This Church Is God’s Building!

Introduction:

Open your Bibles with me to Ephesians 2:11-22, as we continue to look at this letter of Paul, who writes to the church about our new life in Christ and our life within God’s New Society (Stott).  We have noted from Chapter One about the individual believer’s significance in Christ, who has chosen us to be his holy children (1-14) and then Paul’s first prayer in this letter, which concerns our need for spiritual insight into our riches in Christ (15-23).  Last Sunday, we considered the first ten verses of Chapter Two, how that God has made us his children by his saving grace that is received through faith alone.  This saving grace also is shaping us into God’s “poems,” his masterpieces that fulfill his preordained works for us to do.  

Today we will see, in verses 11-22 of Chapter Two, that even though individuals receive salvation by grace through faith (1-10), we are not left alone in our faith and our relationship with God; rather, we are united with other believers in a corporate unity that we know to be the church (Hoehner, 351).  Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is thought by many to have been intended as a general letter, not just for the church in Ephesus, but to be circulated among all the churches in the surrounding cities and towns of Asia Minor.  Evidence for this is in the lack of personal references that Paul makes in his other letters, which are directed to specific individuals (his Pastorals) and local churches (Mohrlang, 1996).  Generally, Paul refers to the church as the body of Christ, which includes all believers everywhere.  But the practical applications of his teachings about the church have relevance only with specific local congregations of believers which we call “the local church.”  And in our text for today Paul is speaking of the church, including this local church, as God’s building.  

Follow as I read Ephesians 2:11-22.