Commitment To The Church #2 Series

Theme: Commitment to the Church Pt.2

Text: Ephesians 2: 13-22

Introduction

A. Last Sunday I talked to you about commitment to the church. In that message, I have encouraged you to commit yourselves to our church family here and be part of what God is going to do with His family here. Again, I’d like to encourage you to be part of the sacrifices and services to build up the church body of the Lord here.

This morning, I will preach on the same subject, but this time it’s on the reasons why we should be active in our involvement and participation in the building up of the body of the Lord, the church.

Well, there are certainly different reasons why people chose to commit and involve themselves to a particular church. You might have one as well, I believe. Maybe it’s the church where the whole family goes for worship, or maybe the people of that church are friendly, or the church activities are exciting, or the praise and worship and the music ministry is lively and you like it, or the church provides quality and inspiring spiritual ministries or services to the people, or maybe because you simply feel “you are in.” I don’t know.

One Sunday morning a woman kept calling her husband to get up and prepare for church. The man said that he would not go to the church. The wife insisted that he should go to the church for three reasons, she said: “first, because the church is friendly, second, because our family will go to the church every Sunday, and third,” now the woman said in a stern voice, “because you are the Pastor of the church.”

Now, why do we need to commit ourselves to the body of Christ? Let’s open our Bible in Ephesians 2: 13-22. In this passage, Paul stipulated the grounds and the reasons why we should be active in our participation and involvement for the building of the body of Christ.

I. OUR BELONGINGNESS TO THE CHURCH

We belong to the body of Jesus. All believers of the Lord Jesus Christ are citizens of God’s kingdom, members of His household, and individual stones built and joined together in Jesus who is the chief cornerstone. We ought to be actively participating in the building up the body of Christ because we belong to it. Paul must have written this admonition in bold letters.

Now look at the passage closely, we will notice that the apostle Paul gives importance on explaining how this belongingness to the body of the Lord was made possible both with the Gentile and Jewish believers. Paul would like us to clearly understand of the means through which we are made part of the family of God. The means that made our belongingness to the body of the Lord possible is not cheap. It cost the life of the Son of God.

By the way, the apostle made mentioned of the Gentiles and Jews to tell us that race is not significant when it comes to becoming part of God’s household. The Gentiles are said here to be those who are far away from God, while the Jews are said to be “near” because they have the covenants of God. Yet both groups were reconciled to God and brought into one body –the body of Christ –through the blood of Jesus.

Here Paul strongly declared that the sacrifice of Jesus at the cross is the only way so that a person, Jew or Gentile, is reconciled to God and is brought into the body of Christ. It’s not the church membership form that a person would sign up that brings him into the Lord’s body. It’s not the water of baptism that cleanses away the sin of a person. It’s not the elements of communion that one partakes every first Sunday of the month that brings forgiveness and reconciliation to God. Paul says that the blood of Jesus brought us near to God. The Son of God gave His own life, suffered shame, and died a torturous death to bring each one who believed on Him into His body. As the song says, “Not because of who I am, but because of what you’ve done. Not because of what I’ve done, but because of who you are.”

Now what does that mean to us? It means that our being part of the church of the Lord is so precious and priceless. Paul says, we are “bought with a price,” a great price, the precious blood of the Lamb of God. It means that we have the divine basis to involve in the affairs of the body of Jesus. It means that we must participate, we must involve, and with all our heart, we must actively uphold, support, be instrumental to the building up Christ’s body, and be a blessing to our church family because we belong to the Lord and to each other, not by other human means, but through the death of our loving Savior.