I found this insightful and challenging. I hope you do too:

God’s eternal purpose “concerns the church, the creating of a new and reconciled humanity in union with Jesus Christ”. p127

“The good news of the unsearchable riches of Christ which Paul preached is that he died and rose again not only to save sinners like me (though he did), but also to create a single new humanity; not only to redeem us from sin but also to adopt us into God’s family; not only to reconcile us to God but also to reconcile us to one another”. p129

“If the church is central to God’s purpose, it must also be central to our lives. How can we take lightly what God takes so seriously? How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the centre? No, we shall seek to become responsible church members, active in some local manifestation of the universal church…. we must keep before us the vision of God’s new society as his family, his dwelling place and his instrument in the world… – be ready to pray, to work and if necessary to suffer in order to turn the vision into a reality”. p129,130

Quotes by John R.W.Stott, “The Message of Ephesians: The Bible Speaks Today” 1989.