All Access Pass

well if you have your bible with you and i hope you do turn to ephesians chapter 2 we are
continuing our study through the book of ephesians and we are going to wrap up chapter 2 this
morning back in november i was reading the wall street journal one weekend and When I read an
article that I found in the journal, I thought this sounds exactly like the second half of
Ephesians chapter two. So I clipped the article, set it aside so that when we got to this point in
the chapter, I could share this article with you. It's written by Tim Kesey,
who is the executive director of Frontline Missions International. And this is the article.
Here's Tim. Here's a picture of him. And here's what he wrote. He said, Christianity crosses every
kind of barrier. Political, religious, ethnic, economic,
geographic. He said, this struck me for the first time 30 years ago during the last winter of the
war in Bosnia. He said, I was on my way to Sarajevo. Made a stop for supper with a Croatian friend
who served as a pastor for a little church near the front. I was in the middle of a vast killing
field in which ethnic cleansing of Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs had displaced two million and had
killed 100,000. He said, over dinner, the Croatian pastor introduced me to two families,
newer members of the congregation. One couple was Serbian, the other was Bosnian. And around the
table, they told me how the gospel had reconciled them to God and therefore to each other.
Each family had had friends murdered or homes destroyed by the ethnic group of the others around
the table. But now they were brothers and sisters in Christ. Each was still a Croat or a Serb or a
Bosnian, but they were, in a real sense, family. And here's how he wraps up the article. He says,
in the decades since, well, no, hang on, I'll get there. He says, in the decades since I've seen
this reality over and over again. And he goes on to tell about worshiping in Fiji with Fiji
Islanders and ethnic Indians, where the service was held in Fijian and in Hindi and in English,
all woven together. He talks about worshiping with Christians in South Korea and Cambodia and
Zambia and Poland and Morocco. describes how the worship services and gatherings were all very
different, but what was common was their love for Christ and that they were brothers and sisters
united in Christ. And then he ends it this way. He says, the worldwide church is a spiritual
family, not a man-made institution. In a world of tribal hatreds and ancient resentments,
the gospel unites people in bonds of love who might otherwise have every reason to treat each other
with suspicion. I've learned that by God's grace, what I thought was an extraordinary phenomenon 30
years ago around that table in Sarajevo turns out to be the most common thing in the world.
I mentioned in my prayer this morning the death of John Perkins, and he's somebody I had a chance
to meet a number of years ago. He grew up in a sharecropping family in a southern plantation,
didn't know his father. His mother died of malnutrition when he was seven months old.
He remembers growing up with white boys shooting their BB guns at him and of course he was not able
to fight back. He remembered watching old black men in his town who would step off the sidewalk so
that the white women could pass by. His older brother who served in World War II came home and was
arrested by a police officer and was beaten and ultimately killed. Perkins himself was jailed and
tortured by white police in 1970. But as he wrote about the racial divide in our country,
here's what he said. He said, this is a God-sized problem. It is one that only the church,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, can heal. It requires the quality of love that only our
Savior can provide. And he's right. We've been reading in Ephesians 2 about the deep divide that
existed between the Jews and the Gentiles in Jesus' day. and their hatred for one another and i'm
sure it's occurred to you as we've read about it that that hatred continues to exist in our world
among ethnic groups among tribal peoples among nations that hate one another and as we saw in the
text last week the only way that the dividing wall of hostility between people can be torn down is
for people to experience the love and for one another that you find first by being reconciled to
god being forgiven, being accepted into his presence because of what Jesus has done,
and then being reconciled to one another into one body and one family.
It is, as the Bible says, through what Jesus has accomplished on the cross. That's what brings
peace with God. And the hostility is destroyed. It's killed. So this morning,
as we finish up chapter 2 in Ephesians, we're going to see that not only does the cross unite us
together to God and then to one another, but it also gives us unprecedented,
unfettered access to God that we didn't have before. And it gives us a new identity in him.
It's what we talked about in our catechism this morning. Those two words, access and identity,
are the words I want you to take away from our time together this morning. They're going to be our
key words. So we'll read this passage. Before we read it, let's pray again. Father,
we need your spirit now to come. Be our teacher. Open our hearts and eyes as we seek to hear from
your word. And Lord, we pray that you would. that you would take our hard hearts and soften them
today. Help us to hear clearly from you. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Let's stand together again. We're going to read chapter 2 beginning at verse 11 all the way
to the end of the chapter. This is the word of God for the people of God. The Bible says, 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
covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now,
in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself... 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 the father.
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. Amen. You can be seated. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the
flower fades. The word of our God will last forever.
So as I said, the two words we're going to focus on this morning are access and identity. And
here's how... through this passage. We're going to look first at peace preached and access granted
in Christ. And then we're going to look at the new identity being established. And we will see that
he has made us fellow citizens with one another. He has made us members of the household of God.
And he has made us living stones in the new temple. That's our new identity.
So let's go back first, look at verses 17 through 18. And look at what Paul says about Jesus in
verse 17. He says he came and preached peace to those who were far off, that's the Gentiles,
and to those who were near, that's the Jews. And there are three things I want you to note about
that. First of all, notice that there's a question that comes up,
which is how did Paul imagine Jesus coming and preaching peace to the Gentiles? You know the story,
Jesus never left Israel. He lived his whole life in Israel. Paul says he came and preached peace to
the Gentiles. So how did that happen? Well, it happened through Paul and through the other
apostles. When they came and brought the gospel, it was Jesus preaching peace through them to the
Gentiles. Paul is saying that the message he brought was a message from Jesus.
They were hearing the voice of Jesus through the lips of the apostle Paul. 2 Corinthians 5 says it
this way. It says it about all of us. It says, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making
his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.
When we share the gospel with others, we are ambassadors and God is imploring others through us.
If I'm doing my job right on a Sunday morning, as we examine the text, you should be hearing Jesus
speak to you through this text. You should hear God making his appeal to you through me.
Not because there's anything special about me, but because his word is living and active and
powerful. Because his spirit brings it home to your heart. I've had this experience sometimes when
I'm listening to preaching and I'm hearing a pastor work through a text and there's something in
the text that will jump out at me and I will go, why isn't this pastor covering this part?
Why isn't he making this point? Why isn't he emphasizing this part of it? And it's been in those
times on occasions like the Holy Spirit's tapped me on the shoulder and said, no, no, this is for
you. I'm speaking through the text to you. Everybody else doesn't need this, but you do.
And it's just been the awareness that when I'm up here speaking, it's the power of God, the Holy
Spirit taking his word, applying it to your heart, that is really, all I'm trying to do is catalyze
that in this room by pointing you to the text this morning. Paul says that Jesus came and preached
peace to the Gentiles in Ephesus. And I'm suggesting that Jesus is still coming and still bringing
the gospel to us every day. week as the gospel is preached here secondly notice that the message
was peace he came and preached peace the heart of the gospel is the message of peace and it's not
first about inner peace we hear the word peace and we go to oh the peace that i need in my soul
well that comes but it's first peace as in the reconciliation of the broken relationship between
god and the broken relationship between men The peace that he comes and preaches is the peace that
brings us back together with God and with one another. The big story of the Bible is the story
about a broken relationship and God's reconciliation.
In fact, if you look at the Bible, it can be easily divided into these four parts. Genesis chapter
1 and 2. God makes the world, creates mankind, and lives in a loving relationship with them.
It's unbroken, unhindered. They fellowship together. Genesis 3, the man and the woman rebel against
God, reject his plan. They say, they eat the fruit. They say,
we want to be our own gods. They know evil for the first time and the relationship between God and
man is broken. Genesis 4 to Revelation 19. That's the big part of the Bible.
is about God reconciling that broken relationship that happened in Genesis chapter 3.
All that he did so that mankind could be reconciled to him and reconciled to one another.
And then Revelation 21 and 22 is about the perfect fulfillment of that revelation when we are
together with him in eternity. The Bible is a story, the Bible story is that peace with God,
we were created for peace with God. Peace with God was broken by our sin. God sends his son to
restore peace and the peace is restored when we trust in him. That's the story. That's the message
of peace that this passage is talking about. Anybody feel like we live in a broken world?
Anybody feel like your own life is broken? Do you doubt that? We sometimes sing that song.
Do you feel the world is broken? We do, right? In his well-known children's book,
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis talks about that broken world by describing it
as a world where it is always winter and never Christmas.
It's a world where you feel the cold and there's no comfort. You're under the spell of winter.
It's that world that Jesus comes to to declare peace. peace on earth,
goodwill to men. And it's possible it can happen, but it only happens in Christ.
Here's the last thing I want to say about verse 17. Jesus comes with only one message to both Jew
and Gentile. It's the same message for both. He comes to preach peace to the Jew and peace to the
Gentile. He doesn't have one message for the Jews and a different message for the Gentiles. We just
sang it. There is one gospel in which I stand. for all eternity.
It is my story, my father's plan. The son has rescued me. Oh, what a gospel. Oh, what a peace.
My highest joy and my deepest need now and forever. He is my light. I stand in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And in this gospel, the church is one. The way we talk about being at peace with God or
being reconciled to him, that might change over time, but the core content is still the same.
then and now for all eternity that message is the message we communicate in different ways but it's
the central message so it's the message of peace and the result is peace with God and peace with
one another and that brings us to the big word the first big word I want us to think about this
morning which is the word access we see this in verse 18 where it says we've been given access with
God access with God ended in Genesis 3 at the end of the chapter.
Do you remember what happens at the end of the chapter? After the man and the woman have sinned and
God has come and confronted them, The consequences of the fall, it says, Therefore the Lord God
sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the
man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and the flaming sword that turned
every way to guard the way to the tree of life. The Garden of Eden was the place where God dwelled.
with man and now there was a huge access denied sign that's put at the entrance to the garden of
eden this was in part so that adam and eve would recognize the consequences of their sin and they
might long to dwell with him again. God wanted the absence from him to draw their heart back to
him. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, we say. Well, God wanted their separation from him to
spark in them a desire to be with him. And you jump ahead to the time of Moses and the Jews in the
wilderness following their escape from Egypt, and God commands them to build a tabernacle.
Now, this tabernacle is not the restored Garden of Eden, but God says,
you build the tabernacle and that will be my dwelling place among you. And of course, later from
the tabernacle, it became the temple. This became the place on earth where...
and women could come to meet with God. And we saw the diagram of the temple last week, and you
remember at the back end of the main place, there's the Holy of Holies, the place where only the
priests could go, only once a year to offer sacrifice on behalf of the people. And that's where the
priest would meet with God in that one time of year and they would tie a rope around his leg before
he would go in to meet with God just in case he was struck dead in the presence of God so they'd
have a way to pull him out of the Holy of Holies. This was the one sacred meeting time with God
through the year. This is God beginning to reestablish with his people a sense of access.
The temple or the tabernacle became that point of access. And every Jew understood that access to
God was granted only to them, only to the Jews. Gentiles did not have access.
You had to be a Jew to have access. And you had to be a descendant of Jacob. You had to be keeping
the law. God might show up anywhere on earth, but if you wanted to draw near to God,
you went to Jerusalem. You went to the temple because that's where you would go to meet with God.
That's where access was found. Paul is saying in Ephesians 2, that's changed now.
Access is no longer in the temple. Access is now open to both Jew and Gentile,
and it's found not in Jerusalem, but it's found in Christ. God is not located in the temple.
God is located among his people. That word in Christ that we keep seeing over and over again.
In Ephesians 1 and 2, this is where access to God is found.
I mentioned again last week, when Jesus died on the cross, you remember one of the things that
happened at that moment was that the curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from
everyone else, that curtain was torn in two from the top to the bottom, symbolizing that access was
now open, that people could draw near to God because of what Christ had done on the cross.
So notice here in verse 18 where it talks about access being granted.
And then again in verse 22, Paul makes it clear that this access comes from the Trinity.
That access to the Father is in Christ and by the Spirit. These are clear references in both verse
18 and verse 22 to the Trinitarian nature of God and the Trinitarian activity of God in bringing
access. Access to God through Christ in one spirit. Verse 22,
it says, we individually and collectively become the new dwelling place of God by the spirit.
Paul understands that access to the presence of God comes through the concurrent work of the
Trinity. And I just want us to stop for a minute here and pause to consider the amazing reality
that as followers of Jesus, we have been given access to the God of the universe.
When I was in college, it was one afternoon. This was my freshman year. I was a student at the
University of Tulsa. I was in my dorm room, and a call came on the intercom. It went to all of the
intercoms in all of the dorms, and it said, if you are interested in working security tonight at
the George Harrison concert, please come to student services. And I ran from my dorm room down to
student services so that I could work security at the George Harrison concert. Now,
you younger people, George Harrison was in a popular band called The Beatles back in the day.
He was coming to do a concert that night. I got there and they said, yeah, show up at this time,
at this place. And I did, and I was assigned to be the guy who guarded stage left.
The curtain that separated the backstage from the front of the stage. I was there. I was not to let
anybody through who didn't have the access pass. I was standing guard security. I didn't have a
flaming sword like the angel in Eden did. But that was my assignment for the night. And it was
pretty cool. I got to meet George Harrison's dad and talked with him.
He was sitting right by where I was standing. And so I chatted it up with him for a little bit.
There was a musician, a guy named Leon Russell, who was there with his wife, Mary. I escorted them
to their seats. But I did not have a backstage pass. I did not get to go backstage and meet George
Harrison or Billy Preston or Ravi Shankar or any of the guys who were playing that night. Like the
other thousands who had come, I was able to draw near to George Harrison, but I did not have
access.
You and I, we can call the White House switchboard and leave a message for the president,
but you can't call and say, I need to stop by tomorrow and see him. Have him clear his calendar for
me. I'll be there at 10. The Oscars are tonight. None of us are invited to the after parties to go
hobnob with the stars. We don't have access to those places. But you and I have unhindered,
unfettered access at any time to fellowship with,
to dwell with the God of the universe, the God who created you, the omnipotent, the all-wise,
the eternal one who will reign forever. You have access. And I'm afraid...
You and I take that access for granted,
don't we? I mean, God says, draw near, and we say, I'm busy. God says,
come to me, and we say, well, I'm coming Sunday. God says, cast your burdens on me,
and we continue to carry them around.
God says, I will give you rest, and we remain restless.
God says, I will keep you in perfect peace if your mind has stayed on me, and we say, I have other
things to think about.
Jesus died. so that we could have access to the Father.
He reopened the entrance to Eden. He tore down the dividing wall, the curtain torn in two.
In fact, there's a passage that talks clearly about this in the book of Hebrews. I want you to turn
for just a minute to Hebrews chapter 10. So if you're in Ephesians, keep going toward the back of
your Bible until you get to Hebrews chapter 10 and look at verse 19.
The writer of Hebrews writing to Jews, who understood that their access was at the temple in
Jerusalem, he's writing to tell them that's not where access happens anymore. Verse 19,
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain,
that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great... over the house of God let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. There's so much in these verses that I would love
to just take apart with you, but I want you to see that your access to the holy place is by the
blood of Jesus. That your entrance through the curtain comes through his flesh. That is his broken
body and his shed blood. Jesus died to give us access. And we neglect it or we take it for granted.
Our prayer lives are listless. Our Bible reading is superficial and sporadic.
Our participation in corporate worship can be half-hearted or irregular.
I want us to remember this morning what a great privilege we've been given. as followers of Christ.
We have access that the ancient Jews could have only imagined having. We should live our lives
mindful of that access and take advantage of the access. Marianne and I are going this week to a
pastor's conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the pastor's conference is called Corum Deo.
And that's a Latin phrase. You may have heard it. It means before the face of God.
R.C. Sproul tells about a friend asking him once, what's the big deal about the Christian life?
Somebody came to you and said, what's the big deal? What's the big idea of the Christian life?
What are we supposed to be doing? How would you answer that question? Sproul said, this person was
interested in the ultimate overarching goal of the Christian life. And I told him the big idea of
the Christian life is quorum Deo. Quorum Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.
Here's what it says. He says, this phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the
presence of or before the face of God. To live Quorum Deo is to live one's life,
one's entire life, in the presence of God, under the authority of God,
to the glory of God. Let me read that again. To live Quorum Deo is to live one's entire life in the
presence of God, under the authority of God to the glory of God.
Is that how you live? Aware of, taking advantage of the access that you have,
the access for which Jesus died, and living your life in the presence of God before the face of
God?
Let me just make this observation here. Well, our access to God is unfettered and unhindered.
Each of us has the same access. I don't have more access to God than you have. You don't have more
access to God than I have. It's the same for all Christians at all time,
but we can put limits ourselves on that access to God by the choices we make.
So God does not limit the access, but we put limits on our own access.
When we choose to sin, we are erecting a barrier to the access that we've been granted.
Let me show you what I mean. In 1 Peter 3, Peter says this to husbands.
He says, So if you don't live with your wives in an understanding way,
God says that's going to hinder your prayers. You put a barrier up between you and me.
You want this Access? Fix this.
Failing to live as the husband God called you to be and live with your wife in an understanding way
can hinder your access to God. There are other verses that talk about this. You can quench or
grieve the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 59 too says, your iniquities have made a separation between you and
your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
Psalm 66 says, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
So you have access available, but it requires that you must live a life surrendered to God and not
be harboring hidden sin, known sin, sin that you hang on to and won't let go of.
We should not neglect the access we've been giving, but we should also be guarding our hearts so
that we're not doing things that erect a barrier to our access with God. Keep this in mind.
When we humble ourselves, when we confess our sins, the barrier that we may have erected gets torn
down. God is a gracious God who is always open.
The access is always open when we come humbly before him and say, Lord, I've blown it.
Will you forgive me? The invitation to come into God's presence is never revoked for a believer.
We may need to cleanse our hearts and our hands to come into his presence, but the door is always
open. And as we read just a few minutes ago in Hebrews, we draw near with a true heart.
We draw near with hearts sprinkled clean, with a clean conscience. The access I have to God is made
possible. because of the blood of Christ. It's also made possible because you have a new identity
in Christ. And that's the second word I want us to focus on. Access is granted based on your
identity. I was thinking about this overnight. I was thinking about these facial recognition
software and your thumbprint that gets you into your computer and the retinal eye scans that will
open the door for you. And I've never had that happen, but I see it in all the spy movies, you
know. where they show the retinolitis and the door opens for them? The door opens because they
recognize who you are. Your identity has been confirmed. The door of access to God opens because
your identity in Him is confirmed. And here's what your identity is.
In verse 19, we see at first we are described as fellow citizens. That's the first part of our new
identity. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the
saints. Again, Paul's writing to Gentiles. They understood that access to God came exclusively to
the Jews. So if a Gentile had showed up at the... in Jerusalem to say, I've come to worship your
God. They couldn't get past the courts as we saw last week. There was a sign saying you're not
welcome here as a Gentile. They would have been identified as a stranger or an alien. Their retinal
eye scan would not have gotten them through. Paul says that's not the case anymore. You are no
longer strangers and aliens. You are now citizens, fellow citizens with the Jews in the kingdom of
God, with all believers, not with all Jews, but with all believing Jews.
Citizenship is no longer about national identity or ethnic identity.
Citizenship is now your spiritual identity. Our allegiance is not to an earthly king,
but it's to King Jesus. And I could go off on a little bunny trail right here and talk about
Christian nationalism, but I'm going to not do that, okay? Here's what this means for you. It means
you have access to the king. We've talked about having access to God.
You approach him now as a citizen in his kingdom and you can petition the king who has all power
and authority. You can bring your requests before the king of the universe and he will hear your
requests. You have an open audience.
That's what Philippians 4 tells us, where it says,
John Newton,
the well-known slave trader. who became a pastor and a hymn writer. He wrote Amazing Grace.
He also wrote these lines about our access to the king. He said, Thou art coming to a king.
Large petitions with thee bring. For his grace and power are such,
none can ever ask too much.
You as a citizen, one of the rights you have as a citizen of the kingdom, granted to you by virtue
of your identity in Christ, You have an audience with the all-wise,
all-powerful king of the universe to bring your petitions before him. You are a fellow citizen
with all the saints. That's the first part of your identity that Paul wants to drive home.
Secondly, he says, in addition to being a citizen, you're also a child of God. You're a part of the
household of God. That's what verse 19b says. You are members of the household of God built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
God is our king. We are citizens in his kingdom. God is our father and we are children in his
household. We are beloved children. Again, the Jews saw their relationship with God connected to
their ethnic identity. They had access to God because they were descendants of Jacob. You remember
when the Pharisees were interacting with Jesus and they said, we have Abraham as our father. We are
descendants of Abraham. They clung to that and said, we have a special relationship with God
because Abraham is our father. Their identity as descendants of Abraham is what in their mind
brought them into the family of God. But Jesus is the one who said that we are to understand our
relationship with God as a father-child relationship based not on our ethnic identity,
but based on the adoption that is talked about in Romans chapter 8. We have been adopted into the
family of God. Jesus is our older brother, and we are all children of God.
And here's what that means for us. You may approach the king one way, but you approach your daddy a
different way.
And both ways are right. It's right to come before the king and to bow and to make your petitions
known to him. It's also right to run to your father when you need comfort, when you need to be
loved. A king has power and authority and might. A father has power and authority too,
but he has something that a king doesn't have. He has a love and a concern for his own children.
You'd go to the king to get your petition granted, but you go to the father if you need somebody
who cares about you deeply to listen to you, to give you counsel, to embrace you. Someone who will
love you unconditionally. Think about the prodigal son. When he found himself in the pigsty,
after the sinful foolishness, when he came to his senses, what was his first impulse?
I should go to my father.
That's where love's found. That's where someone will understand, even in my mess, that's where I
can go. That's where I can find the love I'm longing for. Your identity in Christ as a believer is
as a citizen of a new kingdom and as a beloved child of God. You belong in his household.
When I think about... identity as members of God's household. The Bible story that always comes to
mind for me is a Bible story found in 2 Samuel about Jonathan. You remember David's beloved friend,
Jonathan. Jonathan was the son of King Saul. David and Jonathan formed a special friendship,
a special bond. And after Jonathan was killed, King David at one point says,
is there anybody still alive from Jonathan's household that I can show?
honor to, that I can show favor to. And they said, well, there is this one lame boy named
Mephibosheth. He's still alive. You could show honor to him. And David said,
go get him, bring him in, seat him at the table with me. He's going to eat at the table of the king
with me. The lame boy was brought to the table. and enjoyed his meals for the rest of his life with
the king we are those lame outsiders who god the king has said because of my love for christ is
there anybody who's still around who's a brother or a sister of him that we can bring yes bring
those lame people to the table and let them eat with me we have access to god as a king as and as
our heavenly father and we should note verse 20 says this household that we've been brought into is
built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets we're going to look more carefully at that
when we get to chapter four where that's spelled out in more detail but i'll just say here that
there's nothing more important for a house to stand strong and firm than for the foundation to be
secure and right jesus makes that point in the sermon on the mount when he talks about the house
being built on the sand and the house being built on the rock the one on the sand will fall when
the wind and the waves hit it But the one on the rock is going to stand firm. That's what makes the
household of God stand firm. And the household of God is standing on the teaching of the apostles
and the prophets. The Old Testament and the New Testament teaching is what gives security to the
household of God. Again, we'll get more into that when we get to chapter 4. Finally, our access to
God is connected to our identity as living stones that are part of a new temple.
Verse 21 says, the household of God grows into the holy temple of the Lord.
And it's Peter who calls us living stones. In 1 Peter 2, here's what it says.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men,
but in the sight of God chosen and precious. So Jesus is a living stone. You yourselves,
like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house. to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Paul is writing this letter
to the Ephesians years before the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Romans,
but he understands and wants them to understand that while the temple is still standing, the temple
is no longer where God is dwelling. Remember when Jesus said, tear this temple down and I'll build
it back in three days, you remember? And they said, what are you talking about? And John says he
was talking about his body. Because Jesus is saying the dwelling place of God is no longer here.
The dwelling place of God is here. It's in me. It's not in the temple. It's in me. Tear this temple
down and I'll rebuild it in three days. The Old Testament temple and tabernacle were always meant
to point us to something greater as the dwelling place of God. A dwelling place with God that
cannot be torn down or destroyed. That temple is the body of Christ.
It's us. We are the living temple of God. Both individually, because your body is the temple of the
Holy Spirit, and collectively as the body of Christ, we are the new temple.
And he dwells together with us corporately as his body on earth.
And there's a day ahead, by the way, when that will all be made perfect. We saw it when we studied
the book of Revelation. Revelation 21 says, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold the
dwelling place of God. is with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God
himself will be with them as their God you have been granted access into the presence of the
eternal living God. He is your king. You're a fellow citizen in the kingdom. He's your father.
You're his child. He dwells now on earth in his new temple, his new dwelling place.
You are one of the living stones that makes up that new temple. This is your new identity. And it's
because of that identity that you have access. And it's all because of what Jesus has done for us.
Let me wrap all this up with a couple of quotes. that I read this week as I was going through this
that just summarized this for me. The first is from Richard Phillips, who I've quoted before. He's
a pastor in South Carolina. He says, you have access to God the Father, a permanent invitation into
his love and a place in his heart forever. If that is true,
then live in light of God's love. Do not let feelings of guilt or inadequacy keep you from God.
But let them remind you how precious is the blood of Christ and how amazing is the grace that draws
you near. And the second thought on access is from the Dr.
Martin Lloyd-Jones who said, the moment you see that you are made righteous by Christ and clothed
in his righteousness, you can go to God in confidence. He is your father.
He's waiting to receive you. And you can pray as you have never prayed before. The way is clear.
It's a new and living way that has been opened. You are at peace with God and at peace within you
have found rest for your soul. Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you that it is because of the completed work of Christ that we have a new identity
and because we have that new identity that we talked about even in our catechism this morning that
we have access to you. So, Lord, we rejoice in that. We confess how often we neglect that access.
Help us to live our lives practicing your presence, aware of your presence with us.
Help us to draw near and to avail ourselves of the access we've been given.
Lord, I pray for any here this morning who may not know that access, who may not have ever been
granted that access because they are not in you. because they are like me at that concert.
They are standing and looking from the outside, but they've never been granted access to the
inside.
Lord, would you stir their hearts this morning, help them recognize that they are far from you,
and help them see that they can draw near in Christ.
Help them to see what he has done for them, to believe on that,
to acknowledge their sin, to turn from their sin.
and to surrender their lives to you.
Lord, we thank you for this good news that is ours in Christ.
Amen.