Battle Ready: "The Church Matters":Ephesians 1:22-23 Pastor Daniel Reese

If you have revivals, let's finish up chapter one today, can we?

There's a couple surveys done by the Barna group, and it reveals some alarming trends.

One-third of American adults had not attended a regular church service in the past six months.

62% of the unchurched considered themselves to be Christians,

and three-fourths of those people claim they are at least moderately committed to the Christian faith.

Fewer than one out of every five adults firmly believes that a congregational church is a critical element in their spiritual growth,

and just as few strongly contend that participation in some type of community of faith is required for them to achieve their full potential.

Only 17% of adults said that a person's faith is meant to be developed mainly by the involvement in a local church.

What that reveals is that to much of the world today, it seems like the church doesn't really matter.

In fact, I'm amazed at all the excuses I've heard over the years that people come up with in order to justify not being a part of the church.

This last week I came across an article titled, Pastor Quits Sports,

and here's why this pastor quit going to sporting events.

Every time I went, they asked me for money.

The people with whom I had to sit didn't seem very friendly.

The seats were too hard and not at all comfortable.

I went to many games, but the coach never came to call on me.

The referee made a decision with which I could not agree.

Some games went into overtime and I was getting home late.

I suspected I was sitting with a bunch of hypocrites.

They came to see their friends and what others were wearing rather than to watch the game.

The band played some numbers that I have never heard before.

It seems the games were scheduled when I wanted to do other things.

I was taken to too many games by my parents when I was growing up.

I recently read a book about sports and now I feel I know more than the coaches do anyhow.

I don't want to take my children to any games because I want them to decide for themselves what sport they like best.

As we come to the end of Ephesians chapter 1 this morning, Paul makes it clear that the church really does matter.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

It matters because it matters to God.

I hope that God has touched your heart like he's touched mine as we've journeyed through the first chapter in Ephesians.

I've been blown away by this whole idea of all these spiritual blessings that God has made available to me through his son Jesus.

I'm amazed at the fact that it gives God pleasure to have chosen me and predestined me to become part of his family.

I'm in awe of the fact that Jesus would give his life to redeem me from my sins.

I'm astonished that the Holy Spirit is my personal guarantee that God will give me all that he has promised.

I'm completely taken aback that God's resurrection power work in my life.

As we come to the end of chapter 1 Paul wraps this all up in verses 22 and 23.

It says, And he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fulfills all in all.

Now I've had a couple of weeks to wrestle with this passage and I've really struggled to decide exactly what I wanted to present to you this morning.

Frankly there's so much here that we could spend several weeks on, we could find a whole bunch of riches out of these verses.

I could have focused on the supremacy of Christ.

That idea is certainly present here.

In fact that concept really began last week in verse 21 when Paul described how Jesus was raised to the right hand of the Father.

Far above all rule, all authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given not only in this present age but in the age to come.

Think about the implications of just that.

We just had an election cycle and I don't know if you know this or not, but it doesn't seem that too many people are happy with the results.

Both parties are upset because they didn't get more seats in Congress or governors.

They're upset because some states flipped to the other party.

It should bring us comfort knowing that in the end Jesus has authority over both parties.

All rulers.

He has more power and dominion than anyone who was just elected.

If you feel like the rise or fall of a nation is dependent on who is in office, I don't care what party you're part of, you have a small view of God.

A political party is not going to turn this country around.

It is the one who has authority over all, all power and dominion.

We look to him to restore and redeem and change the hearts and eradicate evil.

That's who we look to.

I was blown away.

Now this is a little more political up in this part of the country than it was down in Texas, but I was blown away.

This election cycle that there were parties running and their base was killing babies up to the moment of birth.

I felt like there should have been a warning on the TV screen for children before these ads came up.

That's evil.

The governor of California put billboards all over the country promoting California as a sanctuary state for abortion.

That's evil.

But do you know what makes it worse?

He used Jesus's words as a means to justify it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

There's no greater commandment than these.

That's what's on the billboards promoting abortion.

What?

That is wicked and evil.

If we didn't have Jesus, there would be no hope.

It brings me peace to know that he has power and power and power.

All governors, all presidents, but more importantly over Satan himself.

And listen, if you think that I'm promoting one party over the other, you're not hearing me.

There is evil in both.

I am promoting Jesus who has dominion over all.

So as I read this passage over and over, it seemed like I kept being drawn to the words to the power of God.

I kept being drawn to the words to the church.

Now, although this is the first time Paul has used the word church in this letter, it is clear from what we have already studied that this is not the first time that he's already thought about it.

The church mattered to Paul because the church mattered to God.

And it automatically mattered to us for the same reason.

Because if people mattered to us, like they mattered to God, we wouldn't see political affiliation.

We would see men and women who have souls that matter to God.

So this morning I like us to think about why the church matters.

The first reason is it is God's people.

As I mentioned before, this is the first time Paul has used the word church in this letter.

So we probably ought to spend a moment to take a look at the word itself.

The word that is translated church is ecclesia.

Ecclesia means called out ones.

So when Paul writes about the church, he's not writing about a church in Ephesus.

He's not writing about a church in Eldridge.

He is referring to all those who have been called out or chosen by God to be a part of his family.

In other words, the church consists of those who have been chosen by God and who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ alone for the redemption and their salvation.

Here in Ephesus or in Ephesians as well as other letters of Paul, Paul often uses the analogy of the body to describe the church.

He pictures the church as a collection of God's people who join together in a body in order to accomplish what none of the individual parts of the body could accomplish on its own.

Paul describes that body in Romans 12.

Start in verse 4, he says, for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function.

So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

Every person who has received the spiritual blessings, Paul has written about beginning in verse 3, is a member of that body.

We've already seen just how much we matter to God in order for him to have poured out all those spiritual blessings in our lives.

So the church matters to God because it is made up of people that matter to God.

The second thing we see is the church is God's presence.

In Old Testament times, although God wasn't limited to being in one place at one time, His presence or His glory was made manifest in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and later on in the temple.

And the Bible describes that the Tabernacle was filled with the glory of God in Exodus chapter 40.

Exodus 40 · chapter mention

Verse 34 says, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.

Notice the phrase of that verse, the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.

That is how God chose to manifest His presence among the people of Israel.

It's interesting that we find similar language used by Paul when he describes the church.

He writes that the church is the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

I think it's quite likely that Paul had the Tabernacle in mind when he was writing these words.

And if that's true, then Paul seems to indicate that there is some parallel between the Tabernacle under the Old Covenant and the church under the New Covenant.

The Tabernacle and the church are both earthly manifestations of heavenly realities.

They are physical representations of the presence of God here on this earth.

The difference is you had to go to the Tabernacle.

You had to go to the temple where the Holy of Holies was.

It was a pilgrimage that families would take to offer sacrifices.

There was only a handful of people in the world that could even enter into it.

Now that same presence is in you and me.

We are the Tabernacle.

We are the temple.

God's presence is here in this room because there are people of God who have been chosen by Him before the foundation of the world.

When you walk into this room, you are bringing the presence of God with you.

When there is more of us in this room, we are bringing more of the presence of God in this room.

Now, Drew and the worship team do a fantastic job of getting our attention focused on what God wants to say to us each week.

When people went to the temple, they knew God was there.

They would travel for miles and miles to get to experience Him.

They wanted to be close to Him.

There were prayers said.

There were songs that were sung.

There was an expectation that He would forgive their sins.

Do you want to change your worship experience?

Pray before you get here.

Ask God to speak to you.

Prepare your hearts before you come by listening to worship music, by reading the Scriptures.

Have God's word on your lap.

Take it with you.

Take notes.

Sing loudly like you mean it.

Come and speak to us.

Come here expecting God to move because His presence is here.

It's in you.

It's in all of us.

The third thing is, the church is God's plan.

Throughout chapter one, we have seen that everything that God has done for us in accordance with God's pleasure and will.

And the same is certainly true for the church.

Perhaps we can see that even more closely, clearly, if we look at a passage that we'll come to a little bit later in Ephesians.

In Ephesians chapter three, Paul says,

So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let's look at the second verse.

The first thing that we notice is that revealing His manifold wisdom through the church is part of God's eternal purpose.

The church is not just an afterthought on God's part.

It was part of His plan from the beginning of time.

The second thing that grabs my attention in that passage is a three little word called now.

It's a little word that we can use to describe God's purpose.

The second thing that grabs my attention in that passage is a three little word called now.

Now.

When Paul seems to be saying, what Paul seems to be saying,

is that the church is only part of God's overall plan.

A part of His plan that was just coming into existence here on earth as Paul was writing these words.

Even though it was part of God's plan from before the foundation of the world.

Prior to the origin of the church, God had chosen to reveal Himself in a number of different ways.

For instance, we've already talked about how God would reveal Himself through the tabernacle and the temple.

We also know that God had previously revealed Himself through creation, particularly through the heavens.

Psalm 19 verse 1 says, the heavens declare the glory of God.

Psalms 19:1

The skies proclaim the work of His hands.

God had also revealed Himself through His chosen people, Israel.

And of course, God reveals Himself today through His word.

But since the resurrection, God has chosen to use His church as a conduit to reveal Himself to the world.

He took a small, uneducated, unimportant, common group of men,

and gave them a responsibility of spreading the message of the resurrection to the entire known world.

And today, as the spiritual descendants of that small group of Christ followers,

that responsibility has now been passed down to us.

So it's no wonder that the church matters to God.

His entire plan for reaching the entire world with the gospel message depends upon the continued existence

and effectiveness of the church.

The church matters to God because it is made up of people that matter to God.

The church matters to God because it is the earthly manifestation of His presence.

And the church matters to God because it is a crucial part of His plan for the world.

The fourth thing is, it is God's place.

It's God's place.

Even though Paul has not previously used the word church in this chapter,

he has certainly had it in his mind throughout it.

Think about all the pronouns that Paul has used that has made it extremely difficult to memorize chapter one.

Everything is we and us or the plural of you.

Paul has been unambiguous in showing that all these spiritual blessings that we have in Christ

are not just for our own personal benefit.

As I've said before, God is not in the business of creating a lone ranger type Christian.

All of these spiritual blessings that he has poured out on us are intended to be experienced within the body,

in connection with other believers.

There's also one really fascinating observation about a verse that we looked at several weeks ago, verse 18 and chapter one.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

Do you see anything unusual in that verse?

Look carefully at the two nouns, eyes and heart.

It seems to me that it should read the eyes of your heart's plural.

Did Paul just make a mistake with his grammar or is there a reason he used the singular heart?

I think Paul is trying to make a point here.

He wants his readers, he wants the church to all have the same heart.

He wants the eyes of their corporate heart to be enlightened.

In other words, the process of having their hearts enlightened occurs in the body.

It occurs in the church.

Since we're all parts of the body, our participation and interaction in that body is crucial both to the health of the body

and our own individual health.

We know that an organ in our body can survive, cannot survive from the rest of the body.

And the same thing is true for us spiritually.

But as we've seen from the statistics I shared with you earlier,

we live in such an individualistic society that a lot of people call themselves Christians

and they're trying to live out their faith apart from the church.

I read this week about three pastors who got together for coffee one day

and found that all their churches had been infestated with bats.

I got so mad, said one.

I took a shotgun and fired at them.

There's holes all over the ceiling of my church.

I did nothing to the bats.

I tried trapping them alive, said the second.

Then I drove 50 miles before releasing them but they beat me back to the church.

I haven't had any more problems, said the third.

What did you do?

They both asked, amazed.

I simply baptized and confirmed them, he replied.

I haven't seen them since.

Now, we chuckle at that.

But like most good humor, the reason we find it funny

is that there is a degree of truth in that, isn't there?

With the proliferation of various media including radio, TV, social media,

in the US, more people now get the religious information

and experience from those media sources as opposed to the church.

But that's not the way God planned it.

Certainly there's nothing wrong with all those forms of media.

In fact, I regularly use my computer, I use the internet to study and prepare my messages.

But if that is all I did, and I didn't come on here in Sunday

and share with you what I'm learning with you,

if I didn't interact with you, there wouldn't be much point to what I spent my time on that week.

The church is the place God designed his people to grow together in their faith.

And when I say it's a place, I'm not using it as a word to designate a physical location.

This building we're in this morning is not a church.

It's a building.

Remember the word church means called out ones.

The church is people, not a building.

So I'm using the word place here to represent the coming together of various parts of the body

for the purpose of encouraging one another and growing together in our faith.

And the Bible is clear that God has designed the church for exactly that purpose.

Let's take a quick peek at a verse we'll cover later in greater detail down the road.

Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11, Paul says,

Ephesians 4:11

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ,

until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood,

to the measure of the statute of the fullness of Christ.

This passage makes it very clear that God intends the church to be the place

where believers are built up in their faith and become more mature.

This is the place, all of us together.

It is where they are prepared to serve God.

There are countless Jews right now,

willing and ready to rebuild the temple so that they can experience God.

All over the world, everything is ready except the building.

Jews have been mourning for thousands of years because they have not been able to worship in their temple.

When they build it, people from all over the world will come and visit.

The reality, though, is that God's presence won't be there because it's in you and it's in me.

God's place is in us, not in a building built by men.

The problem, though, is that the church doesn't live like they are the temple of God.

In your day in and day out lives, are you aware and making others aware that the Spirit of God is in you?

We can bring the presence of God with us to work, to school, to our homes and hobbies.

If the only time that you experience the presence of God is here on a Sunday morning, then keep coming.

You aren't doing anything wrong.

But the goal of this church is that as you experience more of Him,

you will begin to take His presence with you and see Him change the world around you.

That is the goal of this church.

We need more of the presence of God in our workplaces.

We need more of the presence of God in our homes and in our schools.

We need more of the presence of God in Washington.

So my challenge to you this morning is for you to ask God to speak to you.

Did you come here this morning because we had a bunch of kids on stage?

Did you come here this morning expecting me and Drew to help you experience that?

Did you come here this morning expecting Him to move?

If you didn't, when you come next week, will you be more expecting?

By the way, it's not too late today.

It's not too late.

You might be tired because you got home late from a youth conference.

You might be hungry and you're ready for me to wrap this thing up so you can go get a donut.

You might be distracted because there's going to be a football game on later

or you have a whole bunch of stuff to do today.

Don't let the enemy distract you from experiencing God in this place.

Jesus has all authority under His feet.

And that same authority that He has can overcome all your questions.

It can overcome all your doubts.

It can overcome all your distractions.

And so as we respond, it's not too late for Him to move in this place.

His presence is here.

His presence is here.

But do we live like His presence is here?

Or do we expect something to happen?

They didn't sing the songs I like today.

I didn't get my seat because some grandma came to see their kids and she's sitting in my seat.

See, that's the mindset of the church.

The building is the presence of God.

You are the presence of God.

You have the presence of God.

I don't care where I sit.

Well, maybe not the front row.

So I'm going to pray for us and I'm going to ask the worship team to come on up.

Can we corporately pray the same prayer quietly to yourself that God would speak?

Not that God would speak to the person sitting next to you, but that God would speak to you.

And as God speaks to you, how are you going to respond?

What are you going to do?

How is that going to affect your day in and day out life?

That you have the presence of God in you.

The same power of God in you.

The same spirit that fell in the book of Acts and thousands of men were saved after they heard the gospel is available in you.

Do you believe that?

But do you live like you believe it?

I really think we need God to reveal those things to us.

I'm just going to pray.

And as we pray, will you pray the same thing with me?

Father, God, I pray right now that you will speak to me.

God, I pray that you will give us all a spirit of surrender in this place.

A spirit of surrender to you.

And help us be comfortable with trusting that you have all authority.

And as you call us to move, as you call us to respond, help us not worry about what that looks like.

Help us not worry about not being in control.

But God, help us surrender to your authority and to your power.

God, I pray that as a church, we are better equipped.

As a church, we are better encouraged.

God, I pray for each and individual part of this body that we will be high functioning in your presence.

God, I pray that we won't be paralyzed in any way whatsoever.

But God, that as we experience more of you, we will take your presence with us.

That you will change our lives.

That you will change our communities.

That you will change our workplaces.

That you will change the world out there that is looking for hope.

And the reality is the hope that is found is in your presence.

So God, I pray that you will increase your presence in us.

So as we respond, Father, I pray that you'll move.

I pray that you'll speak.

It's in your name you pray.

We're going to sing one more song. We have some time this morning.

I'm going to ask the prayer team to come forward and be available to pray with you.

I'm going to ask that if you feel, if you know that the God is speaking to you, that you will come forward and respond.

That you will come lay that down at the, you know, hypothetically at the cross.

That as we experience more of God together, every single one of us that walks out of here will know God's presence was in this place.

So you respond how the Lord leads. Can we do that?