The Church as the Body of Christ

Today we continue our series on the church called Ecclesia. By looking at Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus, chapter one, verses 15, and 23, Ephesians 115, through 23. Hear the Word of the Lord. For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, in your love toward all the saints, I do not see some giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us, who believe according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet, gave him his head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. It's the word of God for the people of God. Thanks, Peter.

45am in Seabrook on October 30, and today is the last day to join the church to be eligible to vote on that day. Now, I need to clean up back to that a little bit. And as a pastor and one God has entrusted to preach the gospel, and to teach the church, if your only motivation to join the church is to vote, I want to ask you to prayerfully consider not uniting with this church. If God has called you to this church family, and you've made a profession of faith in the person of Jesus Christ. And this is where you have been living out your faith in connection with his body, then all means you are invited to formally join this church. Secondly, we are going to spend two weeks in the passage that grant read this morning, today and next week. And it's important for you to know that because in light of sharing in the Lord's Supper this morning, the teaching will be briefer. And so so when I wrap up, you know, if you turn and say Marge, what happened, at least you have context that you know that it's a little shorter, because we're going to share in the Lord's supper together. So as we journey into this, I'm going to be focusing on those closing verses that describe Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Would you pray with me for just a moment now? Lord, we pray that transcendent power of the Holy Spirit would move among us. And that when we quote the Scripture, may we live, move and have our being in you, it would not merely be words that we're familiar with. But Lord, we pray that this would be our experience, not only in this hour, but God are experiencing this life in you. And it's in Jesus name we pray, Amen. So you may have noticed when the scripture was read, that the Apostle Paul said something totally astounding, that is, Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Now this is not isolated to the book of Ephesians. We see this in the book of Colossians. We see this in First Corinthians, this truth, Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Now, you know, that sounds like a simple thought, right? But some people get confused around this. They do. And and I just invite you to just reflect with me for a moment because some people think that Jesus is merely a great religious teacher who taught on ethics on occasion. There are some people around the world who merely think that Jesus was a great prophet, and we're aware in some parts of the world, maybe people of Hindu background, they think that Jesus is one of many gods. And then we're aware that an atheist or an agnostic might believe that Jesus was merely a good man, but scripture is affirming many astounding things. And one of those astounding things is that not only did Jesus Christ birth the church through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension and sending the power of the Holy Spirit, but he birthed the church and sustains her by serving as the head of the church. Now, here's why this is relevant. There's a lot of confusion in regard to who Jesus is. And so let me illustrate it this way. Years ago, I went door to door, one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, I went door to door, knocking on doors, that's what you do when you go door to door pardon me. And I would enter into conversations with people around the gospel, there's a reason a context for that, done this in many different parts of the world. And, and I never forget one lady's response, she said this, she says, I don't like going to church from time to time. But I just wish you guys wouldn't make such a big deal about that Jesus thing. Now, we can understand someone saying that who doesn't have a Christian background. But what about within the church?

I remember our family was hiking in the Appalachian Mountains a number of years ago. And as we were hiking, three Indian background, or persons from India, who were three young PhD students at Georgia Tech came alongside us. And we began striking up conversation and you're aware in Western culture to jump into religious conversations, when you first meet somebody, that's a little awkward. But around the world, people in many parts of the world love to engage around religion and, and belief. And so it wasn't long until because I've spent a lot of time in India, I was engaging and we were having conversation. I'm not under the illusion that the three of them are going to come to know Jesus, their intellectual, I'm mindful that it's usually a process accompanied by the Holy Spirit, like a lot of Westerners. And so I'm thinking, Lord, just give me wisdom to plant seeds in this conversation. And then one of them asked me a very thought provoking question. He said this. Paul, could you tell me? Why are so many Christians and churchgoers in your country, just like everybody else? I said, you know, the New Testament talks about that, that people are weeping tears are actually sewn together. I said, I said, Well, maybe, maybe everybody might not know Jesus. Because some people haven't allowed the words of Jesus to just let Jesus speak for Jesus. You know, that happens. I remember in South Georgia a number of years ago, and I'm going to share a story about a Baptist, but I want you to understand if you got a Baptist background, man, you are loved know that. And please understand that I'm a kingdom person, Jesus kingdom. Okay. So you need some of my best friends are Baptists, that sounds, that sounds like I'm confessing something, doesn't it? So I want you to know, I'm not picking on you that this is just how the story went down this county in South Georgia, they were voting whether or not to become a wet county or a dry county, and whether to sell alcohol in their county or not sell alcohol in the county. And one of the councilman, who was going to vote dry was actually Southern Baptists. And so someone stood up before the council. And they asked this question of the Southern Baptist member of the council and said, Hey, isn't it true that Jesus turned water into wine? And the councilman responded? Why? Yes, he did. And I've always had a problem with Jesus for doing that. Now, please understand, I mean, as Methodist Christians, we care deeply about people who are addicted or abuse, alcohol. And that is a serious issue. I'm not making light of that. Here's the point that many people don't let Jesus speak for Jesus, a lot of people in circles I've moved in through the years. And at times, I hear people say things and characterize Jesus and the way of Jesus in ways that I'm going that doesn't line up with Jesus. Sometimes people say Jesus is nice. Jesus is nice. But if you looked up the definition of the word nice, the word nice literally means that I'm pulling from Webster's and another source as well means pleasant, pleasing, agreeable and subtle. Let me ask you a question. Was Jesus being nice and agreeable and subtle when he cleanses the temple? Twice? Or what about was Jesus being subtle, agreeable, pleasing? When he talked about hell more than he talked about heaven. Now please understand this is not a fire and brimstone sermon, but I just ask that you think with me, Jesus doesn't only reference hail. He describes it in great detail. He says it's a place of eternal torment. Luke 16, have a quick unquenchable fire Mark nine, where the worm does not die Mark nine where people gnashed their teeth or anything, anguish and regret Matthew 13, and from which there's no return, and even were to warn loved ones, Luke 16. And he calls Hal a place of outer darkness, Matthew 25, and he compares hill to get Hannah, which was a trash dump outside of Jerusalem, where rubbish was burned and maggots abounded, whatever hell is it is no day at the beach.

And the question is, is Jesus being pleasant, pleasing, agreeable, subtle. I'll never forget, you know, in United Methodist circles, you hang out with a lot of different types of people. And I was, I was in a context where I was with a group of progressive pastors. And one of them was responsible for doing the devotion. And he read a text. And then when he closed his Bible, he said, this was a day when Jesus didn't act very much like Jesus. What. And the point is, is that we are living in an age where men and women create caricatures and ascribe identity that we've invented come up with and we place it on Jesus loved ones, let's let Jesus the head of the church speak for himself. But understand, this is a problem that affects all of us according to League and their ministries in a survey, a study they did that was released in the last 10 days, listen to this 43% of evangelical Christians. Now, I want to contextualize something when you hear evangelical Christian, we are not talking about the highly politicized polarized kind of stuff that we have seen in the news. That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about persons who are in align with the classic definitions of faith. 43% of evangelical Christians in the US agree with this statement. Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Put differently. That tells us that almost half of evangelical Christians in North America reject the doctrine of the Incarnation, God in Christ, and loved ones want to submit to you before we go any further, that is a problem. We see the power of God in the ministry of Jesus as he still storms cast out demons, forgives sins, causes the blind to see and raises the dead. And this is why the great Methodist missionary Stanley Jones to India once said this, when he was in dialogue with an Hindu intellectual, he said this, he said, I spent half my time trying to convert the world to Christ, and the other half of my time trying to convert the church to Christ. It's important that we ask the question, if he is the head, then what qualifies him to be the head of church? Who is Jesus? Let's answer that question for a few minutes. First of all, the Scripture tells us in John one one, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse three, all things were made through Him. That is the word Jesus, without Him was not anything made that was made in the Scripture, in case we're not catching it clearly defines who this word is the word made flesh, verse 14, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, Jesus Himself, God in a body, and we have seen his glory, glory, as the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. Jesus is God, God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit. And yet the scriptures inform us even more fully when it says, The Lord says in Colossians 113. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. And you may remember weeks ago, we dealt with the significance of this phrase, firstborn, because what it denotes is that the firstborn son in any family inherits everything. That's how it was in Middle Eastern culture. And this is what the writer is picking up on, that all of creation, all of history will be summed up in the person of Jesus as He inherits His Bride as he inherits a new creation, that He will reign over. This is what the New Testament teaches. But the word also informs us in the 16th verse of Colossians, one for by him Jesus, listen to this loved ones, by Jesus, all things were created in heaven and No, no earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him, all things were created. See it for him again, we will pick up in a few weeks on the bridle imagery of the Body of Christ. One day, as we share in the Lord's Supper today, we know this is a precursor for the marriage feast of the Lamb. One day, we will sit with Jesus at a marriage feast, we as the bride of Christ will be reunited with the bride, groom Jesus. And that is deeply significant. We will get to that a little later in the series unless you want to go for a few hours today, just teasing. And so let's look Colossians 117 He Jesus is before all things and in Him, all things hold together, every atom, every proton, every neutron, every sub atomic particle Colossians 118. The Scripture tells us he Jesus, He is the head of the body of the church. And then Hebrews one, verse three tells us he's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of the nature of God, and He upholds the universe by the Word of His power.

Albert Einstein wandered into the back of a church in Manhattan, and sat on the back room. And he listened to the sermon for a little while. And before the sermon ended, Einstein got up and walked out. And somebody on the street noticed that he had slipped out of church or said, Albert, what did you think about the service. And Einstein remarked, that man in that pulpit, could not possibly be seeing what I'm seeing in the heavens. Because if he were seeing what I'm seeing, he would speak of the Creator with such all such reverence such a deep sense of majesty, rather than the casual way he refers to God. And it was Einstein, who said something to this effect, let us not blaspheme God. When the author of Hebrews wrote these words, he's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. And Jesus upholds the universe by the Word of His power, the author went on to write in verse one of chapter two, in that context, therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we've heard less we drift away from it, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love. And what we see emerging out of the scriptures is everything exists because of him, everything is missing something without him, not just missing something, but the central thing, the thing that supplies true meaning and purpose to all things. This is what is meant when the Bible says of Jesus, written Romans 11, For from him and through him. And for him all are all things to him be glory forever, amen. You know, as one pastor theologian put it, nobody goes to the Grand Canyon, and gets right up to the edge with their family and friends and people who've traveled from around the world. Nobody gets to the edge of the Grand Canyon and goes, Look at me. Look at how wonderful I am. No, we're caught up in the transcendence, transcending glory of creation, in that moment that speaks of a creator. And so loved ones in light of who Jesus is in the radiance of all of his glory, His eternal nature, his creative power, his his sacrifice on the cross, look at him. Look at his glory. Look at his radiance, look at his identity, look at his beauty. Look at what he's done. Let us be mindful that He is Almighty, He is Alpha and Omega, he is the Yamen. He is the author and finisher of our faith. Balanced note. He's the author of eternal salvation. He is the bread of life. He's the chief Shepherd. He's the Christ of God the cornerstone, the Creator, He is our deliverer. He is our advocate. He is the desire of all nations. He is the door as the way to God the Father, he is the first and the last he is God. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the great high priest. He is I am. He is the image of God. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He's king, king of the ages. King of kings. He is the Lamb of God. He's the law Life, the light of the world, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lord of glory, Lord of lords, Lord of all, he is our one mediator between God the Father and human beings. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ. He's Mighty God morning star. He is our Passover, delivering us from God's judgment and wrath in light of our sin. He is the prince of peace, the resurrection and the life the true vine truth. He is the Word of God loved ones, he is the head of the church. And he is that because he's worthy, and he is worthy of your surrender of your life. He is worthy of your repentance of sin, He is worthy of your confession, that He is Lord, He is worthy of turning our back on self centeredness and surrendering to them He is worthy because he is Lord. And as we come to this communion table today, as we have prepared our hearts already, as grant led us in the confession of sin, let's be mindful that we are not turning to just anybody. We are turning God in the name of the Father, who loves you, in the name of the son who has demonstrated this love, he's worthy, worthy of our repentance, worthy of living and surrender to him worthy of our lives, worthy of our time or resources. He's worthy. It's why we've gathered here. It's why worship is a verb. It's not just something we attend. He is worthy. And as we turned to him today, in this communion service, may we all meet with him in CO union, Would you pray with me now, Lord, as we go through this liturgy, in just a moment that is based on your word. We pray draw near you have said in your word, draw near to Me and I will draw near to you. And we pray for every heart that we move forward with hearts that are yielded to you. And it is in the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.