of men according to the laws of man. But it means that
we will not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not bow
to God's way of salvation. So verse 10 of Ephesians 2 says,
we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the foundation of this building, we're going to say.
All of salvation was conditioned on Him from the very beginning,
the salvation of His people who were given to Him, the elect
of God, that's who they are. And all of the conditions of
their salvation and eternal well-being were placed upon Him, and He
has fulfilled all those conditions. So the creation of this, the
workmanship, is in Christ Jesus. It's all based upon His blood
shed on Calvary's cross to put away the sins of His people.
He redeemed his church, we read in the book of Acts chapter 20,
with his own precious blood. He bought the church, this building,
this family, his people, his sheep. He said, the good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep. And he identifies them in John
6 as all whom the Father had given him. I quote this verse
all the time. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. So we are
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2.10, unto good
works, not because of good works now. But good works are the fruit
and the effect and which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. Now, Paul, after that verse,
beginning at verse 11, he makes the case that this salvation
is true for both Jew and Gentile. It's not one way for the Jew
and another way for the Gentile. And he shows that the church
collectively is made up of God's chosen people, not just among
the Jews, but out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
even Gentiles who are saved by grace and brought to faith in
Christ. And God has brought them together.
He calls it one new man. In other words, he metaphorically
speaks of the collective church unified under Christ as one new
person. And that's a metaphor. And so
he says in verse 18, now let's go to our text, Ephesians 2 verse
18. He says, for through him, that
is through the Lord Jesus Christ, we both Now, the both there refers
to Jews, not all Jews without exception now, but believing
Jews, sinners saved by grace, chosen by God before the foundation
of the world, and it refers to believing Gentiles, not all Gentiles
without exception. but those who are sinners saved
by grace who have been brought to faith in Christ. And he says,
for through Christ, by the grace of God, based on the righteousness
of Christ. Now what is the righteousness
of Christ? That's the entire merit, value, worthiness of Christ's
obedience unto death as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer
of his people. God's elect, His sheep, His church,
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. In other
words, the merit, the earning power, the value and worthiness
that saves sinners is not in the sinner, but it's in Christ. And it's based upon His obedience
unto death in their place. So he says, for through Him we
both have access, a way provided, by one Spirit unto the Father. So there you have the Trinity,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God
the Father represents the authority of the Godhead. God the Son represents
the way that sinners are brought into union and fellowship with
God. God the Holy Spirit is the applier
or the applicator of all that God the Father purposed and all
that God the Son earned, because when the Spirit comes and does
His work in the new birth, what does He do? He convicts us of
sin, showing us that we are dead in trespasses and sins, that
we have nothing to recommend us unto God, that we cannot work
our way into God's favor and blessings, that we are totally
at His mercy. And if ever we're to be saved,
it's gonna be by grace. And then He convicts us of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ. And so He imparts, if you will,
the faith, the knowledge, the conviction that we must have
Christ. or we are doomed. The only way
we have access to God is through Christ, by His grace, based on
His blood, based on His righteousness that's freely imputed, accounted,
charged to us. And by the power of the Holy
Spirit, we receive Him by God-given faith. So what he's talking about,
here's the family of God. There's all kinds of people in
this family. There's Jews, there's Gentiles,
there's male, there's female, black, white, rich, poor, there's
all kinds of people in this. But they all have the same problem.
And that problem is sin. And sin alienates us from God. So in order for us to have access,
a way to God, a way into the family of God, if you will, a
way into the household of God, the sin problem has to be solved,
has to be dealt with. Now we can't do it. We cannot
do it. For by works of the law shall
no flesh be justified, forgiven, and declared righteous. But God
sent his Son into the world to do for his people what they could
not do for themselves. And Christ took care of the sin
problem. And that's what the Spirit convicts
us of. Now, if you look at verse 19, it says, now therefore you
are no more strangers and foreigners. You're not aliens from the household,
the family, the kingdom of God, but you are fellow citizens. Now, not just citizens, but fellow
citizens, and that means something. What that means is you are a
full, in Christ, By God's grace, based upon His blood shed to
put away the sins of His people, based upon His righteousness
imputed to them, which is the only ground of their justification,
God's people, by His grace and mercy, are brought into the kingdom
of God, the family of God, the household of God, and they are
made full-fledged citizens with all the rights and privileges
of a full-fledged citizen or a child of God. Every benefit,
every, you see, there's no, there's an equality here that brings blessings and benefits
to every one of God's children equally because they didn't earn
any of these blessings. We didn't earn any of them. And
we don't deserve any of them. Preachers today talk about rewards
in heaven, that if you work harder you're going to get more rewards.
No you're not. The Bible doesn't teach that.
The Bible talks about reward, singular, and it's always the
reward of grace that's given to all of God's people in Christ. When one person comes before
God and let's say they were saved for 50 years and maybe they preached
and brought many people to Christ, are they gonna get more rewards
than let's say the thief on the cross? And the answer is no.
But the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter one and verse three that
God's children, God's people, are blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So there's an
equality there because none of us, in all my preaching, in all
of my trying to do well, I have never earned or deserved one
blessing or benefit of salvation. Any blessing or benefit I have,
it's all of grace. And that's why people don't like
the preaching of the gospel. That's why the natural man won't
receive the things of the Spirit of God. That's offensive to him. I've worked hard and I deserve
more. Well, you may have in your job
down here on earth, but in the kingdom of God, that's not possible.
If God ever gave any of us what we deserve or what we've earned,
it would be eternal damnation. Do you believe that? If you don't,
you haven't been convicted of sin. You don't know yourself.
So understand this. Now look at verse, Verse 19,
now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners but
fellow citizens with the saints. Now what is a saint? A saint
is a sinner saved by grace. The word saint means sanctified
one. And the point he's making here
is that you don't have some Christians who are saints and then some
who are not. This idea that a person has to
be canonized or voted into sainthood by the hierarchy, that's crazy,
that's unbiblical, that's anti-gospel, and it's anti-grace. Every sinner
saved by grace is a saint. The word saint means sanctified
one. And what is it to be sanctified?
It's to be set apart by God. And every one of God's children
were set apart by God before the foundation of the world when
He chose them and gave them to Christ. They were set apart on
the cross when Christ died for them, was buried and arose again
for them. They were set apart in Him redemptively. He redeemed me from my sins.
And then they are set apart in time by the Holy Spirit when
He brings them under the preaching of the gospel. and separates
them out by giving them faith in Christ and bringing them to
repentance. That's called sanctification
of the spirit. And so they are set apart by
the gospel. So what he's saying here is that
every sinner saved by grace is a fellow citizen with the saints. In other words, every one of
those saints, you're right with them. You're a saint too. And
he said, and of the household of God. the family of God, the
household of God. Now look at verse 20. Now this
household, he says, you're built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Now when he says you're built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, he's not talking about these men personally. The church is not built upon
the prophets like Samuel and Nathan and going down to Moses
who was a prophet. You can go on to Isaiah, Jeremiah. The church is not built upon
these men. The church is not built upon
the apostles. Paul and James and John and Matthew
and Peter. You know, a lot of people, they'll
go to that Matthew, I think it's in 16th passage where Christ
says, who do men say that I am? And Peter spoke up and says,
you're the Christ, you're the son of the living God. And Christ
made this statement. He said, upon this rock, I will
build my church. And the gates of hell will not
prevail against it. And a lot of people read that
and they think he's talking about Peter as the rock upon which
he built his church. But he makes a distinction there.
He says, you are Peter, you're a little stone. But upon this
rock, this big boulder, I will build my church. And what is
the rock upon which the church is built? It's Christ. And the
foundation of the apostles and prophets is Christ. He says,
Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. Christ is spoken
of in this issue of the family of God as both the foundation
of the church and the chief cornerstone of the church. Over in the book
of 1 Corinthians chapter 3, The apostle Paul uses the analogy,
he uses actually two metaphors here, the metaphor of a farmer
planting crops and of builders building a building. And he says,
for example, in verse nine of 1 Corinthians 3, he says, for
we are labors together with God, you are God's husbandry. In other
words, you're the farm of God. You're the ones whom God planted
and watered and grew up and harvested. And then he says, you are God's
building in verse nine. And he says in verse 10, he says,
according to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise
master builder. Now that's what he calls the
preachers of the gospel. We're building when we preach
the gospel. It's not by our power or our works, for we are His
workmanship created in Christ Jesus. He says, I've laid the
foundation and another buildeth thereon. I preach the gospel
first and another preacher comes along and he builds upon them
by preaching the same gospel. And he says, but let every man
take heed how he buildeth thereon. Now look at verse 11 of 1 Corinthians
3. "'For other foundation can no man lay "'than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ.'" So there you have it. And then over in
1 Peter 2, look at this with me. He's talking about the church
here. And he says, he talks about how
believers They come to Christ for salvation and they continue
to come. He says in verse four of 1 Peter
2, to whom coming, coming to Christ, as unto a living stone,
that's Christ, disallowed of men but chosen of God and precious,
you also as lively stones or living stones are built up a
spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And he goes on, now listen to
this, verse six, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded, confused,
or rejected. Now, Christ is the foundation
stone. The church is built upon the
rock Christ Jesus. Don't let anyone ever tell you
that it's built upon Peter. Peter is a sinner saved by grace.
He's one of the little stones, like every believer, is like
a little stone that God has put within this church, built upon
the foundation of Christ. And then Christ is the chief
cornerstone. That means everything in this
building is measured as it relates to Christ. You see, to be in
this building, our sins have to be washed away, paid for. Christ did it for all of us,
all of His people now, believers, not all without exception. And
then I have to be righteous before God. Well, Christ is my righteousness. His righteousness imputed to
me. And that's how I measure. God's gonna judge this world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, and that
he has given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised
him from the dead. God's people, when they stand before God, they
will be measured by the righteousness that Christ has given them, which
God has imputed to them. You see, and anyone who's not
in Christ, They'll perish. Well, back here in Ephesians
2, he says in verse 20, you're built upon the foundation of
the apostles and the prophets. That's their message, their gospel,
which presents Christ, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
cornerstone, verse 21, in whom all the building fitly framed
together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. Every sinner
saved by grace is saved by the blood of Christ, justified by
His righteousness imputed, regenerated and converted by the Holy Spirit,
brought to faith in Christ, repentance of dead works, perseverance in
the faith, and they are put within this building, fitly framed as
God wants them to be. Your place, my place in the church,
is where God put us. And that's where we're to be
content. And it's a holy temple. Now what is holy? I mean, that's
the same word as saints or sanctified. It means separated. And a temple
is the dwelling place of God. That's Christ who is the head
of the church. Christ is the foundation of the
church. Christ is the head of the church.
Christ is the heart of the church. You see that? And God dwells
in His glory in Christ, who is the foundation, the head, and
the heart of the church, His dwelling place. And then verse
22 says this, in whom you also are builded together for inhabitation
of God through the Spirit. The church is the dwelling place
of God. Just like the tabernacle of old, What did the tabernacle
represent? It represented Christ and His
church. Every element of it. And therefore,
we see that the church, Christ and His church, is the dwelling
place, the tabernacle of God. You might recall over in John
1, verse 14, where it talks about the incarnation of Christ. The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt there
means tabernacled. tabernacled because that tabernacle
was the dwelling place of God. Remember when it was built or
when God gave instructions to Moses for the building of it
in Exodus, I believe it's 25. He told him, when he told him
to build the holiest of all and the Ark of the Covenant and the
mercy seat that contained the law, he said, there will I meet
with you. That was the greatest manifestation
of God's glory at that time under the law of Moses, the law of
Sinai. And it was a physical thing,
a ceremonial thing. But today, where does it dwell?
It dwells in Christ and His church. And it's a spiritual and an eternal
matter. And this is the household of
God. This is the family of God. And that's his whole point here.
There's no divisions of people as far as our fellow citizenship
and sainthood and the blessings and the benefits of being a member
of the household and the family of God. There's not one who's
done better and earned more, and those who have done less
and earned less. No, there are people who do better
in the sense of doing more, but that's not how we get into and
maintain a place in the family of God. It's all of grace because
we're His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. not because of, but unto good
works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them."
That's the household and the family of God. And there's no
other. Built upon the foundation of
Christ. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.