The Church is…
Scripture: Ephesians 1: 22-23 Date: 31 January 2010
Purpose: To help the church see the need for each other.
Have you ever noticed how some things are just so right on when you hear them? Take for example an email I received some time ago entitled “Middle Age.”
Illustration: “Maybe it’s true that life begins at fifty. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. I am told that there are three signs of old age. The first is your loss of memory, the other two I forget. You’re getting old when you don’t care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don’t have to go along. Statistics show that at the age of seventy, there are five women to every man. Isn’t that the darndest time for a guy to get those odds? Middle age is when you have stopped growing at both ends and have begun to grow in the middle. A man has reached middle age when he is cautioned to slow down by his doctor instead of by the police. Don’t worry about avoiding temptation as you grow older, it will avoid you.”
We chuckle at these because they contain nuggets of truth that we can identify with. But my friends God has given humankind another nugget of truth that we can not only identify with, but we can belong to, and we can allow it to help transform our lives at any age.
It is the church of Jesus Christ and right now, this very moment we are experiencing part of its life and ministry.
Ephesians 1: 22-23 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
*RELEASE CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN’S CHURCH*
We read in our text this morning that “God gave over all things to the church!” The church is not here to view history, but to make it!
The time has come when we must realize that our Lord is saying, “The world has yet to see what I can do with a church fully committed to me.” Have we the courage to dare to be that church this morning?
Illustration: This past week in your mailbox arrived a puzzle piece. It was not very big was it? And some of you shared with me that you didn’t have the foggiest idea as to what part of the puzzle your piece belongs too.
(Show on Power Point the puzzle.)
That is just the point. We are not one, until all of us are working together in building the Kingdom of God! I can not do it alone. You can not do it alone. It takes all of us working together to be the church of Jesus Christ. If one of us is missing, then all of us suffer. We just can’t do it without you!!
As we look at our puzzle, we discover that some of us are missing. We can tell it is a picture of our church even without the other pieces, but it sure would not stand on its own without our missing Brothers and Sisters.
And we cannot be the church God wants us to be without you as well. Each person is valuable to our church and when you are missing, we simply are not the same. Your presence is important to us as a church and to our Father in Heaven.
What is the church anyway?
I. The church first of all is busy, isn’t it? In I Corth. 16: 13 we read, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
A. To be on the alert means to pay attention, to keep focused. We need to stay busy with the things at hand lest we loose our focus.
1. Paul challenges the Thessalonians in I Thess. 5:6 to not sleep but to be on the alert and be sober. This is not the time for the church to sleep!
Illustration: Not long ago Stacy and I were driving home from Kansas. It was a long drive and I was tired. As I drove, I became sleepy. Stacy looked over to me and says are you awake? “O, ya sure,” I responded. She was not convinced and told me to pull over and she would drive. Friends, that is part of the work of each one of us. To help each other stay awake in the Lord!
2. From Adam and Eve who were given the task of adding to its number in a hurry, to the Patriarchs who led the nation (the people of God) to the Upper room fulfillment; the church has been busy.
3. As the church we are not called to sit quietly, to be still. From the foundation of the world. God called the church into existence to be His likeness on earth and our God is a busy god!
#1. As the church, we are to be busy fulfilling God’s plans and purposes.
In Matt. 28:19 Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
1. People whom we know and love, as well as perfect strangers are separated from God’s love by sin, they are lost and going to an empty eternity.
2. We must be busy about the Father’s work of helping people discover His love and His salvation. We are not asked, nor are we expected to lead everyone we know to Jesus, but a few is not asking or expecting too much.
3. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” This “even so”, suggests that we are sent under the same circumstances, with the same authority, and with the same resources as the Father sent the Son.
4. God does not set any limits to the church’s use of divine resources.
5. He has made them available to a believing church. The Holy Spirit will lead our conversations with those that are separated from God and need to discover His love, but we must be willing.
6. We have before us the puzzle, called The Fertile Church of Christ, but our church is not complete until every piece has found its place, its home. Are you out searching for the missing pieces of our church? Because we are incomplete without them!
II. Yes the church is busy, but the church is also a Body.
A. In I Cornth. 12:13 “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body.”
1. The work of building the Kingdom is a “body thing.” It is not just for somebody but for everybody.
2. The missing pieces of our puzzle are not just scraps of paper, they are people.
3. Each piece of the puzzle has his or her own part to play and without each person doing their part, the end result isn’t the same. There is a scene in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that really helps illustrate how we affect others weather we realize it or not.
VIDEO: “Daisy’s Story”
- In this clip, we have seen how each person affected the outcome of Daisy’s life. True, her outcome was not a positive outcome but that’s the point isn’t it.
- If each person can affect the life of individual people by the small things we do, then what do you imagine we could do if we would only work together for our church.
4. Each of you are important to the church. People whom we are tied to with chords that cannot be broken, people who can share our burdens and our load, people who are a part of us, the church. And the church can make all the difference in a life.
#1. Yes, the church is a body, that not only needs each part, each person, but it needs each part to function properly as well.
1. The Apostle Paul argues that point in I Corth. 12: 15 and following when he asks the body if it can do without the eye or the hand etc.
2. Have you ever tried to zip your pants with one hand, or button a shirt? Try it, and I can promise you, you will be glad the other hand is hanging around waiting to help.
3. I have tried to walk at times when my leg fell asleep and it just doesn’t work. I need both my legs at full attention.
4. You may not think you are important in the body of Christ, but let me assure you, we can not function properly without you! Nor can you be all that God wants you to be without us either.
5. Now I am not saying that the church is perfect. In fact, I have said many times, “when you find that perfect church don’t join it, because you will ruin it.”
6. The problem is not the church. God ordained the church. The problem then, is those of us who make up the church.
Illustration: The first Chapel I served at in the Army was at Wheeler Army Air field on Oahu, HI. Do you know that someone stole my pizza for lunch at that chapel? It was just a little past noon, and as I opened the refrigerator to get my pizza and pop it in the microwave, it was gone.
Now I just could not believe this, so I went to the church office where
two upstanding Army Chaplains were visiting. I began to tell of my
stolen pizza and Chaplain Manning was looking for a napkin.
Finally Chaplain Manning asked me, “can you describe your pizza?”
You guessed it, Chaplain Manning was hungry, so he began his sweep of
the chapel kitchen for any unmarked food, and he found my unmarked
pizza and he ate my lunch.
7. Now I ask you as a church, who was to blame? Was I to blame? No way! Chaplain Manning did it. But who were people going to blame? The chapel, (the church), that’s who, but we never even got a bite, except for one of our members, yet we all were going to take the rap for it.
8. I told you it is not the church that is the problem; it is those of us who make up the church, it is the individual that is the problem.
#2. But the church is also a body that shares the joys and the pains of its members. In other words we hurt with each other and we seek to help each other
A. In I Corth. 12:26 we read, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it and if one member is honored all the members rejoice with it.”
1. All of us have been hurt at one time or another by a Brother or sister in Christ and all of us have hurt another Brother or Sister is Christ as well.
2. I have played the role of both and you have as well. But God calls us as the church to always offer forgiveness and love to each other.
3. Sometimes we get hurt by each other and sometimes we get hurt from people we hardly know, but when we do get hurt, I pray that each member of the body will love, care, and embrace the wounded member.
4. That is way of Christ and the way of His Church.
III. Yes the church is busy, the church is a Body, and the church is in battle too.
A. I don’t know about you, but for me, it is tough living the Christian life. Sometimes I seem to go from one struggle, one battle to another. I think someone is out to bring me down. In fact, I know someone is out to bring me down and every Christian I know down.
#1. Because the church is in a battle against evil.
1. In Ephesians 6:12 Paul says that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
2. The bible is quite clear that humanity is engaged in a war. Whether of our own choosing or not, does not matter. It is here anyway and we must admit it.
3. The enemy, Satan is out to destroy our marriages, our children, our sense of decency and respect, and he is not going away by simply burying our heads in the sand.
4. God called the church to battle; to the front line. Are you ready!
5. There is safety in numbers and as the forces of evil mount their attack; I am going to stand with the church by my side to fight this demonic attack. Because the Church will always be victorious. You are a winner this morning and don’t you let anyone tell you differently.
6. I am going to come out a winner, because that is the destiny of the Church of Jesus Christ!
7. Yes there may be some hurts and struggles along the way, but I am not going to give up. Are you?
Illustration: Kenny shared an illustration a while back during our evening service that I believe is very fitting for this morning. A man found a cocoon of a butterfly and one day a small opening appeared and he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed stop making any progress so the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand and to be able to support the body of the butterfly and it fly off.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of his life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
You see, the man in his act of kindness to help the butterfly, did not understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for it to get through the tiny opening was God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight.
8. You and I may not know why we have to struggle, but I can promise you that God is using each struggle to get us closer to heaven.
9. I am like the butterfly. Some days I just can’t seem to get off the ground and soar where God saved me to be, but I can tell you one day - I am going to fly like an eagle!
#2. But when I think of the church being in battle against evil, I also think the church is in battle for a sanctified people.
1. God is calling us as his people to live a holy life before him. In a society that calls wrong right and right wrong, we are being called to be light in this darkness.
2. If you are a Christian, then let it show. Let is show in all you do.
Conclusion: I love the church of Jesus Christ, I this church! And I need you to help me become the man God wants me to be. I cannot do it without you. Will you help me?
This morning would you join with me and dare to be the church God is asking us to be?
1. If you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, then I invite you to come before Him this morning and say yes to Him.
2. If you are already Christian, may I ask you to step forward with me and ask God to show you what He has for you to do in His Body here at the Fertile Church of Christ?
- I long to be a better Father, a better husband, a better pastor, etc and I long also to be a better member of the Body of Christ. Will you join me?
