The Friends You Made Along the Way

Ephesians 2:19-22 October 23, 2022 Pastor Ricky Alcantar

Thesis The longing that every human has to belong is directed at God but is expressed through the church, where God has given us a homeland, a family, a cause, and himself.

Series

Ephesians

Type

Expository

Tone

pastoraldidacticcelebratory

Method

grammatical-historicalredemptive-historicalapplicatory

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

22 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #10

"The preacher applies the homeland image by defining the church's nature as ambassadors—an embassy in earthly cities representing the city of God. He issues a diagnostic question about where Christians direct their longing for homeland and provides balanced instruction: engage in earthly civic responsibility while recognizing the deeper longing for God's city expressed through the church."

Doctrinal loci· 11 surfaced

Ecclesiology · 16 Eschatology · 6 Anthropology · 4 Christology · 4 Soteriology · 4 Bibliology · 2 Theology Proper · 2 Doxology / Worship · 1 Ethics / Moral Theology · 1 Hamartiology · 1 Sanctification · 1

Bible citations· 15

Illustrations· 3

cultural reference · unit #4 — The preacher explains why the 'friends we made along the way' trope resonates so deeply—it names the human longing for people and family over material gain—and catalogs the various places contemporary people search for this belonging: online communities, sports, politics, gaming, gangs, workplaces, and idealized neighborhoods.
personal story · unit #9 — The preacher illustrates the deep human longing for homeland through a personal story of attending a UTEP football game with military appreciation ceremonies—the emotional response to flag, anthem, and Apache helicopters reveals how powerful homeland identity is, while establishing that there exists an even truer homeland in God's city.
cultural reference · unit #15 — The preacher illustrates the unchanging nature of the church's foundation by contrasting it with Elon Musk's vacillating decision-making about buying Twitter—a humorous example of the instability of human leaders, trends, and ideas—to highlight that unlike all such ephemeral foundations, Scripture remains immovable.

Theological claims· 3

Despite humanity's deep longing to belong to a people, declining church attendance reveals that people believe they don't need the church to fulfill that longing—a tragic misdiagnosis. unit #5
While contemporary culture seeks 'found family' bound by common interests or ideology, the church offers something far more secure: a family bound by union with Christ that transcends natural divisions and survives when other bonds fail. unit #12
The church is the cause above all causes—the only institution backed by Christ's promise to prevail, the only vehicle that prevents eternal suffering through gospel proclamation, and the one with a proven 2,000-year track record that will outlast all other organizations. unit #17

Quotations· 3

"Maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way." — Common story trope (unit #3)

"Every young man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." — G.K. Chesterton (attributed) (unit #18)

"If you found a perfect church, you should never join it because you would spoil it." — Charles Spurgeon (unit #20)

Read it

Full transcript

35,140 characters 22 units ~39 min reading time Listen instead →

0 · The preacher introduces himself and announces two upcoming opportunities for women to learn biblical interpretation and teaching—a November seminar and a future study group—framing these as pathways for women to exercise the teaching influence they already have in various contexts

Amen. Good morning. If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church. A quick, quick note to drop in before our sermon time.

In November, one of our kind of churches that we relate with and are friends with in El Paso, they're gonna— and another church really— are gonna be co-hosting a seminar for women on how to interpret and teach the Bible. And so if you want to grow in your understanding of Scripture, you want to grow in your understanding of how to even maybe lead Bible studies or consider teaching— and let me just say, every single woman I know has opportunities to walk with people through the Bible. I mean, for some of you, for many of you, it may be even just as a mom, where you think about Timothy and all that God did through him in the era of the New Testament. Well, he— Paul basically says, listen, that, that's your mom and your grandmother who've invested into you that you're kind of leading and teaching out of. So that seminar is going to be in November, November 10th.

So take the day, press into that. And then beginning of next year, we're also going to be, hopefully God willing, doing a study group for women who want to learn to interpret Scripture and be able to teach others. So be on the lookout for that. But this is a great starting place if you're interested in that world. Okay, brochures are available on the back table.

We'd love to see you participate in that.

1 · The preacher frames the sermon by recapitulating the previous section (Ephesians 2:11-18) on reconciliation to God and to one another, then introducing today's focus on verses 19-22 about corporate identity

Well, with that, let's open to Ephesians chapter 2, church. We're going to continue our series on the book of Ephesians, walking passage after passage through the book together. Now, as we read the text today, one of the things I thought would be appropriate is we're going to read the section we covered a few weeks ago about how God has made— has brought us near to himself and near to one another. And then Paul, in verses 19 through 22, is going to talk about our our corporate identity as the church.

What does it mean to be the church? What does it mean to be together? And so what I thought would be appropriate is we're gonna read— I will read verses 11 through 18, the previous section, and then when we get to verses 19 through 22, which should be on the screen behind me, I'd love to have you say or recite the Scripture with me as a way of almost reinforcing this identity with one another before we even jump in. Okay, so my part, verses 11 through 18. Your part, together, verses 19 through 22.

This is God's Word. Verse 11: Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to God the Father. And let's now say this together: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but 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 together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is the word of the Lord.

2 · The preacher prays that the congregation would set aside their personal opinions and experiences of church—positive or negative—and receive God's own definition of the church's identity directly from Scripture

And Father, I pray that you would help us. I pray specifically, Lord, that as we open your word, we would lay aside whatever our personal thoughts are on the church and the nature of the church, even our experience of the church, whether it was good or bad or indifferent, Lord. And I pray that we would receive from you, as if from you, what you say about who we are together. In his name we pray, amen.

3 · The preacher establishes the sermon's controlling problem and thesis by connecting last week's teaching on the longing to belong (rooted in Eden and fulfilled in reconciliation to God and others) to today's focus: this longing is expressed through the church

Well, in verses 11 through 18, we— last time we were in Ephesians, talked about our longing to belong and how the longing to belong is deep within the heart of every single human being. But that longing to belong is most fundamentally a longing for our Creator. Really, it's a longing, in a sense, for Eden, to be with with the Lord, to walk with the Lord in not just in right relationship with the Lord, but when that is right, in right relationship to one another. And we saw in Ephesians 11 through 18 that God has made it possible for us to, in a sense, belong to the Lord again, to walk with the Lord, to relate to the Lord, to be reconciled to the Lord. And when that happens, we are also then reconciled to others who are in Christ with us. Now today, though, we are going to see that the The longing that we long for is directed at God, but it is expressed through the church. That longing is directed at God, but it's expressed through the church.

Now, everyone longs to belong to a people, to have a people that is kind of their people. One of my— I love stories, and one of my favorite story tropes that I— it's one of my 3 jokes that I make. I only make 3 jokes, and I'm gonna give you One of them. One of my favorite story tropes is at the end of the movie or whatever, somebody will look at the other character and go, "Well, we lost the treasure, but maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way." And you're like, "Oh, well, this adorable group of kids that found a treasure map and went on this whole thing, and then the pirate ship sank at the end, and it's okay though because the real treasure is the friends they made along the way." along the way. And the great thing about that is pretty much I'll just, at the end of any movie or show I watch, I'll just repurpose that. At the end of a season of The Mandalorian, I'll look at my boys and say, "Well, boys, maybe the real Mandalorians were the friends they made along the way." And they'll just be like, "Oh my gosh." I'm sure they're going to hate this by the time they turn 18. Right now, it feels like very fresh material and they're like, "Great." And this occurs again and again and again in almost every story, right? Essentially, if you watch that long running show, The Office. Essentially, The Office ends with a voiceover saying, "Maybe the real office was the friends we made along the way." That's literally the monologue. You can go back and rewatch it. That's what it was.

4 · The preacher explains why the 'friends we made along the way' trope resonates so deeply—it names the human longing for people and family over material gain—and catalogs the various places contemporary people search for this belonging: online communities, sports, politics, gaming, gangs, workplaces, and idealized neighborhoods

And why does this keep occurring again and again and again? Why do we keep using it again and again and again? Because I think it expresses this deep fundamental longing that we have, right? We, in the end, don't really want just a pile of gold. We want friends, we want people, we want family, and we will look for this anywhere and everywhere today. We look for it in online communities, in sports clubs and political movements, in gaming, in fire teams, in gangs, in our workplace with our coworkers, in that perfect city or that perfect neighborhood that then finally we will find our people and belong.

5 · The preacher diagnoses a cultural paradox: while declining church attendance across generations is driven by the belief that people can worship alone without the church, this directly contradicts the deep human longing for belonging to a people

Meanwhile, Church attendance in America is in something of a— how would you describe it? A free fall. Gen X went to church and is going to church less than the baby boomers, and the millennials are going less than the Gen Xers, and Gen Z is going— can you predict the trend?— less than the millennials. And what is the most common reason people give for not attending? It's not actually that they don't like the music. Which is what everybody thought in the '90s, I guess.

And it's not the style of teaching either. It's not even the convenience of service times. It is, according to Pew Research in a recent study, simply this, that they think they can worship in other ways on their own. Meaning, I don't really need those people. I can do this by myself.

But you see the juxtaposition of these two things. Deeply, we long to belong to a group of people, and yet, we're kind of looking at the group of people in the church and going like, I don't know.

I think I'm alright, right? Maybe you're looking around this room and thinking that today. We long to belong, but we don't think that we will find that fulfilled in the church.

6 · The preacher announces the sermon's thesis—that humanity's longings find their fulfillment in what God has done in the church—and previews the four-part structure: four biblical images showing how the church satisfies human longing

And so the headline today is simply, Humanity Longs for What God Has Done in the Church. Surprisingly, it's true.

We're going to look at 4 specific images, briefly walking through each one, and we're going to see how that longing in the human heart is actually pointed toward God through the church.

7 · The preacher expounds the first image (homeland/citizenship) by explaining the historical context of Jewish-Gentile division in Ephesus, showing how Christ's reconciling work makes former strangers into fellow citizens

And so the first one is this: God has given us a homeland. Verse 19: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. Now, remember the context here, right? You have this Jewish and Gentile divide in the Ephesian church, and this is mostly a Gentile church with some Jewish people.

And Paul has been laying out the fact that the relationship between these two broad groups has been very broken, and both of them have animosity toward one another. Both of them think they're above the other in different ways. And yet Paul diagnoses their problem being a common problem, that they both have a broken relationship with God. And so Jesus comes. He dies on the cross, and when he dies on the cross, by dying in their place for their sins, he reconciles them to the God that they were made to belong to.

And surprisingly, when that reconciliation happens between them and God, it actually reconciles them to one another. Meaning if God draws this person who's over here to himself and this person who's over here to himself, all of a sudden they find themselves together. And so, this is what Paul has been saying. But Paul is not content to say, "Therefore, church in Ephesus, stop squabbling internally. Just be nice to each other.

Knock it off." As a parent sometimes says, right? No, he says something far more radical. He says, listen, you were once strangers, you were once aliens to God and to each other, but now you are fellow citizens. What does that mean? It means that they now have the same homeland, the same city.

8 · The preacher explains the competing homeland identities in Ephesus—Jews oriented to Jerusalem, Romans to Rome, locals to Ephesus—and shows how Paul reorients all believers toward a new homeland: the city of God and the new Eden

And for the Jewish people, as they thought of their homeland and their city, they would have thought of, what, Jerusalem, right? This city on a hill wrapped up in history. They would have thought of that homeland. Even living in Ephesus, there would have been, an orientation toward that city, and that's the source of their identity. Or for those in Ephesus, their orientation was probably pointed either to the city of Ephesus or back to Rome.

And then there would have been a very small group of people in Ephesus who would have been Ephesian citizens, would have had full citizenship, right? And so those people would have been like, "Oh, man, they run this town. This is their city." And Paul says, "No, no, no, no. Your city is no longer that old Jerusalem geographically, or Rome, or Ephesus. Your city is the city of God.

Your homeland is no longer that strip of land or this strip of land, but rather the homeland of new Eden that God is bringing his people towards, right?

9 · The preacher illustrates the deep human longing for homeland through a personal story of attending a UTEP football game with military appreciation ceremonies—the emotional response to flag, anthem, and Apache helicopters reveals how powerful homeland identity is, while establishing that there exists an even truer homeland in God's city

Look, this longing for a homeland is deep within us. Listen, it was yesterday, I went with my dad and sister to the UTEP football game, and it happened to be kind of the Military Appreciation Sunday, Veteran Appreciation, not Sunday, Saturday. And so they did some really cool things. They had a bunch of service members with a giant flag. I mean, this flag was like half, you know, a third of the stadium size on the field. And then as we did the national anthem, with the band played the national anthem, as they did it, Out of nowhere, in formation, 4 Apache helicopters come flying over the stadium, and everybody is just sitting there unmoved, like, "Oh yeah, well, this is whatever." No, everybody is sitting there, and they were, I mean, their hearts were soaring when the band started playing. Their hearts were soaring further when the flag gets unfurled. But then when the Apache helicopters came out, man, we were like, "Let's go. Let's go.

Let's win World War II all over again, man." But that feeling inside of us is deep. Now, listen, we have much to thank God for in the countries that He has put us in. We have much to thank God for in our country, the United States of America. But Paul is saying, listen, there is a truer country even than the country we were born in, a truer city to us than even the city we were born in, and it is the homeland of God. It is the city of God.

10 · The preacher applies the homeland image by defining the church's nature as ambassadors—an embassy in earthly cities representing the city of God

Therefore, our nature as a church is that we are ambassadors. Every church, the picture in the New Testament, is something of an embassy. We live in our cities, but we represent another city. We live in our country, but we, in a sense, represent another country. And we long for that— that longing really is pointed back to Eden, and in Christ it's now pointed forward to the new Eden, to the new Jerusalem, to the new homeland that one day we will arrive at.

So, Christian, where do you look? Where do you point that longing for a homeland, that longing for a city, that longing for a people in that way? Now, we should pray for our earthly country. We should do good to all insofar as we can. We should love justice and do justice and love mercy and love kindness, as Micah calls us to.

We must remember that most fundamentally, underneath even that longing is a deeper longing for the city of God, and that we express that through the church.

11 · The preacher expounds the second image (household of God) by showing how Paul intensifies the citizenship metaphor into something more intimate: family

Second, God has given us a family. It says, "Not only are fellow citizens"— Paul switches the metaphor almost immediately to, "You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." Now, it's one thing to share common citizenship, but it's another to be gathered around the family dinner table together. Now, these people, remember, Jews and Gentiles, they are not bound by the blood of their mothers and fathers together, or their grandparents, or their great-grandparents. They are not even bound by the blood of the Jewish people going back to Abraham.

But what Paul is saying is they all now have, in a sense, the same blood running in their veins, the blood of Jesus. And as they gather and hear this letter read in an assembly, probably much like this one, they will have different accents as people are speaking, but they will have the same heavenly Father. They will have different skin tones, but they will have the same Spirit inside them. And remember that families in this area, when Paul is referring to a household, he's referring to these large households often that had multiple generations living together, even servants and their families living together. And when families gathered, when a household threw a party, it was a giant party, right?

Paul is not thinking of a small kind of a strange, you know, family where maybe they see each other once a year on Thanksgiving and there's 4 people and it's a little awkward. Now Paul is like, no, no, no. His view is this is a big, giant party. I mean, think of— I guess it's already Christmastime now, apparently, in October. So think of Christmas and Thanksgiving, which we apparently are nearly at.

The turkey, right? Toys of nieces and nephews on the floor, laughter in the air, football on the TV, people playing in the backyard, right? This is what Paul is saying. This is what we are meant to be, not just fellow citizens who are kind of like, okay, salute each other in the street and then go home to their separate lives, but a family. Who express their identity by living together as a family.

12 · The preacher articulates the gospel implication of the household metaphor: for those with broken or absent earthly families, Ephesians 2 offers a new family in Christ

Now, this is the good news of— the good news of Ephesians 2 is this: if your family growing up was not a good family, if you find yourself widowed or separated, if you feel estranged from your earthly family, the good news of Ephesians 2 is this: you have a new family in Christ. Look, in our culture, there's this kind of this buzzword going around sort of, you know, pop therapy or pop psychology, you know, circles called found family. Everybody's looking for their found family. 'Cause everybody realizes their natural family is the worst, and so they're like, I'm gonna have a found family. These people are my family, right?

And here's the thing. Something in there is right in that, okay, We all sense, listen, if my family failed, I can create a family, right? But the problem is this, we then just come together, what are we bound by? By common interests? By political ideologies?

By geography until somebody moves away? What binds us together? Look, this is where the church has been, as it is in so many things, 2,000 years ahead of the curve. In saying you have a found family in Christ. These people bound not by the skin color that you see in front of you, nor by their accent, nor by their background, but by being united to Christ.

And you, united to Christ now, are united to them. So they truly are, in a sense, your family. Church, we are the household of God. We are the family of God.

13 · The preacher applies the family image by correcting a subtle misunderstanding: Christians don't go to church to create family—Christ has already created the family

And do you see the church then as a place you go to, to find family and create family in Christ? Well, in a sense, that's not even correct. Christ has created our family in Christ. Do we go there to— do we point our longing for family, that big giant Thanksgiving meal that never ends, at the people of God that God has given us to live out our identity as family.

14 · The preacher introduces the third image (building project) and immediately addresses the first of four characteristics: the church has a trustworthy foundation in the apostles and prophets

Third, then, God has given us a cause. Verse 20 talks about being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is being joined together. And then, actually, the metaphor, I think, from looking at the text, actually is that, and then switches one last time when it speaks of a temple. So this part, this verse 20 and 21, I think is specific to a great building cause. It talks about being built on this, and Jesus the cornerstone, and we're all being joined together, right? The nature of the church is so multifaceted that there's no one metaphor that Paul's like, "Well, it's just like a family." Well, it is, but it's also like a homeland. Well, it is, but it's also like a building project.

Right? It's because what God has done can't even be expressed fully in one single metaphor. So, here's the image. Not only do we have common passports in our wallets, not only are we around the Thanksgiving meal table together, but we leave that and take up a great grand building project with one another. We wake up the next day after Thanksgiving, as it were, and go to work together.

Now, we learn 4 glorious things about this building project. First, it has a trustworthy foundation. It talks about being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Now, the language here is most likely referring to the apostles and prophets who specifically ministered in laying the foundations of the church through church planting, through their decisions like the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, through Scripture, right? God speaking through them to give us Scripture.

Now, later in the New Testament, we will see people doing apostolic, the sent one kind of work, like Timothy or Titus. And we'll also see in 1 Corinthians other people prophesying, but not infallibly. Paul is saying test everything, right? So, what is Paul referring to here? Well, he's referring to the specific technical foundational work through apostles and prophets that lays the foundation for the church.

And that is utterly unique. It means that the foundation of the church is not someone's good idea, but it is God working through people to establish the pattern of church in the New Testament and breathed out Scripture through the people that then established that work infallibly through the canon of Scripture, right? That then means this, that the foundation of the church and its work is steady and sturdy and unchanging. And in 50 years, somebody's not gonna have a bright idea that's the new foundation.

15 · The preacher illustrates the unchanging nature of the church's foundation by contrasting it with Elon Musk's vacillating decision-making about buying Twitter—a humorous example of the instability of human leaders, trends, and ideas—to highlight that unlike all such ephemeral foundations, Scripture remains immovable

I don't know if you've been following this. I'm following it just for amusement that at one point, one of the richest, I think he's the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, right? Decides, I'm gonna buy Twitter. I'm buying it. I think I'm gonna buy it. I'm gonna do it.

I'm buying it. It's happening. And then he was like, actually, no, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna buy Twitter. And they're like, we're gonna sue you and make you buy it.

He's like, you know what? I love it. I love it. I'm buying Twitter again. I don't think it's impossible that he might decide not to do it again.

But I think you see something in that of the instability of, like, this political leader, or this figure, or this thing, or this idea, or this thing that's all the rage, or this philosophical system that we're like, "Yeah, we figured it out finally." None of those are the foundation of the church. The foundation of the church is the pattern of the church laid out in Holy Scripture. That's the foundation that doesn't move.

16 · The preacher expounds the second and third characteristics of the building project: the pattern is Jesus himself as cornerstone (life, death, resurrection, teaching), making the structure's orientation utterly secure; and the builders are every single Christian without exception—not just pastors or gifted leaders—meaning all are called to participate in the work regardless of giftedness or tenure

Second, it is built with a trustworthy pattern. Not only a trustworthy foundation, but a trustworthy pattern. The word cornerstone here means the first stone that is laid down, and that sets the entire pattern for the rest of the structure. It sets the orientation of the structure. It sets the angle of the structure. The place, the establishment of the structure. And that pattern, that first stone, is Jesus himself, right?

His life, death, resurrection, and teaching are the cornerstone off of which everything else in the church is built.

That is even more trustworthy in a sense. Well, you can't pit Scripture against Jesus, so I couldn't say that. But Scripture, the breathed living Word of God, and Jesus, God in the flesh, right? What could be a more secure foundation than that? Nothing.

Third thing we learn is that it is then built by every single Christian. The structure is not meant to be built with some Christians, not meant to be built with pastors or some gifted Christian leaders. It is built with every single redeemed son or daughter that has been called to this work and is a part of this work. Paul is speaking here to the whole gathered assembly of the church, and he's basically saying, "In whom the home structure being joined together grows together." And he ends by saying, "In him you also are being built together." Meaning, if you're sitting here and you're like, "Okay, that's good. I'm glad the church is going to be doing something." No.

It means you are going to be doing something. Like, "Well, I don't know. I'm not super gifted." Doesn't matter. "I'm pretty new here. I just got here, like, a couple weeks ago." Welcome.

It's okay. Every single Christian united to Christ is then called to be united to the work of God in building the church. That is our great cause.

17 · The preacher makes the theological claim that the church is the supreme cause—backed by Christ's promise, outlasting all institutions, and uniquely preventing eternal suffering through gospel proclamation

What could be a greater cause? It's backed by Jesus' promise that the gates of hell themselves will not prevail against the church. No other organization has that backing. Long after all the Fortune 500 companies fail, long after America perhaps is a distant memory, the church will endure.

Now, look, let me speak to the younger Christians here in particular. As I've said before, a geriatric millennial, the oldest of the millennials. So let me, as a grandfather figure to you millennials, speak now. Statistically, millennials are very cause-oriented, meaning this: that they love, like, buying socks that help homeless people, or they love buying malaria net, especially— and this is the data— is this: if you ask millennials to give to an organization that helps people not die of malaria, they're like, well, okay, maybe. But if you're like, buy one specific malaria net for this guy in this village, and here's a picture of him, millennials are like, awesome!

And here's what's interesting. I think a little bit of it, let me just say this, 'cause I'm a millennial, a little bit of it is like, we wanna be the hero, the specific hero. We wanna be like, I'm the person that gave Bob his net in Zimbabwe. Like, I did that. Or maybe, if I could just be more charitable, perhaps it's just, okay, I just like seeing tangibly that this is doing some good.

Look, other things millennials give themselves to may or may not be good depending on the cause and the method. Things like political activism, things like protests, right? We're always up for a protest, especially Gen Z. We love a cause, but let me just plead with you, friends, we often neglect the cause above all causes, the church of Jesus Christ. The thing, the thing, the only thing that prevents eternal suffering is the gospel of Jesus Christ preached through the church of Jesus Christ.

Look, we do good things, we help people. We display, we adorn the reality of the gospel being proclaimed. But at the end of the day, the church of Jesus Christ is the vehicle that God himself has used, backed by the promise of Jesus, for 2,000 years to spread the message of the gospel from here to India to Africa and everywhere in between. The track record's pretty solid.

This is the cause that we're called to.

18 · The preacher expounds the fourth image (temple) by contrasting the Ephesian temple of Artemis—where people traveled at great cost for a chance that the distant goddess might visit—with Paul's radical claim that Christians ARE the temple where God perpetually dwells

Fourth, God has given us himself. Briefly here, since we already touched on this a couple weeks ago, it's being reemphasized, so we're going to reemphasize it, that we are being joined together and growing into a holy temple in the Lord. We are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So not only are we common citizens, not only are we family, not only do we take up a great cause together, but the person The purpose of this is that we might grow into a holy temple in the Lord.

Now, remember who Paul is talking to. Their reference point was a temple of Artemis, one of the 7 great wonders of the ancient world, alongside the pyramids and all of those other things, is this temple in their city. People would come from miles and miles and miles around. Making long journeys with bruised feet at great expense. Why?

To get close to the temple of Artemis. And here's the thing, Artemis didn't live at the temple, right? In Greek mythology, all the gods, they lived on Mount Olympus. Or Roman mythology, they lived far off. The best they could do, it was like, listen, the best I can do is I promise I'll stop by sometimes.

We'll see, you know? So Artemis is like, listen, I'm not gonna live down there, ugh, man, but I will stop by, okay? So here's what you did. As somebody following Artemis, you walk for miles and miles and miles with bruised feet at your own expense to get close to the temple of Artemis that you might have a shot at petitioning the goddess for fertility for a son or daughter. Maybe she'll listen.

Do you see what Paul is doing? He's undercutting this entire city by saying this: "You, Christian, do not have a God who dwells far off, but a God who dwells near. And you don't have a God who just dwells near where you can visit the temple sometimes. You are the temple." So it's not as though God visits the temple sometimes, or you visit the temple sometimes. No, it is a perpetual dwelling with God in the church.

That is what God is doing. You see, do you see this imagery? It even is harking back to Eden itself, this place where God dwelt with people in his image, where all is perfect and at rest, where perfect shalom fills the temple and the garden. And what we're looking at, remember, in Revelation is that renewed Eden. It's no accident that the tree of life is there.

It's no accident that the river of life is there. It's no accident that there is no temple there because the temple is the people of God. And Paul is saying right now, you can almost imagine him saying this, right now, even as you gather, Christians.

The presence of God uniquely rests with his assembled people. If you've ever been here and felt like, you know what, man, I felt like God did something in my heart today, no surprise.

Paul says, yeah, that's what he does. He lives in this temple. Let me give you something from Chesterton, right? Chesterton once quipped, at least it's attributed to Chesterton, and then there's some— well, nobody knows. So let's just attribute it to Chesterton.

Chesterton once said, "Every young man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." And it's true. Our restless Gen Z, our idealistic millennials, our rebel Gen Xers, our boomers may be longing for the good days of the past. All of them are looking for God. That is why people don't come to church. People don't come to church because they think they can find the peace, fulfillment, hope, joy, life out there somewhere, whether it's on the golf course or in a stadium or in the office or in the arms of a lover or at a Little League baseball game.

But we long deep down, we long for something transcendent. And that longing is a longing for the Creator himself, the one who knows us, the one who fashioned us, the one who delights as a father over his children, the hero who never fades, the husband who loves his church, right? We long for God himself. And what Paul is doing is he's saying, do you see? You meet that God in the temple of his people.

19 · The preacher applies the temple teaching by rejecting lesser motivations for church attendance (donuts, moral formation for kids, marriage principles) and issuing the true call: come to church to encounter the living God you were made for

What he's saying is absolutely stunning. Listen, I think if Paul were here, he wouldn't say, listen, you should come to church because we have donuts. You should come to church because, listen, this is one of the most common reasons, because your kids need some kind of moral foundation, those little pagans.

You know, you should come to church because you will learn some good life principles for your marriage. Like, by God's grace, all of that's going to happen. But you know what I think what Paul would say? Paul would say, "Come to church to encounter the living God that you were made for." That's why we gather. So let me just ask you, friend, as we end here, do you connect your longing for transcendence and your longing for God to the gathered people of God.

Do you see that the two go together? It's not over here and over here; they're together. That is what we long for.

20 · The preacher shifts into direct pastoral mode to address those wounded by the church, acknowledging their pain while offering two correctives: first, remember the church is flawed sinners being sanctified (Spurgeon's perfect church illustration); second, distinguish between flawed walls (people) and solid foundation (Scripture/Christ)—many who deconstruct confuse the two and tear out the foundation when only the walls need repair

And let me just end with this. I'm going to take just an extra second here because I just feel like the Lord— I had this, I didn't— I was like, I don't know, Lord. I think the Lord wants me to share this. Let me just end here with this. Perhaps you're like, listen, I love it. I love the idea of it, but I have been banged up by the church. Like, I hear everything you're saying.

I would love a family. I would love a homeland. I'd love a cause where I get to work with one another. I'd love to encounter God, but you don't understand what's in my background. I've been banged up by people in the church.

I was failed by a leader. I was failed by a church. And now I'm like, I don't know. Listen, I think if that's you, I just want to say, listen, if you truly have been wronged by the church or by someone in the church, I grieve that. I grieve it.

I think Jesus himself would grieve it. But I think I would plead with you two different things if you're kind of at arm's length from the church now. The first is this: recognize that the nature of the church is that church is a group of Flawed sinners trying to follow Jesus and look more and more like him.

Right? That's the nature of it. There is no church that's like, "Oh, they're fully sanctified now." And so some truly may not even be Christians, but others may be Christians and still, still they struggle with sin. And we are all part of that, right? Spurgeon quipped that if you found a perfect church, you should never join it because you would spoil it.

Like, don't do it. If you see it, like, great, then run away. Just leave it, right? Because we know, each of us, oh man, I contribute my own junk to this. Remember that.

Second, let me just say this: recognize that walls are not the same as foundations. The walls of the church being built with living stones at times are flawed. Sometimes a section of the wall needs to be taken out and a new section put in. Are torn up and rebuilt. But walls are not the same as foundations.

Nobody with a crack in their wall and a solid foundation would say, you know what, listen, there's a crack in the wall, we're just going to take the foundation out. You know? And the people, you know, construction crew's like, I think your foundation's okay. And they're like, nope, it's got a crack. We're going to take it out, right?

And let me just say, this is one of the things I think is going on with this deconstruction-reconstruction thing, if you've heard about this in the church. Is often people will confuse walls for foundations. And they'll go, "Listen, listen, this whole section of the wall, that's bad. We've got to tear the foundation out and start again. Who knows what truth is?

Who knows what parts of the Bible are real? I don't know. Do you know? Let's tear it out and start over." And this is what I would just plead with you. I'd plead with you, Christian, if you're there.

Look down on the foundation. It is trustworthy. It is true. It is solid. The church has sat upon it for over 2,000 years and it will sit upon it And one day the church will be perfected and one day you, too, will be perfected and one day that hurt will be healed and made beautiful as you see God's full design for what he's doing in creation.

Amen?

21 · The preacher closes by transitioning to worship and praying that the congregation would experience wonder at God's reconciling work—bringing together people who would never naturally be united—and embrace all four identities explored in the sermon (citizens, family, coworkers, temple)

Let's stand and sing together.

Lord, I pray as we end, Lord, that you would give us Lord, you give us a sense of wonder even as we close in singing, Father, as we close in reading Scripture. You give us a sense of wonder that you've reconciled us to yourself and reconciled us to one another. God, there are people in this room that we would never, never be friends with apart from the grace of God, age groups that would never be together apart from the grace of God. People with different backgrounds and ethnicities and lives that would never be family except for by the grace of God. But yet, God, what you have done even in an expression through Cross of Grace, not that we're the whole church, but we just look at our little corner, God, what you've done in and through us is amazing and glorious.

So what I pray, I pray that we would be a group of Christians who embrace their identity as common citizens, embrace their identity as family, embrace their identity as as being coworkers on this great common cause and embrace their identity as being the temple of God, the place where he dwells with his people, that every Sunday we gather is a foretaste of that final day.

Lord, our hearts long for Eden. Our hearts long to be in fellowship with you in that unhindered way. We long to walk with you, and we look forward to that one day where the tree of life will bloom again and the river of life will flow will flow, and there will be no need for a sun or moon or light, because God himself will be with them as their light. So in light of that, God, right now, today, I pray that you would help us enjoy and thank God for this glimpse, this glimpse of one day what the church will become. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Sep 25, 2022

It's Alive! It's Alive!

The gap between our spiritual deadness apart from Christ and the resurrection life we have in Christ is filled entirely by God's grace—not by human merit—and that gap is as wide as death to life.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Oct 2, 2022

Main Character Energy

Salvation is none of us and all of Him — accomplished entirely by God's grace without any human contribution — which eliminates all boasting and establishes the foundation for grace-based relationships in every sphere of life.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Oct 9, 2022

A Stranger to Everything and a Castaway

By grace, God brings the far off near together—reconciling alienated humanity both to Himself and to one another through the blood of Christ, creating one new humanity that transcends all ethnic, social, and cultural divisions.

Ephesians 2:11-18

October 23 · This sermon

The Friends You Made Along the Way

The longing that every human has to belong is directed at God but is expressed through the church, where God has given us a homeland, a family, a cause, and himself.

Ephesians 2:19-22

Earlier in the corpus · January 29, 2023

A prior sermon on Ephesians 2:8-10

You preached this same passage — 6 Ephesians 2 citations in that earlier sermon. Worth re-reading before the next time this text comes around.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

In Ephesians 2:19, Paul uses three images to describe what the church is: fellow citizens, household members, and a building. Which of these…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we follow the arc of Paul's vision for the church—from the deep human longing to belong, through the concrete reality of Christ's body, to the transcendent encounter with God himself that makes the church the only cause worth giving your life to.

Prayer

A Prayer for Belonging

Father, we come to you with a longing that runs deep in every human heart—the longing to belong to a people, to find our place, to know that…

Family table

The Homeland You Already Belong To

This card invites your family to think about what it means to belong somewhere—not just as a feeling, but as citizens of God's kingdom. List…

Couples

The Longing We Share

What part of the sermon most stirred your heart about the church—and did it make you want to belong more deeply, or did it convict you about…

Memorize

Ephesians 2:19-22

This is the sermon's primary text and its most concentrated statement of the four images—homeland, family, building, and dwelling place—through which Paul answers humanity's deepest longing to belong. Memorizing this passage anchors the listener in the truth that the church is not an optional institution but God's answer to our search for transcendence, purpose, and family.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

In Ephesians 2:19, Paul uses three images to describe what the church is: fellow citizens, household members, and a building. Which of these three images most resonates with the longing you feel to belong, and why?

Ephesians 2:19-22

→ What does each image offer that the others don't? What does it mean that Paul piles all three together instead of stopping at just one?
Ricky pointed out that our culture is experiencing declining church attendance while simultaneously searching for 'belonging' through other communities. What communities or groups are you or people you know turning to in order to feel like they belong to something larger than themselves?

→ What do those communities offer? And what do they require of you—or what do they fail to deliver when the pressure gets real?
According to the sermon, what is the difference between a 'found family' built on shared interests or ideology and the family that Christ has already created in the church?

Ephesians 2:11-18

→ Why does that difference matter when other bonds in your life—friendships, work relationships, even family ties—feel fragile or conditional?
Ricky described the church as 'an embassy'—a place where we live representing a city we haven't yet reached. What does it look like in your daily life to represent the kingdom of God while still living in your earthly city?

Revelation 21-22

→ Where do you feel the most tension between your citizenship in heaven and your citizenship in El Paso (or your actual city)?
The sermon claims that the church is 'the cause above all causes'—the only organization backed by Christ's promise to prevail. How does that claim shift the way you think about your participation in church gathered versus your participation in other worthy causes or organizations?

Matthew 16:18

→ If you're honest, what causes or communities currently compete with the church for your time, energy, and allegiance? What would it cost to reorder those priorities?
Ricky emphasized that we gather as the church not primarily for community or moral instruction, but to encounter the living God. When you come to church on Sunday, what are you actually hoping for—and is it the same as what God is offering you?

Ephesians 2:20-22

→ What would change in the way you prepare for and participate in Sunday gathered worship if you truly believed that the primary reason to be there is to meet with God?

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Genesis 2-3

In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve exist in perfect communion with God and each other in the garden. Genesis 3 fractures both relationships—with God and with one another. Every longing we feel today to belong to a people, to find home, to be known—these are echoes of what was lost and what we were made for. The church is where that longing is finally directed toward its true object and its true community.

Tuesday Ephesians 2:11-18

Paul's argument here is revolutionary: the deepest division in first-century culture (clean and unclean, insider and outsider) is healed not by common interest or shared ideology, but by the blood of Christ. This tells us something crucial about what the church *is*—it's not a club of like-minded people, but a family constituted by Christ's reconciliation. When we gather, we're not creating family; we're receiving the family Christ has already made and directing our longing toward the people God has given us.

Wednesday Matthew 16:18

Every organization you join—political, professional, social—will eventually fail or fade. But Christ makes a categorical promise about the church: it will persist against the very gates of death itself. This isn't hyperbole; this is the deepest assurance we have about anything. The church is the cause above all causes because it's the only one Christ himself has promised to build and sustain.

Thursday 1 Corinthians 14

Paul's argument about spiritual gifts and worship order in 1 Corinthians 14 keeps returning to one thing: that the gathering should be intelligible, orderly, and centered on God's speaking to his people. The longing for transcendence—for encounter with something larger than ourselves—is not a feeling to be managed; it's the deepest human longing, and it finds its true target in the gathered presence of God's Spirit among his people. We come to meet God, not merely to meet each other.

Friday Revelation 21-22

The new Jerusalem in Revelation is not a distant abstraction; it's the completion and fulfillment of what the church already is—the dwelling place of God with his people, where every wound is healed and every longing satisfied. When we gather as the church now, we're living as residents of that future city. This means our belonging to the church is not a seasons-of-life commitment; it's an eternal allegiance to the people God is preparing for his kingdom.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

A Prayer for Belonging

Father, we come to you with a longing that runs deep in every human heart—the longing to belong to a people, to find our place, to know that we matter. We confess that we have often looked for that belonging everywhere but in the place you have designed for it. We have sought it in causes that fade, in communities bound by opinion rather than by Christ, in families of our own making. We have even believed the lie that we don't need the church, that belonging can be found elsewhere, when all the while you were calling us home to your household.

But here is the good news: you have already made us citizens of a kingdom that will never fall. You have already built us into a family bound not by blood or circumstance but by union with your Son. Through Christ, you have made us your dwelling place—a temple where your Spirit lives. The longing we feel to belong is the longing to belong to you, expressed through the people you have gathered and called by your name (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Grant us the grace, Lord, to recognize the church not as an optional community but as the homeland of our souls. Give us eyes to see the brothers and sisters around us not as people we happen to know, but as the family you have already given us in Christ. Kindle in us a passion for the gathering of your people, knowing that when we gather, we encounter you—the one our hearts have always been longing for. And help us to remember that the cause we are part of—the proclamation of your gospel, the building up of your kingdom—is the only cause that will never fail and never fade away.

We commit ourselves to you and to your church, the bride for whom Christ died. Make us faithful members of the household of God, anchored not in this world but in the city whose builder and maker you are. All glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

The Homeland You Already Belong To

For the parent

This card invites your family to think about what it means to belong somewhere—not just as a feeling, but as citizens of God's kingdom. Listen for how your kids understand 'home' and gently help them see that the church is their true citizenship.

In the sermon, Pastor Ricky said that when we come to church, we're not just visiting—we're coming home as citizens of God's kingdom, like an embassy in a foreign land. If the church is our true homeland, what does that mean about who we really belong to? Where else do you try to find that feeling of 'coming home'?

works for ages 8+; younger kids (5-7) can listen and share one-word answers with help

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

The Longing We Share

What part of the sermon most stirred your heart about the church—and did it make you want to belong more deeply, or did it convict you about how you've been approaching your church family?
In your marriage, where do you most feel like you belong to something bigger than yourselves, and where might Christ be calling you both to direct that longing more intentionally toward the church?
What is one specific way you could pray for your spouse this week to find their true home in God's people—and invite them to pray the same for you?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

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.

Why this verse: This is the sermon's primary text and its most concentrated statement of the four images—homeland, family, building, and dwelling place—through which Paul answers humanity's deepest longing to belong. Memorizing this passage anchors the listener in the truth that the church is not an optional institution but God's answer to our search for transcendence, purpose, and family.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Cross of Grace Church

About us · What we believe

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# Cross of Grace Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [It's Alive! It's Alive! (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2022-09-25)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/09/it-s-alive-it-s-alive)
- [Main Character Energy (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2022-10-02)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/10/main-character-energy)
- [A Stranger to Everything and a Castaway (Ephesians 2:11-18, 2022-10-09)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/10/a-stranger-to-everything-and-a-castaway)
- [The Friends You Made Along the Way (Ephesians 2:19-22, 2022-10-23)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/10/the-friends-you-made-along-the-way)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

The page itself ships with Schema.org Article + Church markup, Open Graph + Twitter cards for share previews, and a canonical URL. Transcripts are server-rendered HTML — no JS dependency for the readable body.