"The Church That Towers Over the World" Ephesians 1:22-23 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians 1, verse 22 and 23.

Ephesians 1:22

And he put all things, this is God, put all things under his, meaning Jesus' feet, and gave him Jesus as a head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

There has been really an unrelenting attack in the last few months on the priority of the church, on the importance of the local church.

Now, of course, the church has never been esteemed at a societal level as it ought to be.

Um, ever since the book of Acts, when the uh Jewish rulers turned against the church and ordered them locked up and persecuted, and eventually they went into hiding and eventually fled, and the Lord used that to empower the Great Commission.

But there has always been hostility against the church.

And of course, we wouldn't expect any generation or any age to be any different than that.

But what makes the current hostility against the church so difficult to endure, at least from my perspective, has been that so much of it has been from inside the church.

So much of it has been from professing believers that have taken on a very dismissive attitude towards the church, kind of a take it or leave it approach to the church, where it is not uncommon for people to say there's nothing that can happen at church that I can't do just as well at my house.

There's nothing that can happen at church that isn't also done in private, and so why is it important for churches to meet?

Why is it important for us to gather again?

Can't churches just take a year or two off?

And that grieves my heart because again, I understand that from the world's perspective.

They wouldn't, of course, have any understanding what happens at the church.

They wouldn't know the importance of what happens at the church, they wouldn't have a grid for that.

It's a mystery to them, much like it was to the Jews in the Old Testament, who couldn't perceive the significance of the church.

They understood what it meant to worship Yahweh, but there was really no equivalent to the church in the Old Testament, and so they couldn't perceive it or understand it.

It seems that that mystery has in many ways flooded in to the church today.

There's an ever-increasing movement inside of Christianity to downgrade the church, to dismiss it, to view it as just an extra component of religiosity, which perhaps you can take or perhaps you can leave.

It's up to you.

And this is in many ways the kind of the second stage of the Lone Ranger Christian attitude that was prevalent about 20 years ago.

If you remember that movement about 20 years ago, it was kind of the idea of I don't need a church, it's me as a Christian and a Bible, and it's us against the world.

Me and my Bible, Jesus and me, we're the tag team here.

And so that's what I refer to as the Lone Ranger Christian attitude, me against the world.

And, you know, that's a dangerous attitude.

And I think many people have grown out of that attitude, but this pandemic has given them an excuse to fall back into it, I think.

It's worth repeating that the New Testament knows nothing of a believer who's not part of a local church.

And the New Testament's synonymous.

You got saved and you were baptized into the body of Christ.

The body of Christ, of course, speaks to the universal body of Christ with local church manifestations of that body.

Believers are part of churches.

Now, there's an attitude as the government has closed churches around the country of, you know, churches should abide by that and follow that.

Um, you know, you've even seen some very prominent Christian leaders taking a TV and saying, you know, churches can just break up into smaller groups.

You know, you can be the church in your own home.

You can meet with your neighbors and be the church there, or you can meet with your friends down the street.

Maybe two families could come together and be the church.

You don't need pastors, you don't need elders, you don't need deacons.

As long as there's two or more gathered, the church is there, which is not what Matthew 18 is talking about.

And certainly I would say the church does need pastors, and it does need elders, and it does need deacons, and it does need corporate gathering.

That's what the word ecclesia means.

It means gathering, gathered together out of the world.

You've even seen judges that have written that in their rulings.

The current American legal mantra against the church is, yeah, we grant that it's unconstitutional to tell churches that they can't worship, but no judge is telling churches they can't worship.

We're just telling them they can't worship together.

And of course, if you're familiar with New Testament worship, it is something that happens together.

It is something that happens corporately.

You can't, in a sense, do church independently.

Now, this is what, as Michael prayed earlier and as mentioned a few times this morning, this is what makes the current restrictions so difficult, and it what make it what makes the certain um people with immunocompromised situations or caring for elderly, it makes it so difficult for them because they are put in a position where it's not safe for them physically to come to church.

And this is not, again, I just want to be clear, I'm not trying to put guilt into that category of people.

I'm not trying to heap on them.

I recognize there are those caring for the elderly, there are those that are immunocompromised, there are those with health difficulties that are unable to worship together, and this is exactly why it is so difficult for them not to be not to be here.

And this is not unique to the pandemic.

This is as, you know, as old as Christianity.

There are homebound saints.

This is one of the first things that deacons did is they went and ministered to homebound saints.

The idea that people are too elderly or too sick to come to church is not new.

That is as old as believers are.

And it is a function, a priority of a church to care and minister to those people.

So I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the attitude, which I'm sure you all have experienced as well, of being dismissive towards the importance of the church meeting together for worship.

The kind of take it or leave it attitude that I've mentioned already that just makes people say, Hey, church, it is what it is.

Some people like it, some people don't.

As for me in my household, we will worship from our own house.

The reality in the Bible is that you need others to worship corporately.

Let me rattle off a few reasons why.

There is no way you can do the ordinances of the church privately.

This is the main point about communion, for example, where Paul tells the Corinthians repeatedly, repeatedly tells them, you take communion when you all come together.

You know, if you're hungry, eat at your home with your family.

Don't mistake that with communion, Paul tells the Corinthians.

You come together as a church.

Baptism is a public profession, public being the key part here, a profession of your identity with the local body of believers, your conversion to Christ manifested in the uniting to a local body.

But beyond just the practicality of the ordinances, it's you know, the churches where the elders and the deacons are, beyond that, there's this basic idea that I hope you appreciate.

And if you don't now, I hope you do in 45 minutes from now.

There's a basic manifestation of God's glory that takes place corporately, that is different than in an individual level.

A person can magnify the glory of the Lord as an individual, of course.

That's why God made people, but that magnification is exponentially grown when the church is gathered corporately and visibly.

For the same reason that a fire has more heat when the sticks are together than when they are spread apart, there is more glory of the Lord.

The fame is fanned more when everyone is together.

There is a public declaration about the priority of Christ and the significance of the gospel that is magnified in a corporate gathering.

There's the corporate interaction with elders and shepherds, young and old, when they are together.

I had a fire last night in our backyard.

We had a bunch of friends over, and uh, we had some military kind of people that were doing very well with the fire.

I mean, they built this massive fire.

They could be surrounded on desert island and burned the whole thing down, which but the kids kept coming along and knocking the, you know, spreading all this carefully crafted pyramid teepee fire.

The kids kept coming along with their sticks and spreading it all out.

They had this idea that they made it big and around, it would be hotter.

And of course, the opposite is true.

They have to be gathered.

There's something that happens in the corporate gathering that is hotter in terms of the glory of the Lord.

Beyond that, it's protective.

It's protective of apostasy.

When the church is scattered, apostasy becomes easy.

Lukewarmness becomes tolerated.

But it's not tolerated in a corporate gathering where people see you and they know you and they ask questions of you.

The corporate gathering is a guard against apostasy.

Corporate gathering, again, magnifies the glory of the Lord, particularly as it increases the response to miracles, the miracles of regeneration, the miracles of conversion, the power behind evangelism.

I mean, it's not a coincidence that Jesus did not do the miracle of the fish in the loaves with the twelve.

He did it with the thousands.

He did it with the thousands.

It was displayed on a hillside.

You know, the twelve were hungry too, though.

He didn't send everyone home and do the miracle for them.

Heaven is going to be like a corporate gathering.

Heaven is not going to be individualistic, it will be praise as we're gathered together, and the church is the manifestation of that here on earth, the embassy here on earth, of what takes place in heaven.

Think of the Old Testament.

Before the church, even Josiah and Hezekiah, both of them had independent revivals where they stumbled upon the book of the Lord and they increased the worship of God in Israel, and they both began with corporate worship.

Jesus came and died publicly, not privately.

Now I grant that in persecuted nations there's need for privacy in the church, there's need for an underground church.

I personally have ministered in some persecuted nations, one in particular where the church had to be underground and under protection, or they would face severe persecution from the government.

And I know from my experience there that that is the most difficult part of being a believer there, because they want to magnify what the Lord is doing.

They want to announce it to the world.

They want everybody to know.

They want to be evangelistic.

They're always balancing.

You know, is this an evangelism opportunity or will it lead to unnecessary risk for the church if I share the gospel with this person?

That's the normal life in those kind of places.

But that's not something to be pursued by choice.

I know that there's a time to lower Paul out of the window in a basket, and I know there's a time for him to stand and get stoned with rocks.

They're both true.

And that's the difficult part.

I'm aware that God is sovereign over public worship as well as the fact that God is sovereign over government and over restrictions that government gives.

I understand his sovereignty is overall.

And so what grieves me much about the current reality is not only that Christians are dismissive of worship, but that God Himself has allowed so many churches to shutter and so many churches to close indefinitely.

Because you know that God would not allow himself to be robbed of worship.

And so it makes you really wrestle with the reality of what kind of worship is prominent in a lot of churches, if it's no lack of the glory of God for them to be closed.

What's missing from much of our thinking is the priority the New Testament places on the church.

It makes much of the church, it elevates the church, it esteems the church, it refers to it as glorious.

My my hair stands on end when I hear people be so dismissive of the church, or they talk about the problems with the church.

You know, the church is really bad at this, the church does this poorly.

You know, the problem with the churches these days are that the church isn't something precious to the Lord.

We get that the church is made up of sinners, we understand that.

We understand that churches aren't perfect.

We get that.

I mean, we're imperfect people, we're all here part of an imperfect church.

The fact that you're here makes the church imperfect.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

But I want to kind of counter that thinking with the glories of the church described at the end of Ephesians chapter one.

I want to give you a brief outline as we go through this this morning.

The anatomy of our Lord's authority.

There's going to be three parts of the anatomy of our Lord's authority.

The first one kind of jumped up there, but yeah, there we go.

The anatomy of the Lord's authority.

I'm using the word anatomy here because there's a progression.

I don't know if you realize this when you read verse 22 and verse 23 earlier, but there's certainly a progression.

Verse 22 describes the feet, what is under the Lord's feet.

Verse 23, verse 22 at the end describes his head, and verse 23 describes his body.

And so there's this image that Paul is using of the Lord in essentially standing on the earth.

He's going from feet to head to body, described the whole picture of the Lord in his glory, and it's speaking particularly of his authority.

The progress in verses 15 through 21 has all been about authority.

We looked at this last week, that longest sentence that we looked at last week, a very long sentence that kept moving you deeper and deeper into the Trinitarian reality of God.

It started with Paul praying for believers on earth and it launched him all the way up into the glories of the Trinity in heaven.

That whole passage ended with verse 21.

That Jesus is elevated above all rule, authority, power, dominion, every name that is named, not only this age, but the age to come.

He's rattling through the ranks of angels.

Jesus is above all the angels.

He's above the world.

Think of a spiritual power, a person in spiritual authority.

Jesus is above them.

And so by the end of verse 21, Paul has fairly clearly established that Jesus is superior and exalted above every angelic being, every spiritual being, every form of authority.

He is above all that.

So verse 21 ends as high and as deep as you can be.

And so that's why the regression in verse 22 is so jarring.

The regression, and I mean regression in a real sense in verse 22, because we've gone all the way up to the highest pinnacle of heaven, and the very next verse, Paul slams you back onto the earth, with all things in the earth are now under his feet.

And so we go high to low.

We go feet back up to head.

We describe the body of the Lord.

It's all there at the end of verse 23, everything all in all.

It's using these encompassing language, encompassing phrases, that Jesus is above everything, and everything else is below him, and he is in the middle of it all as well.

It is absolutely exhaustive of the Lord's authority.

I want to look at those three stops in that road a little bit more carefully.

First, let's look at the feet that are described here in verse 22.

He put all things under his feet.

All things under his feet.

Again, Paul went as high as he could go in verse 21, and now he goes as low as he can go in verse 22.

All things are under his feet.

Not only are all things lower than Jesus, but they're under his feet.

It's clearly a messianic promise that David's descendant would also be David's Lord, that David's messianic promise would go out from him through the line of David until the day when the Lord brings the Savior who will put all things under his feet.

The Savior will squash rebellion and he will rule the world.

He rules them as they try to break their chains.

He rules over them, Psalm 2 says.

But this is a direct quote of a different messianic prophecy.

And so I want you to turn all the way back to Psalm 8.

I want you to look at Psalm 8, because I think this is a very critical messianic prophecy.

It's quoted a few times in the New Testament.

You'll recognize some of the quotations in the New Testament as we look at this.

Psalm 8 is a description about why the Lord made the earth.

It's something that Paul has been dealing with in Ephesians 1 already.

We looked at that last week.

This is a Psalm of David, who of course received the Messianic promise.

Verse 1, O Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You've set your glory above the heavens.

Remember, this is the answer we looked at to the question last week.

Why did God make the world?

He made the world to magnify and display his glory in it.

And that's how Psalm 8 begins.

How majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth.

And yet, verse 2, out of the mouth of babies and infants, you've established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

And that's kind of a surprising line.

God's glory is magnified to the earth, but it's not magnified to the angels in the earth.

It's not magnified to the animals in the earth, although they do display the glory of the Lord.

I mean, you look at really cool animals and you're you're you're stunned by them.

How beautiful are some of these animals.

How how interesting and fascinating are the way that God made them.

They can do all kinds of, you know, from the spider that uses tools to make a web, you know, suspending rocks and stuff.

We have orb spiders in our backyard that, you know, they're like engineers out there.

They got rocks and pine bark hanging to suspend their webs to all kinds of animals that do incredibly birds that can migrate to Argentina.

The purple martens are all gone.

They're on their way to Argentina right now, over the Caribbean.

How did God make them?

I mean, they magnify the glory of the Lord in some sense.

Angels are impressive.

I mean, they can fly, that's kind of cool.

But people magnify the glory of the Lord differently and more powerfully because we rejoice and we delight.

We can display the forgiveness of God, the saving nature of God in ways that animals and angels can't.

And so that's what's so jarring about this is that the Lord's going to be magnified on the earth, not by angels, but out of the mouth of babies.

The lowest person can magnify the glory of the Lord more than the most exalted angel.

And this, of course, drives the devil crazy.

You know, when the earth was made, the devil wanted to rule the earth.

He wanted authority.

The earth was beautiful.

The earth was beautiful.

And the devil wanted to rule the earth.

He wanted to be like God on the earth.

He saw it and he envied it.

He wanted to be like God.

And he fell in his pride and he led angels in rebellion.

And the final straw, I think, was when Adam was made, and God didn't give the earth to angels who are exalted.

He gave the earth, it says right here, to babies, babies that cry.

Human beings will get the earth.

He made Adam out of dirt to rule the earth.

That did not sit well with the devil and the third of the angels.

Or here it refers to verse 2, the enemy and the avenger.

Verse 2 of Psalm 8 says, We're not okay with this choice by God.

And so they rebel.

And of course, verse 2 becomes a messianic prophecy that ultimately what we're going to read about in Psalm 8 will be fulfilled by a descendant of Adam.

A child of Adam will fulfill this, the seed of Eve.

Verse 3, I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars you've set in the place.

Again, all of the sky shows the glory of the Lord, but it doesn't magnify it like verse 4 says.

Notice the contrast.

The universe declares the glory of God.

The sky speaks forth his handiwork, day after day pours forth speech, but nothing compared to what a single person can bring in glory to the Lord.

Oh, it's so marvelous, isn't it?

What is man that you're mindful of him?

That was the devil's question, too, wasn't it?

He didn't mean it sincerely, though.

What is this?

Verse 5, we're staying on the same theme.

You've made him, speaking of mankind, lower than the angels.

And crowned him with glory and honor.

You've given him dominion over the works of your hand.

You've put all things under his feet.

And we can stop there in Psalm 8.

But do you see the promise here?

The angels want the earth, they don't get it.

Instead, he gives it to mankind.

Mankind gets to rule the earth.

Mankind has all things put under his feet.

This is what Adam and Eve were told.

Subdue the earth, multiply, fill it, exercise dominion on it.

The earth will be ruled by you.

I claimed that promise this week when I went after a yellow jacket nest in my yard.

I put on a beekeeper suit.

I identified it.

It was a rodeo.

Dish soap and water.

That's the weapon for yellow jackets.

You gotta do it at night though, when they're all there.

If you do it during the day, they will carry you away.

And as I'm claiming this, you know, my youngest daughter did not like the idea of me going to war against some of God's creatures.

Those creatures belong to the devil, though.

I assure you.

But hey, you have to subdue.

The earth.

You don't let the earth subdue you.

You subdue the earth.

I'll let the yellow jackets live until they mess with me.

When they cross that line, they will get subdued.

That was what Adam and Eve were told.

But then Adam and Eve sinned.

And sin entered the world.

And subduing the earth became hard.

They sting.

You cut your hands farming.

You sweat.

Adam is made from dirt.

He'll die and go back to dirt.

The earth will bite back now.

Eve, the children are supposed to be ruling the earth.

They're supposed to be ruling the earth and they're supposed to be magnifying the glory of the Lord.

Because of sin, childbirth will be painful to Eve.

This is the curse.

How can mankind rule the earth when it seems that so often the earth is ruling us?

How is the earth under our feet when we're when we're losing?

Doesn't it seem like we're losing?

Again, a virus, which is part of the natural order of the world, can shut down the earth.

How do you go subdue the virus?

It's gonna take more than dish soap and water.

What do you do?

So sin has entered the world.

And sin has made dominion hard.

It has made ruling the earth hard.

It's made even having people hard.

And yet that's the promise.

That's the promise.

So I want you to flip back to Ephesians 1 now.

Remembering Psalm 8 verse 6.

Psalms 8:6

And here is where Paul quotes it.

Ephesians 1 verse 22.

Ephesians 1:22

He put all things under his feet.

That's Psalm 8 verse 6.

Psalms 8:6

So Jesus now is stepping in and fulfilling where people failed.

Adam and Eve failed to subdue all things, although that was their charge.

They failed in it because of their sin.

They could not follow God's clear, express commands, and so they dove into sin.

The world bites back, and yet there's this tension now, it's repeated to Noah: subdue the earth, Noah.

Go out, be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth.

That is still the creation mandate.

It is still in effect to this very moment, and yet it is hard because of sin.

And so in many ways the world is watching.

When David hears the promise in Psalm 110, when David hears the promise that he will, the Savior, the descendant of David, will sit at the right hand of the Lord until he subdues the earth and puts his enemies under his feet.

That's still a future promise to David.

He's waiting for that time for the enemy to be subdued, for the earth to be subdued.

And that's the question is who's going to do it?

Well, it's obviously David's son and David's Lord, David's descendant and David's Savior.

You come to the New Testament, and lo and behold, here's Jesus, a born of a virgin, the seed of Eve.

It's so fitting that the Lord, no human could design this.

It's so fitting for the Lord that the descendants of Adam brought the world into sin, and it'll be a descendant of Adam who rescues the world from sin.

It'll be a child of Eve who crushes the head of the devil and exercises authority over the earth.

What is man that you are mindful of him?

Why not an angel?

Why can't the angels be the saviors?

Because the Lord in his mind will be glorified more through people than through angels.

And so that's what's happening in verse 21 to verse 22.

We went as high as we could go into heaven.

We're in the deep things of the Trinity.

You'd be forgiven if you forgot about the humanity of Christ by verse 21 of Ephesians 1.

I mean, you went in, he's over all the angels, he's over all the rulers and authority and principality.

It's focusing on he's the son of glory, it says earlier.

He's the son of glory.

The father of glory had a son, and that is Jesus.

It's focused on the deity and the glorious nature of Jesus Christ, that you are up, up, up over all things.

And then Paul reminds you also, Jesus has a human nature.

And that's why he can crush the earth.

He's fulfilling this in his humanity.

He crushes all things.

He crushes the head of the serpent.

All things are under his feet.

He rules them all.

And he will forever be the God man, by the way.

Jesus didn't shed his humanity when he ascended into glory.

He remains the God man all the way through eternity future.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 27.

1 Corinthians 15:27

God has put all things under subjection, under his feet.

Again, another quote of Psalm 8 verse 6.

Psalms 8:6

And this is Paul going on, but when it says all things are put in subjection, again, quoting Psalm 8 verse 6, it's plain that he is accepted who put all things under subjection to him.

Psalms 8:6

So Jesus will have all things under his feet except the Trinity itself.

The Father's not under his feet, the Holy Spirit's not under his feet.

Through the humanity of Jesus Christ, the triune God has subjected the world to himself.

Because all things are under his feet.

The world belongs to him.

That's the first component of this anatomy that under the feet of Christ is the world.

Secondly, he is head over all things.

And do you are you seeing the contrast as Paul's writing this?

Under his feet all things.

His head over all things.

You see that in verse, the end of verse 22?

He gave him his head over all things.

All things is repeated here.

It's the beginning of verse 22.

All things under here, all things over.

Only it's his head that is over all of them.

Head is just the, we use it the same way in English.

It's, you know, the top of your body, but it's used idiomatically because your head is where you go.

You learn this when you ride a motorcycle or a bicycle.

You know, if you look at something, you'll hit it.

That's a hard thing for little kids to learn when they're riding a bicycle because they, you know, see something they don't want to hit, like their dad walking beside them, and they can't take their eyes off of him, and they hit him because they can't stop looking at him.

You've had this experience probably as well.

If you look at it, you'll hit it.

It's a basic rule of riding a bicycle, basic rule of riding a motorcycle.

Your head tells you where you're going to go.

It's the same word that you could be used of a river.

It's the source of the river, where it all comes from.

It's the identity of the body.

Your body has significance because it's connected to your head.

Your head is what gives your body its corporate identity.

Not, you know, your body doesn't have a your hand and your hand don't have a relationship with each other apart from the connection to your head.

If it weren't for your head, your hands would not be friends.

They're not on the same team, but your head ties them all together nicely.

That's the nature of this.

Jesus is the head over all things.

Because he was given over all things to rule them under his feet.

His head is what gives things their significance.

All things have their significance as they relate back to the head.

You rightly understand why something was made by the Lord when you understand how it relates to the Lord, not how as it relates to each other.

This is why all sciences, all mathematics, all studies in school, all literature, all education, period, it only rightly understands the world when it connects it back to the Lord.

You cannot understand something until you recognize how it relates to the Lord, because the Lord is its head.

He's over all things, it says.

All things.

This is the same phrase that is used later in Ephesians to say the husband is the head of the wife.

So Paul's going to bracket Ephesians with this in chapter 1, and then later on towards the end of the book, the husband is the head of the wife, Ephesians 5.

He's bracketed them together.

Christ is the head of the church.

Christ is supreme over everything.

In the same way that husband and wife have a unique relationship, Christ is head over the world.

He gives the world its identity through him.

And he has a unique relationship then with the church.

Christ is supreme over everything.

He ranks far above every spiritual ruler, far above every spiritual authority, far above every so-called dominion of people on the earth.

Any position of power or title or performance that we come up with will always pale in relationship to Christ.

He is absolutely sovereign both now and forever because he alone is head over all things.

So now the question, this is where this is headed.

The feet, head, it's going somewhere.

If he's ruling over all things and his head is what gives all things his identity, how is that rulership expressed?

What is the connection between the head and the feet?

If all things are under his feet and the head is ruling over all things, what's missing?

How do you experience that rulership?

How do you experience that sovereignty or that dominion in this world now?

And that's the missing part that Paul saves for the end of Ephesians 1.

The body.

You understand the head, you understand the feet, the middle of that is the body, which is the end of verse 22, the church.

The church which is his body.

This is the first reference to the church in the book of Ephesians, which is a book about the church.

And so that's why it's significant.

To get to him introducing the church, he gives you this long lead up of before time, God predestines whom he will save.

He then sends his son to be the Redeemer, sends the Spirit to save them.

The Spirit binds them together, gives them a corporate identity.

Jesus reigns over the world, he puts all things under his feet, and now you get to meet the church.

That's his body.

That's his body.

And it is the fullness of him, it says.

That word fullness is a powerful Greek word.

It means it's overflowing.

It's filled up from the inside out, and it's just overflowing.

That Christ fills his body.

He fills the church.

He rules over the world.

He is the head over all things.

And in the middle of that, the bridge there is the church.

And the church is filled with Christ.

This is the preciousness of the church.

It is the physical manifestation of Christ on earth now.

Jesus came once to earth where he was incarnate, took on human flesh, took on a human nature, became robed in a human body.

The body goes to the grave.

He gets a resurrection body, which is his real body, resurrected in power and glory.

That ascends into heaven where he remains in his resurrected body at this very moment, leaving the earth devoid of Christ.

And the Father and the Son send the Spirit.

The Spirit, as He saves people, builds them into the body of Christ.

This is the, in a sense, the reincarnation, not in the Eastern mystic sense, but in an actual sense, the church is the reincarnation of Christ.

We are his body on earth and he fills it, it says.

He fills it.

This is how Jesus reaches the world.

Evangelism comes to the world through us.

We display his love to the world through how we love one another.

We display the mission of the Lord in the world through our own great commission.

We fill up what is lacking, Paul tells the Colossians.

We fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.

We display the crucifixion of Christ to the world, not by the cross on the wall, but how we suffered to bring the gospel to the nations.

That's what we do for the world.

Suffering for corporate worship is an inherent part of Christian identity.

It's inherent because you are filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.

Which, you know, if if the Bible didn't say that, that would sound almost blasphemous, right?

What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?

It was the perfect death for sinners.

But Paul tells the Colossians, there's one thing lacking in it, and that's the public manifestation of it to those who weren't there.

The world can see the afflictions of Christ through how Christians are willing to suffer for worship and to suffer for evangelism and to suffer for missions by taking on the scorn of the world to bring the gospel to the nations.

And this happens because he, verse 23, fills the church.

He fills the church.

So if you're diagramming this, and you can kind of see behind the word things that are on your screen, if you're diagramming this, the earth is under the feet of the Lord.

The head is over all things.

The church then is on top of the world.

That's your diagram there.

The church then, if the world is under his feet, and the church is his body, the church then is on top of the world.

That's the image I'm going for here.

And it is filled by Christ.

What does that mean that the church is on top of the world?

It does not mean that we have any kind of political authority in the world, which is how it's manifested.

I mean in say, for example, England, you know, where the Queen of England still has to give tacit approval to whoever wins the election for prime minister there, and she does that because she's in the position of head of the church.

That's one way to do it.

I don't expect to go that way in the United States.

We have the election results in.

Let's get a few pastors to sign off.

Not gonna happen.

So what does that mean?

That the church is on top of the world, the church rules the world.

Again, you have to ask yourself, what is God doing in the world?

He's magnifying his own glory.

And how is he doing that?

Well, he's directing all things from garden to garden, from the garden of Eden to the garden at the end of the book of Revelation.

It is all going through the cross, going to the church.

The Old Testament was pointing towards Christ, who is going to have his body on earth, namely the church.

History was funneled towards this.

The church will be raptured from the earth.

The Lord will then descend and reign from his kingdom over the earth.

The church is leading up to that point.

This is the nature of the church.

He gives us our glory because he is our glory, and now our glory is displayed in the earth.

And I'll say it one more time.

He gives us our glory because he is the glory.

And that is the glory that's displayed to the earth.

So the earth wants to know the glory of the Lord, they look toward the church.

That's why the church gathers for worship.

That's the nature of the church.

You understand how this church is described in the New Testament?

The New Testament describes the church as God's people.

God's elect.

Ephesians 1, verse 5.

Ephesians 1:5

We looked at it earlier, founded by the pleasure of his will.

Ephesians 1 verse 11, predestined by God.

Ephesians 1:11

Ephesians 1, verse 4, chosen in Christ from before the foundation of time.

Ephesians 1:4

Romans 8, verse 33, the church is called God's elect.

Romans 8:33

Colossians 3, verse 12 calls the church God's elect.

Colossians 3:12

Romans 8, 29 says the church is predestined by God to be conformed to his image.

So if we're the body of Christ, it would make sense that we're predestined by God to be conformed to his image.

We look like him.

A church in Romans 1, verse 6 is the called of God.

Romans 1:6

1 Corinthians 1, verse 24 says the church is called of God.

1 Corinthians 1:24

Revelation 7, 17, sorry.

Looking back on believers who are rescued, described as the called of God.

1 Peter 2, verse 10 says the church is the people of God.

1 Peter 2:10

We belong to the Lord.

It's his church.

Titus 2, verse 14 says the church is a people for God's own possession.

Titus 2:14

He owns all people, but he owns the church specially, uniquely, differently, distinctly, in a privileged way.

Acts 15, 14.

The voice of the Lord tells Paul that the church is my people, he says, Go there because I have my people there.

That's the church, Paul.

A special people for the Lord.

We're his people, we're supposed to be in his image, so the church is called to be sanctified.

1 Corinthians 1 verse 2, to the church of God that's in Corinth, Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus who are called saints together.

1 Corinthians 1:2

And those in every place who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.

That's 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2.

1 Corinthians 1:2

Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are a church because they're called by God to be sanctified, which means to be saints.

It means to be holy.

And what does the word holy mean?

Set apart from the world.

There's a class distinction here, and I mean class in the scientific sense.

There's a class distinction among people, that there is the world, and those who are set apart from them to be distinct from them.

And what makes them distinct is their connection to the church, which produces holiness, of course, in their life, conforms them to the image of God.

That's true in every local church.

Paul says it's not just true in Corinth, but those in every place you call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why Hebrews 10, verse 14, it says, Jesus is the sacrifice to sanctify us in truth.

Hebrews 10:14

He is the sacrifice who sanctifies us.

By bringing us into his body, he makes us holy.

A hundred times the New Testament calls Christians saints or holy ones.

So the church consists of those set apart from the world.

Because we're set apart from the world.

We're not just out there floating in space.

We're made into his body.

We're put together into his body.

We're set apart from the world, but we become what is it?

What is it?

What's the word when something's a part of your body?

It's a member.

Your member of your arm, your hand, your feet.

It's a member of your body.

That's what we are.

That's where the word membership comes from.

1 Corinthians 12.

We're all members, one to each other.

We're part of the body.

We have fellowship with each other because we are in Christ.

That's the most common description of Christians in the New Testament.

In Christ.

And think about what that means.

What does it mean to be in him?

You're a member, you're part of his body.

You're in his body.

You're called into fellowship with Christ Jesus our Lord.

That's 1 Corinthians 1 9.

You share in his death because his body died.

When you think about the body of Jesus, that's got to jump out high on the list, isn't it?

They killed him, crucified, side cut open, crown in his head.

We are part of that body, which means Romans 6, verse 6 says we share in his death.

Romans 6:6

And the good news of that, by the way, if you share in his death, you share in his resurrection.

You can jog your eyes up to Ephesians 1, verse 20.

Ephesians 1:20

The power that worked in Christ, that raised him from the dead, that power is at work in us.

Verse 19 says it's the power towards us who believe.

So if you share in his death, the same power that raised him from the dead, namely the Holy Spirit, who brought him from the grave, is at work in you.

You became a Christian when the Holy Spirit saved you, regenerated you.

Well, he resurrected Christ.

He can make you part of his body.

And all of this makes fellowship with the Spirit.

You have fellowship with God Himself because of your participation in the church.

His Spirit brought you into the church, brought you into the body of Christ, brought you into the death and resurrection of Christ, and the Spirit dwells in you, which causes us to be brothers and sisters with one another.

John 14, verse 16, Jesus says, I got to go away because I can send you my spirit.

John 14:16

The disciples were so fractured even when Jesus was there.

They're always arguing about what order they stand in line.

You know, they're like kids wrestling for the dessert table.

And Jesus says, I've got to go when I go.

That changes because the spirit comes and brings humility, binds you together.

So Paul says, everyone in the church has been made to drink of one spirit.

That's 1 Corinthians 12, 13.

In the Old Testament, all the people in the wilderness drank water from one rock.

Paul's point is in the New Testament, you're not drinking water from a rock, you're drinking the Holy Spirit is brought into you and gives you a corporate identity.

The church is called the fellowship of those who believe.

That's Acts 2, verse 44.

Acts 2:44

We have a fellowship with all believers.

The word of God was active in those that were believing.

1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

The word of God is active in you.

Phrases used to describe Christians in the New Testament.

Disciples, Christians, brethren, those in the way.

Think of that language.

Those that are part of the way.

We're all walking the same path.

We're all brothers and sisters.

We're all disciples.

We all have unity together.

It's a unity of the body based on the head, united by the Spirit, standing on the world.

So the Spirit of God keeps us alive.

We strive to serve one another.

Hands serve each other.

Hands feed the mouth, which feed the stomach, which feeds the body.

All parts of your body work together.

That's how the church works.

Striving for the unity of the body because we have the same spirit.

We are the body of Christ who fills us.

Romans 12, verse 4.

Romans 12:4

As we are many members in one body, all members don't have the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ.

And if we are one body, that means that Jesus is our head.

Jesus is our life.

Believers are to be filled with the life of Christ, the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3, verse 19 says that.

Ephesians 3:19

Ephesians 1, verse 23.

Ephesians 1:23

He is the fullness of him who fills all in all.

That makes him our Lord.

Because he gives us our life.

And we are filled with Christ.

The divine grace that was communicated to Christ is now communicated to us.

This is why the church is called the temple of God.

I'm so glad we sang that song about that earlier because the church is the temple of God.

What is a temple?

It's the place on earth where God is worshipped, where the presence of God dwells in a unique way, and people gather there to worship.

That's what a temple is.

We don't have many temples in northern Virginia.

In Los Angeles, there's Buddhist temples quite frequently, and it's a temple.

It's set aside for worship.

They would say the divine spirits dwell there, they have horns on top of them to catch the spirits as they go by, and people gather to worship there in a unique way.

There's temples in the Aztec Empire.

You go to Mexico City, you can go up to Tenoshilan, the temple there.

It's a place where they believed God dwelled in a unique way, and everybody went there to worship.

We are the temple of God.

God dwells in us in a unique way, and people gather to worship.

It's the same principle.

It's the place where God dwells and where he's worshipped.

In that sense, the church is God's building, and we recognize we're not talking about the physical church, we're talking about the church is God's building.

The collection of local churches is the place where God dwells.

The foundation of the church is the apostolic preaching, the cornerstone is Jesus Christ.

And what's a temple without a priesthood, huh?

Every temple's got to have a priest.

Our high priest is Jesus, and we are all priests in this temple.

It's Hebrews 5, verse 1.

Hebrews 5:1

Christ is the high priest.

Hebrews 10, verse 10.

Hebrews 10:10

We are all priests with him.

What do priests do?

Well, they offer sacrifices.

Your life is the sacrifice.

Your life is a sacrifice that you bring to the temple.

This is Romans 12.

Your life is a living sacrifice.

Even that phrase living sacrifice has got to jar you, doesn't it?

And what do you know about sacrifices?

They're not alive.

You're dead to the world, alive in Christ Jesus, and your life is a sacrifice as you are a priest in the temple of God, which is his church on the earth where he rules.

He himself is the high priest, and we are priests right alongside him.

Do you see how this is reigning on the earth?

All things are under its authority.

First Corinthians 15, verse 28.

1 Corinthians 15:28

All things will be subjected to him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him, who put all things under Him, so God may be all in all.

Here the same phrase is used at the end of verse 23.

He will fill, Jesus will fill all in all.

In fact, the word all is the most common word in these two verses we looked at.

Four times it's used.

He fills all things with all power as he rules over all things, and he himself is in all.

Suffering the wrath of God, reserved for sin.

He was our substitute, dies in our place, resurrects from the grave to show that our sin has been forgiven.

That's the glory of the church.

That's what the church stands for.

That's what the church represents.

That's the privilege of being part of the body of Christ.

It's a privilege that's open for anyone who places their faith in Christ.

If you're here today and you've never given your life to Christ, if you're here today, perhaps not fully understanding what the church is for.

I hope this message helped.

The church is for those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The death forgives our sins.

The resurrection gives us eternal life.

And we have fellowship with one another because we both believe that.

Lord, we're thankful for the good news of Jesus Christ.

That the church is his body, his temple, where he dwells through faith as his spirit seals us.

We're grateful for the privilege of corporate worship together.

Think of how many times through the decades from this pulpit we have prayed, thanking you for the privilege of worshiping freely and for a country that allows it.

So many of those times, even when I have prayed, it has felt flippant.

It resonates in our heart.

We're grateful that we are able to gather as your body on earth.

We give you thanks in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.

It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.

Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.