The Church Expounded – 5/31/09
Sermon Series: The Church: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Title: The Church Expounded – The Church patterned by the Apostles teaching and spread into the world.
Text: Ephesians 4:1-7
“Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, am exhorting you all to walk properly according to the calling of which you have been called, with all humility, and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unanimity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit, just also you were called in one hope of your calling. There is One Lord, one faith, one immersion, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us He has given the grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.”
Theme: This message will demonstrate that God left us a pattern to follow in His word for the Church of all ages. It is a pattern which is not specific in most details of practice but very clear on its purpose.
Worship now has taken on the flavor of the individual church which is celebrating God’s grace and mercy and living out lives of people who are deeply committed to a faith walk. Doctrine is being formed by the letters which the Apostles are sending out for instruction to the various individual congregations. Paul makes it clear that although there is a lot of difference in individuals and specific congregations, God’s church is one body.
Introduction: I have always been amazed by the Shriners. You know who I am talking about. They are a bunch of usually middle aged to more mature gentlemen who wear those silly red fezzes and ride around in the miniature cars during parades. It seems incredible that these otherwise fairly ordinary guys would make themselves appear so silly. But the truth is there is a point to what they do. Through their fraternal organization over 800,000 children have received treatment in 22 hospitals completely free of charge. Now I am not advising anyone here to run out and join the Shriners, you have to be a master’s level mason before you can, I do think that their example points out something to us: If you believe in something strongly enough, you will do things that other people think are kind of silly.
To a big part of the world today Christians seem just as silly. We go around believing that a man who was killed on a cross was raised from the dead. And because of that belief we spend a significant part of our income and our other resources to participate in the visible organization which propounds to be a part of His kingdom.
Transition: As we continue our study of the Church: yesterday, today and tomorrow, we are at the point in history where the Church has moved away from the Jewish center of faith and is now well established in the Greek speaking ancient world. The culture of Judaism which was so integral to the first believers no longer dominates the landscape of the Church. The Church is no longer meeting on the Sabbath and instead we find that they are meeting on the first day of the week and calling it the Lord’s Day. The New Testament Church is finding itself struggling, for the first time, with cultural issues that stem from being among a people that are pagan in thought and tradition. The Apostles are dealing with issues like what do we do about eating meat that has been offered to idols and what do we do about the fact that Jews and the rest of the world were pretty intolerant of one another and now we find ourselves partners in a faith built upon forgiveness and grace.
This letter which Paul wrote, probably as a circular letter to all of the Churches in the region of Asia, is in essence about what the character of the NT Church is supposed to be. He is essentially telling them what the Church looks like and how it should be perceived by the world in which it exists. These people are being seen as pretty strange to the culture that they find themselves in and they need to know what to think about their circumstance so that they know how to act in their world as participants in the body of Christ.
The Apostle tells these believers and us that we are a part of Christ’s body and in this central theme of the book of Ephesus that we are supposed to concentrate on our call.
1) Called to Walk
a) There are some characteristics which should be a part of every Christian. These are characteristics that are imputed because of the grace that we share in Jesus.
b) Properly or worthily
i) Our lives should be outfitted with behavior which lifts up the name of Christ.
ii) This word carries with it the idea that when people look at our lives, the way we do business and the way that act around others, they need to see that we are upright and honest.
c) Humility
i) Literally means to lay low. When you are flat then it is hard for you to be arrogant
ii) This is the same word that describes the attitude of Christ in Philippians 2
d) Gentleness
i) The opposite of harshness – this word means a mild and gentle person, not because we don’t have power or strength but because we understand that this is the proper way to treat those around us.
e) Longsuffering
i) Most translations say patient here but the word literally means a long suffering
f) Bearing with one another
i) The ability and propensity to help one another out, to be there when times are difficult.
g) These character qualities are a part of the Christian because they are a part of the character of Christ which we share in.
i) What other person in all of history was characterized by his ability to love the unlovable.
(1) He hugged and healed lepers and other unclean people.
(2) He continues to put up with the pettiness and selfishness of a group of disciples that didn’t get what He was trying to accomplish.
(3) He healed the lame and the sick and brought back those to life that had been dead for days. He was and is the symbol of the character of the Christian to which we all try to attain.
2) Called to Unanimity
a) Occasionally the call goes out into the Christian communities that we need to unite at all costs. And while it is apparent that God would have all believers united in Christian love it is just as clear that this unification has to be based not on simple mutual affection but on mutual understanding.
b) A call to unanimity that is based on a proper understanding of:
i) One Lord – Christology
(1) Who Jesus is and what He came and accomplished for us.
ii) One Faith – Doctrine –
(1) A proper understanding of what God expects from us as servants of His and participants in His kingdom.
iii) One Baptism – Praxology
(1) A proper understanding of the practices that we need to be involved in.
iv) One God and Father – Theology
(1) A proper understanding of who God is.
c) Our unity as Christians can never be a unity which is based on the dropping of our doctrinal stance but because we share God’s revealed understanding of who He is and what he wants us to be.
3) Called to Serve
a) Individually gifted
i) In almost every passage in the NT that talks about our walk, what our behavior is supposed to look like, we see an encouragement to be busy in the way in which God has gifted us.
ii) Sometimes I think that we would have a better understanding of what we are supposed to be as a Church if we never installed pews in our worship area. We have so ingrained this notion of coming into the Church and sitting down that we have lost sight of the fact that every time that we look at the places where God gathers His people into community together it is to accomplish something.
(1) He gathered the first group – the people of Abraham to ask them to sojourn to another place and become His people.
(2) He gathered the Hebrews from Egypt in order to take over the promised land.
(3) He called the exiles back from Persia to rebuild the walls and the Temple.
(4) He has called us to be His force for redemption throughout the entire world. – CHURCH IS NOT MADE FOR SITTING.
