Why Church #4 A Spiritual Report Card Series

~ Intro: Little Billy, a Jewish boy, who was failing his math lessons. His parents tried everything they could to get him to do better in this subject, but he continued to fail. At last, they took him down to the Catholic School, and enrolled him. After the first day, Billy came home and went up to his room, closed the door, and went to work on his math. His parents could hardly get him down for dinner. After dinner, he went back and "hit the books again." When his report card came next time, he laid it on the table for his parents to find. When his mother read it, she was amazed. He had an "A" in math. She questioned him about it wondering how such a change had come about. She asked him if it was the teachers, or the kind of books they used, but he said "no." Then why the change in his math scores? He said, "That first day at school, I looked up on the wall, and I saw a man nailed to a plus sign, and I knew that they were not fooling around here. So I went to work on my math."

We all need a little motivation now and then and we also need a way to track our progress…

Progress and accountability need to be tracked in every aspect of our lives including our spiritual lives. We all need a Spiritual Report Card and we find a great one in our text for today Ephesians 2:11…

1. To measure our progress we need to remember where we started.(vrs 11-13)

• Separated and without any rights.

- Foreigners not even allowed to become a part.

- When there is no chance for us to change our situation it result in…

• We were without hope because we were without God.

That brings us to our 2nd point…

2. Realize there is no excuse because Jesus removed all the barriers so that people can be united to Him.(vrs 14-18)

• Notice what Jesus did here. He completely destroyed it.

- He didn’t punch a hole in the barrier for us to look through.

- He didn’t make a doorway to gain limited accesses.

• Communion:

- First He came to bring peace between people…

~ We don’t like this, but when we examine ourselves before celebrating communion, God will bring people to our mind whom we are not at peace with because we are to try and make peace with them.

- Then reconciled them to God

• After accepting what Jesus did, we need to follow His example.

- We need to break down walls that are keeping people from God.

~ Unfortunately we tend to rebuild the walls instead of leading others into God’s presence.

~ We build personal walls-to protect us from bad influences

~ We build institutional walls-our church culture, lingo, traditions, values

are unknown to outsiders.(visitor with coffee being told, it’s not allowed

upstairs)(visitor with kids told they have to wait for fellowship snacks)

~ We build preference walls-music, spiritual arrogance (pray, study,

tithes, serve, attended more), denominational walls. (joke about Baptist

in heaven)

~ Which walls are God asking us to demolish today?

- We also need to do our part to unite other with God.

~ Who have you brought recently…or brought at least one step closer

~ Who is God bringing to your mind that you can bring one step closer.

When we are progressing properly in God’s eyes there is a two part result that is obvious to everyone. This bring us to our final point today…

3. Progress is measured in peace, unity and the continued presence of God.(vrs 19-22)

• Peace is the over-arching factor mentioned so far.

• Do we have a peace that guards our hearts and minds.

- It allows us to sleep at night regardless of life circumstances

- It allows us to enjoy being with everyone God brings across our path

• This is possible because of the unity we have in Christ.

- What He did on the cross is our foundation for life and unity.

• This peace and unity allows us to acknowledge and enjoy the presence of God.

- Without these we will never be able to sense or enjoy God presence.

~ Conclusion:

• So how do you measure up today on your spiritual report card?

- Do you enjoy God’s presence?

- Are you united with God’s family?

- Does peace guard your heart and mind?

- If you find yourself falling short on this report card, Jesus wants to remove the walls in your life.

• Today you may be here and realized for the first time that God removed the walls so that you can have a relationship with Him.

- Accepting what He did and starting a relationship with Him isn’t hard...

~ It’s as simple as the A, B, C’s…