Text: Ephesians 4:1-6

My purpose for this message: To depict what makes God glad in His churches.

Delivered: Jan. 10, 2010

 

The Growing Church That Makes God Glad (part 1)

 

FIND Ephesians 4:1-6.

For these first few months of the new year, I’m talking about the church—specifically relating to our expansion project: Growing for God’s Glory.  There are dozens of reasons why any church grows: a smorgasbord of programs to choose from, top flight children’s programs, good music, good preaching, convenient location, sound doctrine, etc. 

But when God looks at a growing church, are these the main things that make the Father’s heart glad?  If not, what does?  Several months ago Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar published a book, Growing up Bin Laden.  In it he says that what made his father’s heart glad was when his sons and daughters volunteer for suicide missions.  When Omar objected to his father’s urging, the elder Bin Laden said, “You hold no more a place in my heart than any man or boy in the entire country.  This is true for all my sons.”

Omar writes, that’s when he finally knew exactly where he stood.  “My father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons.”  How different from our heavenly Father.  He has infinite love for His children, and this is what they’re like that makes His heart glad.  READ Ephesians 4:1-6.

 

PRAY.

The man who wrote this was incarcerated.  Not because he had stolen anything or attacked anyone, but because Jewish leaders wanted Paul out of the way, wanted to stop the flood of their people turning to Christ.  In jail he wrote a letter to his friends in Ephesus.  Mine would have been about danger from other inmates, mistreatment by the guards, and bad food.

But from the time Jesus intercepted him on that road near Damascus, Paul was on a mission to glorify God by building and nurturing the Church of Jesus Christ—and even prison couldn’t put out that fire.  He wrote the letter as something of a church manual: this is what the church is, how God brought it about, this is how the church should look.  (This book is so foundation it’s one of the 5 books you read every year in the 6-year “Through the Bible” plan.)

These verses (as well as those which follow; next week we’ll cover 7-16) are about church life.  Let’s unpack them.

 

1. The church’s life should be worthy of my salvation.  4:1

…live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  He’s talking about living a life corporately that’s worthy of the life each of us has received through Christ, individually.  The context is clear that what’s being described is much more than a set of personal ethics; it’s the church ethic; how believers in a family of faith live together in unity.

Paul grounds corporate unity in our Christian calling; salvation.  Romans 1:6: You also are called to belong to Jesus Christ.  1 Peter 2:9: God called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Is the quality of our church life together—how we treat one another, pay attention to (or ignore) one another, help one another, give each other the benefit of the doubt, serve each other—worthy of the infinite quality of our salvation (great question to ask ourselves every day…)?  Is our church life together—Keystone church, worthy of God’s gift to me?

When a bunch of people come to Christ, gather together into a church—a family of faith, what should a worthy corporate life look like?  This is how we answered that question in Keystone’s vision (under RELATIONSHIPS): We foresee the people who are Keystone Church acting like the family we are, and placing our love for each other above our love for ourselves: we care, encourage, exhort, practice hospitality, don’t lie, show sympathy, sacrifice, forgive, are kind, show compassion.  In other words, we do whatever is necessary to promote the love of the fellowship.  We refuse to gossip or hold a grudge and will admonish others who do.  We work at becoming more and more transparent with each other so that we actually become brothers and sisters to each other rather than strangers.  We are considerate of the weaker brother/sister and are slow to charge him/her with legalism.  We also recognize that some brothers/sisters are stronger, and in disputable matters are slow to charge him/her with ungodliness.

Sounds like Nirvana!  No, just the church of Jesus Christ.  We’re no longer who we were, so it shouldn’t be surprising if we’re no longer like we were.  This is churchlife worthy of our calling. 

Here’s how Paul describes worthy churchlife.

 

2. Think rightly about yourself.  4:2

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Almost sounds like a check-off list—which I think it is, but of what kind?  Not so much a to-do list, but a “to-think” list. 

1. He starts by calling the saints—each believer—to humility—or as the

RSV puts it, lowliness.  The Greeks were big on pride—not “lowliness” which is why the NT writers apparently had to actually invent a new Greek word for it.  Until Christ showed up, humility was a character flaw, not something to strive for.

You see a line to get into the ball game, a concert, some event, it’s instinctive: find the shortest line, get front as far as you can, and communicate by body, by look, or by warning: “Don’t you even think about trying to cut in front of me!”  Instinctive, because we didn’t think Christianly first.  Not lowly, but ME FIRST!

You may say, “Oh, I let anybody cut in line.  I don’t want to make a fuss.”  People like you are tolerant of what others do to you, you let folks walk all over you.  But that’s not humility, you’re just too timid to object.  In fact, inwardly, you may be seething. 

In church we might not be quite so instinctive with each other knowing how it’s going to look.  But thoughts of our so-called “rights,” are deeply engrained.  I deserve this or that.  I’m entitled to this or that.  

The honest answer to the question, “What am I worthy of?” is nothing.  I was a doomed sinner with a one way ticket to hell to endure the endless wrath of God which I have earned in spades.  But, by God’s intervention—one I had no claim to, He delivered me by the death of His Son.  And made me His own son, His daughter.

So, if I don’t deserve God’s deliverance but have received it anyway, does it matter if I’m first in line or last?  Get my own way or don’t?  Am treated with the honor or attention I think I should get, or not? 

No, it doesn’t matter.  But following our instincts won’t get us where Paul is leading us.  This battle is won or lost in the mind; thinking is where all the bad and the good begins.

2. Be completely humble and gentle…

Gentleness (or meekness) sounds distasteful—a bit like a man in a dress; or a woman who endures her husband’s insults and slaps.  Yet what Paul urges on the church, is how Jesus described Himself.  READ Matthew 11:29: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  If churches live like Jesus, couldn’t we expect that in them (churches), people would find rest for their souls?  Could this (lack of gentleness) be why strife tends to better characterize some churches, than rest?  Remember, this is part of a to-think list.  Except when the issue is false doctrine, when a church starts to fray or come apart, it’s not just from conflict—that’s normal in a church (and not necessarily bad), it’s from how Christians think about conflict—or how they think in conflict:

·         It’s my way or the highway

·         I’m not going to let him get the best of me.

·         I can’t believe I’m being treated this way

·         I’ll never speak to her again

·         No one has a right to question how I conduct myself

·         That position should have been mine

·         I have a right to expect ________

·         If people would just listen to me

Humility…, gentleness?

3. …be patient, bearing with one another in love. 

Again, patience with other people, willingly putting up with their immaturity, their foolishness, their mistakes, their shortcomings, begins in the mind.  You’re an adult believer, well-matured.  You’re not even that bad of a sinner anymore.  And you wonder why in the world, there are people in your church who cuss, who slip up sexually, who won’t speak to a relative, who don’t give to the work of the church, who won’t serve in the church, who are critical, etc., etc.  Sisters and brothers less mature than you.  You say, “Get it together!” 

My mature friend: there’s a reason it’s called progressive sanctification.  Can you be patient while God works on them as He has graciously worked on you?  In theory, you’re a fan of patient love; will you practice it?  We’re good at talking about love, but the reason so many churches are hurting so badly is that Christians are a little rusty at practicing it.

This became the apostle John’s final sermon.   According to tradition, he’s the only disciple who did not die a violent death.  Peter, crucified upside down; Paul, beheaded; Thomas, run through with a spear, Simon—either crucified or cut in half.

Arrested by Emperor Domitian in the mid-nineties A.D., John was exiled to a tiny penal colony off the coast of Turkey for proclaiming Jesus as God instead of the emperor.  In less than two years he was released but it was during that isolation that Jesus appeared in a vision and gave him the words to the final book of the Bible: Revelation.

Now feeble and in his 90’s, when he returned to his home church in Ephesus (in Turkey), the story goes that each Lord’s Day friends would help him down the aisle of the gathered church.  And as he turned to the congregation he would muster all his strength and make this plea: “Little children, love one another.”  And then he’d lapse silent.  His friends would carry him back to his home.  The following week, they’d bring him back again.  And again, he’d admonish them.  “Little children, love one another.”

 

3. No price too high for unity.  4:3

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  Remember Good Friday, how Jesus’ body was ruthlessly ravaged…, so that in and through His blood, He could bring together all kinds of people to be the Church (Ephesians 2:-14-16).  He is head of the church; bought it with His blood,  When one day we stand before him, how much interest do you think He will have in any of our accomplishments in school, career, business, community, clubs…,  compared to our accomplishments in His body, the church?  By accomplishments I don’t mean how we excelled in serving, or teaching or prophesying, or leading, but rather contributions we made in keeping the unity of the church.  V.3 says the church has a unity that is not natural—but of the Spirit.  Should be a reality, because every true member of the church has the Holy Spirit living in him/her.

I do believe some Christians will be startled to find out that though they lived an exemplary moral life, Jesus will have some harsh words for them because they contributed to their church’s disunity, not unity.

 

4. The case for oneness.  4:4-6

REREAD vv.4-6.  Seven times Paul uses the adjective “one”.  Oneness means unity.  He’s making a case for church unity because all the truth that comes from Him is one: there is only one true church; only one Holy Spirit; the calling you received was to a single hope—in Christ.  There are not two Jesuses, not 6 kinds of baptisms, and not many gods. 

So in the pressing for church unity he’s also making a case for church purity.  If the church you’re part of holds to a different body, different faith, different Spirit, or different Christ than the ones of Scripture, then unity has already been breached—and is irreconcilable; sometimes separation from a local church is your only option.  

If, for example, the church preaches a gospel other than the one given in this book, Paul says the person—or angel—preaching it is cursed; literally, damned (Galatians 1:8-9).  If that church teaches that gospel faith is actually faith + your deeds, run.  After you’ve tried to warn against the false gospel.  There’s one faith, and it began with a work of grace stretching from Calvary across hundreds of years to hearts which will humbly—not work for forgiveness, but receive it by faith.

If you’re ever part of a church where bizarre, unbiblical manifestations are credited to the Holy Spirit, run.  After you’ve tried to warn the leaders that this is not the Holy Spirit sent from the Father.

 

Concl:

The Growing Church that makes God glad; it is not one where there is never any conflict, never any money problems, never any change, not one where people are never overlooked (think Acts 6:1), but it is one where people think of the church as it is—their family of faith, and treat each other like family; and in a manner worthy of their calling in Christ.  No matter whether our worship base is here or across the road, whether we’re 400 people, 800, or 200, may we make the heart of God glad by our church life!