God’s Purpose and Plan For His Church

Transcript

GRM 1142
09/13/2015
God's Purpose and Plan for His Church
Ephesians 1:1-2:10; 4:1-16
Gil Rugh

We're going to go to the book of Ephesians, I want to talk to you about the church. I like to read history, I like to read biographies and I did some of that and was reminded of the conflicts, the trials, the battles that have gone on down through church history; of the men who have stood forward, men and women, given their lives for commitment to the truth of God's Word. And one of the writers noted, he is writing at the end of the 1800s, is concerned whether there would be people in churches who would stand for the truth with that same unshakable commitment that men and women have in the past. So I thought it would be good just to remind ourselves. Listening to the men who opened the Word while I was gone, it is a good time to remind ourselves of who we are as the church of Jesus Christ and what we are to be, the commitment we are to have.

Think about it, there was a time in the history of the church in England, in other places as well, if there were more than five people gathered together to study the Word, you were guilty of a capital offense if you were not in one of the government-approved churches. If you had your own copy of the Bible translated for you into your language, that could be a capital offense. Things that we take for granted. And after we have these privileges, they become commonplace. People burned at the stake for having a Bible. Most of us have multiple copies and take it for granted, some of us don't even bother to read it much through the week. It's there, I have it.

So to understand what the church is, what God's pattern for it is, the way the world goes always influences the church. And as I was thinking about this, in yesterday's paper (I took this out of the Omaha paper, Churches on a Mission to Conserve.) In tandem with the pope's call to protect the earth faithful of many stripes take action. And talking about churches in Omaha and in Lincoln joining together to conserve the earth, to deal with climate change, to do organic gardening, recycle. I'm not against any of this, these things aren't bad in and of themselves. We have freedom to do it. But what is the church to be? Ideas that come down the line in the world, the church thinks we'll do that and the world will admire us, the world will appreciate us. When you do worldly things, the world likes you. But we ought to understand the unique purpose and plan of God with the church. And it has been His sovereign purpose and plan from before the creation. The church was brought into existence in Acts 2 and we are part of that plan which God set out in eternity and is being realized today.

Look in Ephesians 1, we’re just going to highlight basically three different passages in the book of Ephesians. Not looking in depth, we've studied these on other occasions, but as a reminder to us. He starts out with just the address. As an apostle he's writing to the saints who are at Ephesus, those who have their faith in Jesus Christ and thus faithful to Him. He's writing to believers. Paul established this church some years earlier, Acts 19 records it. It was a battleground. Some of you remember the events, Paul going into Ephesus and preaching the Gospel, the opposition that was raised up, people assembling in the theatre there and for two hours crying out, “great is Diana or Artemis of the Ephesians.” A threat to their worship, to their goddess, but a church was established. Some years have gone by, Paul writes now to encourage them and remind them. It's not the things that we don't know that sometimes get us into trouble, it's the things we know but don't adhere to and put into practice. In fact the longer we are familiar with some truths, the more danger they become commonplace to us and less controlling in our lives.

So Paul starts out by telling them the great things God has done for them, the great things God has promised for them. He says in verse 3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” The heavenlies which will be mentioned several times in this letter, a reference to where God dwells and manifests His presence for His creation. It's where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father. We have all spiritual blessings provided to us by the God of heaven, spiritual blessings that are ours and will be ours for eternity. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. This was God's plan before He created the earth. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” His plan in that choice is that He would cleanse and transform us so that we would be holy and blameless before Him. “He predestined to adoption as sons.” You see now the sovereignty of God stressed here, we have to understand and be clear on that. He is the sovereign God, it is His purpose, His foreordained purpose and plan which is being worked out. We need to be sure that we are conformed to that and committed to that. The church loses its way when it thinks its responsibility is to come up with new ideas. Certain things cannot change if we are to be the church.

“He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,” this was “according to the kind intention of His will, the good pleasure of His will.” Think about it, the sovereign, eternal God who created all things, who sustains all things, it was His good pleasure to provide redemption for you in Jesus Christ, to ordain that you would become His child. As His child the glorious blessings of heaven are provided for you, you are a co-heir with His unique Son, Jesus Christ, as Scripture tells us. This was His kind intention, His good pleasure.

“It was to the praise of the glory of His grace.” This becomes the theme and it is a dividing line as we will see. This was to bring glory to His grace, to bring honor to Him, to exalt Him. The grace, that which was unmerited, undeserved, but was “freely bestowed upon us in Christ to the beloved,” verse 6. This is God's sovereign plan, to demonstrate His grace by bestowing upon us His salvation in Christ. Chris is the One “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,” now note this, “according to the riches of His grace.” We find in Ephesians words being piled up by the Spirit of God through Paul. It's like how do you express this adequately in human terms. The riches of His grace lavished on us, abundantly poured out upon us. “He made known to us the mystery of His will.” And as Paul will talk about the unfolding mystery that he is talking about was the truth concerning the church of Jesus Christ, established by God as the result of and on the basis of His death on the cross to provide redemption and forgiveness. And again he mentions at the end of verse 9, “according to His kind intention, His good pleasure which He purposed in Him.” It was God's intention before He called the world into existence to provide and pour out His salvation in grace upon you and upon me. We ought never to cease being amazed and in awe that the eternal God cares and loves me so much that He lavished in abundance His grace upon me in salvation.

We have obtained an inheritance in Christ. Verse 11, “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, the One who works all things after the counsel of His will.” It was God's predetermined, foreordained purpose before He called the world into existence that you would obtain an inheritance, the glories of heaven, all that God in His grace could provide. How do you grasp that? But this is God's sovereign plan.

We have to start out beginning with God, His character, His purposes. And then “in Him also, after listening to the message of the truth,” verse 13, “the Gospel of your salvation, having believed He gave you the Spirit of God.” In verse 14 that's a pledge, a down payment, a guarantee, as though God had to give anything but His Word. But in His grace and His love and His care He wanted to assure us, so He gave us the Spirit to dwell within us. But we have no doubt, I have the promises of His Word and I have the confirmation of the indwelling Holy Spirit. I have an inheritance, an inheritance from the God of all, the Creator of all. How awesome is that? Amazing!

Paul moves through the rest of this chapter, he wants them in verse 18 to know, to understand “what is the hope of His calling,” the end of verse 18, “what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. What is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength in His might.” And you see the words piled up here again. His power, the surpassing greatness of His power, the strength of His might. And he just piles up these words, the awesomeness of the omnipotent God. That same power that worked in Christ and brought Him alive from the grave is the power of God working in the life of His child. It gets no more powerful than that. And His Son in the accomplishing of redemption has been set as ruler over all, and particularly the focus is His ruler-ship over the church. Verse 22, “He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” The all-powerful God has placed His all-powerful Spirit in us to accomplish and assure the accomplishing of His purposes. He has brought us to be spiritual members of the church which is the spiritual body of Christ and Christ is the head.

That puts everything in perspective. This is not my church. I'm not the high priest of this church. I'm not the ruler of this church. Jesus Christ redeemed the church. He purchased it for Himself with His own blood. Paul told the elders of this Ephesians in the book of Acts that it belongs to Him. You better be careful what you do with it, how you conduct yourself in it and the leadership you provide for it was the instruction to the elders. You be on guard for that flock, it's not yours; it's His. So it is of utmost importance we understand God's purpose with the church.

Now he's going to back up. He has talked about the wonder of God's plan since before the creation of the world, providing redemption, cleansing and an eternal inheritance. But He wants to clarify. Something happens, and the Ephesian church had to deal with this. They have been in existence for a number of years. They begin to forget. So he's going to pick up in Ephesians 2:1 and say, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” Through Ephesians 1 he says it's wonderful, but you put that in the context of what you were before God intervened according to His perfect plan. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, that spiritual death. Then he'll pick up on that again in Ephesians 2:5, “even when we were dead.” But do you know what he does after stating that in verse 1? He elaborates. What does that mean, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins?” They were physically alive, reading this letter as a church, but there was a time when they were spiritually dead, cut off from God, had no relationship with Him. Now very religious, living in a religious city, dominated by religious activity. But they were spiritually dead. They worshiped a god but they had no relationship to the one true and living God.

So your trespasses and sins, you formerly walked in them, verse 2, that was the realm of your life. Your whole life was lived in the realm and domain of sin, that's where you were spiritually. “You walked according to the course of this world.” The pattern and shape of this world controlled your life, the thinking of the world, the desires of the world. You were conformed to the world. You walked according to the course of this world, this age. You walked according to the prince of the power of the air. That's the devil. Everyone who has not been born again, Jesus told one of the very religious leaders of His day, “you must be born again”—Nicodemus in John 3. Every person is walking according to the desires, will and purpose of the devil. We like to think we’re free. I'm a free person, I'm my own person, I accomplish this. You are a slave of the devil outside of Jesus Christ. We all were there. Do you know the danger? I forget that. I was saved as a young person by the grace of God. Easy to think I never did those bad, bad things that really sinful people do. Even if you did them after a while and you've been saved by God's grace and you walk with Him and you have a transformed life, pretty soon you just can't understand how people can be so dirty, so vile, do such terrible things.

That's what Paul is reminding the Ephesians of. What do you think God rescued you from? A pretty decent life? We forget and then we look down on other people. Going on now, we have homosexual marriage. How do people even . . . ? Understand we were just like them. Doesn't mean I did the same thing. Some of the strongest condemnations by Christ during His earthly ministry and then in Paul's conflict with very religious people who wouldn't have done some of these dirty sins. You know what God says—as I look at you I see a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. “There is no one who knows the depths of the wickedness and vileness of the human heart but God Himself,” Jeremiah 17:9-10. You are walking “according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

The devil continues to work and control and guide the lives of unbelievers. What he is doing is reminding believers there was a time when you lived like that, too. God didn't save you because you were more save-able, because you weren't as far gone. You were under the control of the same devil that is controlling them. “Among them we, too,” Paul includes himself, “all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.” This must be fixed, you understand. Don't forget, when the Gospel came to you and by the grace of God the light of the Gospel shone into your darkened heart and mind, and by the grace of God you believed, were changed, you were rescued. Paul never lost sight of the fact. He would tell Timothy I was the chiefest of sinners, the worst. Did Paul really live the worst life of anyone who ever lived? Well he said as I look at myself I was. Do you know what happens, what we want to be careful of? We forget. We're good people, we're church people, we study the Bible, we're just not like those people. There is a sense of truth in that, we are not like them, not because we are better than they are but because we have experienced the impact of the grace of God in our lives.

That's what he says, verse 4. After saying “we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest, but God being rich in mercy because of His great love.” And you see just the emphasis. It's not just mercy, it's being rich in mercy. It's not just love, but it's great love with which He loved us. That's the amazing thing! We've been described in the previous verses in Ephesians 2, and now we find out that God loved us, He had mercy upon us, He poured His grace out upon us. “Even when we were dead in our transgressions He made us alive together with Christ.” And in case you haven't gotten the point, “by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenlies in Christ.” I'm not there yet but I have a position there. That's awesome. Do you know what? The angels of heaven know you, they know you as a precious child of God, one that He has poured out His grace and mercy upon, one who has established you with a position in heaven with a glorious inheritance awaiting. How awesome is that—the greatness of God's grace, mercy and love. When we were dead He made us spiritually alive. You know the angels can marvel at this. They say, “look at that, that's a child of God, that belongs to God, he is precious to God, she is precious to God. She has been promised, he has been promised an inheritance as a position already established in heaven in the presence of the God we serve.”

Then he goes on to say, verse 7, “So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing,” here we go again, not just riches, “the surpassing riches of His grace.” And not just grace but grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We ought never to forget, we need to say it, the wretchedness of our sinful condition. No one was more lost than I was, no one was more lost than you. These wretched, vile, dirty people, we were just like them. We forget, we think, “I never was that bad.” You need to stop and see how God says you were, how God says I was. You know that it says in the ages to come he'll show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness through all eternity. You will be trophies of God's grace. You know the angels have never experienced redeeming grace. There are a whole category of angels who sinned, followed the devil in his rebellion and God never showed grace in providing redemption for them. How awesome it is for the holy angel of heaven to say these are so precious to God, it was His good pleasure to provide His Son to redeem them, cleanse them and give them an exalted position in heaven so that even the holy angels of heaven are appointed to be our servants. We study in the book of Hebrews that the angels are serving spirits on behalf of those who are the heirs of salvation. How sad it is that the angels would look and wonder, why do they plod along? Why do they have such a distorted perspective and view?

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,” the “that” here does not refer to faith, it just refers to what he has talked about—God's grace, God's mercy, God's love. This salvation does not find its source in me. I've been saved by grace, I contribute nothing. This is the big issue. When we were gone we had the opportunity to visit with a man who was moving out of a place across the hall. Very nice person, one of those people you visit with, you just like them. He is an attorney by profession, was moving to another state. And we bumped into him a couple of times and then we had opportunity to stand in the doorway and visit. We talked about spiritual things. He said he’d been divorced a couple of times, he was working through things now. He mentioned, “we had our son baptized in the Methodist church.” I said, “that's interesting, I was baptized in the Methodist church also.” And he smiled, sort of brightened up, nice to have someone who shares . . . Then I proceeded to share with him that I was lost. Then we went through the Gospel. He was very gracious, listened, didn't interrupt. I walked through verse by verse, got all done and he says, I believe everything you've said. I knew something was wrong so I tried to explain a little more clearly. Then we proceeded. He was trying to get his life together, he said, and he had traveled in the East and picked up some things from eastern religions, had been in Nepal and so on and was trying certain eastern practices that he has found helpful. I shared with him the uniqueness of Christ. And you know those people are lost. I can't believe that, I've seen them, I've seen their commitment to their religion and so on. So we walked through and I ended up having to say, you really don't want to submit to the authority of the living God, you want to be the authority and decide what is acceptable and what is not. Do you know the dividing line? I told him, those people are trying to work their way to heaven and that cannot be done. Do you know the difference between true believers and every other person on the face of the earth? They don't believe in the grace of God for salvation.

I was reading about the Protestant Reformation, do you know what the issue was? Basically comes down to, are you saved by grace alone through faith alone? Well, I believe everything about Christ, but I also believe this. You know what Paul told the Galatians, you are cursed to hell, anathema. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me. He that is not with Me is against Me.” So God's salvation is a gift of grace. One of the hardest things is that salvation is a humbling experience. You read the testimonies, you read John's testimony about sharing the Gospel in the door-to-door, the opportunities there. It's hard for people to be humbled and say my church life, my religious life, my best works, they are of no value. They are worthless. I am a hopelessly lost sinner, dead in my trespasses and sins, living for self and the world, serving the devil. I cast myself on the mercy of God and say, Oh, God, be merciful to me a sinner. Thank you that your Son came to do for me what I could not do for myself. I want to place my faith in Him alone. So hard, so humbling.

“It's not a result of works so that no one may boast.” “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works,” but not by good works. As a result of his changing our heart and our life, we live differently, but we are not changed by living differently. We live differently because He has changed us.

Come back to Ephesians 1:13, “In Him you also after listening to the message of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation, having also believed.” This is so crucial, that's why we've been emphasizing the key responsibilities we have as individual believers and as the church of Jesus Christ is to proclaim the Gospel. They had to hear the Gospel. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message concerning Jesus Christ,” Romans 10 tells us. After listening to the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and it's the only message that brings salvation, the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ as the payment for sin, you believed it. “How shall they believe in whom they have not heard?” A major responsibility we have is to carry the Gospel to the lost. How would I have ever been saved if someone had not brought the Gospel? How would you have been saved if someone had not brought the Gospel to you, talked to you, given you a tract, shared with you a portion of Scripture. No one is ever saved anywhere on the face of the earth who does not hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That includes your family member, that includes your neighbor, and that includes those you work with. How will they hear without a messenger? That's why we have people carrying the Gospel to the city. Encourage you to consider that. You not only carry the Gospel to people who need to hear, do you know what happens when you share the Gospel? The more you do it, the more adept you become at it, the more ready you are, the more alert you are to the opportunities, the less intimidated you are. Understand there is a spiritual battle going on. There are unbelievers sitting here, you know the devil is at work, they are his children. He is not about to lose them without a fight, he likes to distract their minds to other things and tell them you just came to please your husband or your wife or your kids or your parents. All kinds of reasons. Spiritual battles go on, only God can change a heart but all we can do is share the truth that the Spirit of God uses to change a life.

Come over to Ephesians 4. Where do we go? The only thing the church does is share the Gospel? No, as we've talked about, the church is the center of God's truth and the opening part of Ephesians 4 talks about the walk of a believer. Now that God has transformed you, “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” You don't walk in a certain way, conduct your life in a certain way so that God will accept you. You realize you have nothing to bring to God and you cast yourself on His grace, believing what He has done in Christ. When you are born again, God places His Spirit within you. Now from within a new life begins to manifest itself and your conduct is changed.

Then he tells us in verse 7 as the result of the death and resurrection of Christ, He came to this earth to suffer, die and be raised, God's grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift, verse 7. In other words when God saved us, He didn't just scatter all these unbelievers around. He brought them together in family relationships. Remember Christ is the head of the church. The body of Christ, the church, is manifest in the local churches that meet in different places. And there are gifts given, and these gifts are given to local churches. Paul told the Corinthian church as he started that letter in 1 Corinthians 1 and said you have received every spiritual gift. Every gift necessary for the development of that church had been provided by God because He put it together. Christ is head, not only of the universal church but of every individual church as well.

Now how do we function? So in Ephesians 4:11 he talks about some of the gifts given. “He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastor/teachers.” This is a sampling of the gifts. You can go to 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 and get a much more detailed list of the gifts, Romans 12, 1 Peter 4. The analogy is of the body. Remember Christ is the head, now by God's grace He has brought together the members of the body. And they are just like the physical body, every part has a place, a role to play. These gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 primarily have to do with the communication of the Word of God. Apostles and prophets received new revelation, now that our New Testament is complete we have evangelists and pastors and teachers. They have responsibility of the oversight, care and development of the body. These gifts are given to do the work of the ministry. No. There are ways the evangelical church in many cases has slid down to an idea. The pastor, we hire him to do the work of the ministry. Can't be done, it's not God's plan.

Here is the plan, that these gifts given for equipping people in the Word of God, sharing of the truth of the Gospel and understanding God's truth and overseeing them. It's for “the equipping of the saints for the work of service.” All the gifts in one sense are a ministry of serving. I am to serve you by exercising my gift, and part of my gift is through the teaching of the Word, along with many other teachers here, to equip the saints. That leaves some in the area of evangelism to help equip the saints and enable them to be more effective and exercise their gifts in a variety of ways. “To equip the saints for the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ.” This is God's plan for the maturing of the church, the body of Christ.

Why we keep going to other sources, other places. We find out what the trend of the world is. The world is talking about climate change, the world is talking about all these things and we ought to get on that bandwagon. It's not my church. God is the sovereign One, He has appointed His Son as the head over all things for the church. We come to His Word to find out what is the church to be. Some people say I'm not going to church, I'll just do a Bible study. Well, join the Kiwanis. What are you looking for? Well, we do more than . . . Yes we do, we function and that's where he goes. All the parts of the body will function doing the work of serving. It is work as many of you know. We have a working body and we appreciate that. Some are at work now teaching and training the kids. Some are taking care of little ones in the nursery. All contributing and then all the other things that go on in so many ways.

How long will it go on? “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man.” What is maturity? “To the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” This is God's plan, to mature us to be in full conformity to the character of Christ. And I don't care how long you've been a believer, you are not done maturing, I'm not done maturing, I am not perfectly mature in Christ. That's a lifelong process and will reach its culmination in the glorification of the body and the completion of this work of sanctification. He goes on, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith.” We are working together in the power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the purposes of God in maturing us.

The result of this will be “no longer to be children,” the infants, the little ones with the characteristic, “tossed here and there by waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.” Do you know what? When you don't adhere to the Word of God, you don't know it and are committed to die for it, pretty soon well, what they are saying sounds good. I don't see anything wrong with that, maybe we ought to try that. Seems to be working for them and we are just out here grabbing around, we are open to delusion. The devil has a lot of great ideas for church growth.

Many years ago, I've shared with you, I was with some men who were involved in the beginning of the church growth movement and we visited some of the largest churches of the time on the West Coast. And what a mixture, mishmash of theology. I asked the leader I was with, “what about the theology?” “Oh, it doesn't matter, these things work whatever your theology.” Doesn't that scare you? You can build a large church and it doesn't matter what the theology is. We have found principles that will work no matter what your theology. Do you know what the other way of saying that is? We could build a church without the Holy Spirit, we can build a church that doesn't have to be under the authority of the Head, Jesus Christ. They don't want to put it that blatantly but that's what we're saying. Our goal is the same goal as any business—McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, whatever. Build the business, and the church has become a business. And we'll decide if we are not satisfied with what God is doing, we'll do it our way. Won't be what God is doing in the world.

Verse 15 brings us back, “Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies,” every part. Note this, the sovereign God placed you in this body. In doing so He says He has a special role for you to fulfill. That’s exciting, and that's what he says. Every part supplies something, just like your physical body. That doesn't mean if something doesn't function, if I have a stroke and lose the ability to use this arm, my body will still function but it will function with limitations. That's why the clarity of the analogy of the body developed in detail in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is important. There are no extraneous parts because I haven't put together the body, the church. God has put it together for His purposes.

It's “according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” There is the pattern. We carry the Gospel of God's salvation to a lost world. God in His grace reaches in, shines the light of the Gospel on a heart and mind. They are saved by the wonder of God's grace, added to the body of Christ, the church. People say, “I don't have to go to church, I've trusted Christ.” If you've really trusted Christ you have to be obedient. He placed you in a body. “Well, I'm a member of the universal church.” What's the manifestation of the universal church? The local church. “Well all churches, they are hypocrites or I don't . . . “ All kinds of reasons to be rebellious, aren't there? Everyone has a role, everybody has a part.

And I want to say here that the gifts are given to the church, it's not my prerogative not to be part. Now I want to say something, years ago we had a number of families leave because they thought the focal point should be the family. They didn't want their children being taught by anybody else but them. The gifts aren't given to the physical family. I'm not putting down the role and importance of our physical family, but the gifts of God are not given to the family. They are given to the church. I shared with our first hour workers the important role they play. It's good for our children to learn at an early age that God has put the body together. There are people that minister in your life that help you grow and develop, that's part of it, that's the role, that's what goes on. We come up with all these extra-biblical ideas and we expect God to bless. And the subtle thing comes. Some ideas we come up with like recycling may not be bad in and of themselves, they just are not what the church is about. The church is about the business that God is doing in His work of salvation and building His children to maturity is the work today.

Let me say another thing. While we were gone, I’d take a break from reading and we'd go out and have lunch and walk around, and we went to an antique store. We just drive down the road, there it says antique store, let's go in and look. Big building and met a lady and we went in. Ends up she and her husband own it. They had a lot of big furniture. We're not looking for furniture, but we looked around at their furniture. We talked to the lady and came to the Gospel, ends up she was a believer. And oh my goodness was she excited about her church, and she wasn't new to the church. She had been going to this particular church 12-15 years, and she drove a distance. You drive in from there? We knew where the town was she was talking about. Yes, it's worth it. I've learned so much about the Bible and the Word and it's the best church. And we couldn't leave until she had written down the address of the church and how we could get there. You know, we ought to be excited. It's so nice to see someone excited about their church. Shouldn't she be excited about Jesus? Well, she was, that was it. This is where I'm learning the Word, I'm growing, I'm developing, I'm part of the development of other people. We ought to be excited about it. We lose that.

I remember sitting with a young man in his early 20s, I knew his father, his father attended here a little bit and his dad was really excited about the teaching of the Word here. They had moved away. And one day we were at their place of business and the son said, “I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me why my dad is so excited about your church.” So we sat down and for two hours we talked about the Gospel. We ought to know our attitude is part of our testimony. Yeah, I go to church, it's . . . Yeah, that's where we go. Say, Lord, am I where you have appointed me to be? How blessed I am. Over time we can settle down and it becomes commonplace and we notice the things we don't like. It's like you move into a house and you love it, but after you live in it a while you find this wrong with it, and you don't like that, and this isn't the way it ought to be, and I don't like that, it's too much trouble to bother with. We want to be careful.

That's why Paul starts out reminding them, this is the purpose of Almighty God and this purpose isn't completed yet in our practice. He has to remind these Ephesians that God took you from your hopeless, lost condition but He is not done with you. You must continue to grow, you must continue to mature, you must continue to be faithful to the Word, to take in the Word. Then to function as God has gifted you to function, to make the contribution that God ordained when He saved you, that you would make in the work that He is doing in the world. Does it get anymore wonderful than this? Any more exciting? Should I not be thrilled to be able to talk to people about the wonderful thing God has done for me? He saved me. I was lost, I was hopeless in the world. I was religious, I had been baptized, my parents made sure I went to Sunday School, but I was lost. I explain what Jesus Christ did for me. And now I am part of a church and we grow together and we have the privilege of looking into God's Word together and doing what He would have us do to accomplish His work today. May we never tire of that. May our church be faithful to the Word and what God has called us together to do.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace. Lord, it's true, it's easy for us to become tired. We wouldn't put it this way, but tired of Your grace, commonplace, rather indifferent. Lord, it's good for us to be reminded that You are the great and awesome God. It's Your purposes being accomplished in the world today, it's Your purposes being accomplished in our lives. You have called us to Yourself for a purpose, You have called us to be part of the body of Christ for a purpose, You have given us Your indwelling Spirit for a purpose, You have gifted us for a purpose. Lord, we are about matters of eternal importance, eternal significance. May we be bold, aggressive in love with the truth of the Gospel, that many more might hear, that You might do in a heart what only You can do. May we never tire of growing, learning more of the Savior, growing in the knowledge and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to be more mature individually, to be more mature as a church, to have lives that are a greater testimony to the riches of Your grace that has been lavishly poured out upon us. For we give You praise, in Christ's name. Amen.