Ephesians 4:4-6 | Christ Bled for the Church and You Treat It as Optional

You remember the words that Paul spoke at the beginning of Ephesians 4. It says, As a prisoner for the Lord. As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit. Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is in is overall and through all, and in all. That's where we were last week, and we're about to launch into the way that God has gifted each one of us. But as I prepared this week to look at the next part, I felt that we need to take a pause. We need to take a topical break, because Paul has been talking about the church, and he's going to continue to talk about the church. In fact, everything from now on in the rest of Ephesians is about the church. When he talks about relationship between servants and masters, he's going to be talking about the church. When he talks about marriage, he's going to be talking about the church. Every single thing he's going to say is about the church because the church is more than we think. The church is bigger and broader than we think. And so I thought it would be good to take a topical break here and just think about this one body that Paul is talking about. You see, when Paul says one body, he means not only the body of Christ, as in the physical body of Christ, but he means the one body that is the church, that is us, not the building, not the. And I keep saying this every week, and I'm going to keep saying it because we still get up on a Sunday morning and we still say, I'm going to church, even though we are the church. But he says, this one body, that's you and me, the church. And he talks about this with such passion. And that made me think to myself, do we have the same passion about the church? This was something we shared a little bit of last week, that for many Christians, their religion or their faith is built upon recognizing who Jesus is, but not recognizing what the church is. Sometimes that's just because, as we said, we don't understand what the church really is. We think that Christianity is a me and Jesus thing. And it stops there. And so I thought to myself, we need to stop. And those of you who were with us on Tuesday night, you will have had a little bit of a preview to this, but I thought we need to talk about the church. We need to talk about this body of Christ. I want to tell you three things about the Church this morning. And the first thing that I want to tell you about the church is that the Church matters to Christ. The Church matters to Christ. How do we know that the Church matters to Christ? Well, the church matters to Christ because the Bible tells us that he died for her. That's us, by the way, when he says her, we are the bride of Christ. That's another way that the Bible looks at it. And who doesn't care about his bride? I hope, like Emmanuel, all of us will care about our brides, about our wives, because who doesn't? We should. And so it's described as the bride of Christ. Well, Jesus loves the church, and we know that he loves the church. We know that church matters to Christ because it says he died for it. Christ died for the church. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2. We've already studied it, but let's just have a quick look at it. Ephesians 2, 14, 16 says, For He Himself, I.e. christ, He Himself is our peace. Who has made the two groups 1? And we talked all about division, didn't we, between different kinds of people and how Christ has made us all one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace and in one body, the Church, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross. Through the cross. We are church because of the cross. You and I are brothers and sisters because of the cross. You and I are sitting in this room, imperfectly joined together, but joined together nonetheless because of the cross. We didn't come together because someone had a brilliant idea one Sunday morning that what's the point of a lion? Let's do something useful. Let's create something called the Church. You know, a few years ago, when the New Atheism, some of you may know that term, the New Atheism, there's a lot of atheists that were speaking out against Christianity, but they had a bit of an experiment. They tried to create an atheist church. There was no God. There was no worship. It was an atheist church, but they were trying to recreate it. Why would an atheist try and recreate the church in an atheist form without God, without Jesus, without the cross? They did that because they realized, look, we don't want God. But they're looking at the church and they're seeing there's something there that people need. And so they said, let's try it. Let's have a go, you know. And, you know, that happens. People try that, you know, every once in a while. I don't know if you've seen that. Someone will open up a fried chicken shop somewhere around, you know, it'll be. There was one called Chicken George or something, and there's some other brands out there. And you go in there and you give it a go and you say, yeah, but it's not the real thing. It's not the original. There's no kernel and there's no. So the atheists, they tried to form some kind of church, but what they didn't realize is that a church is not like a club. A church is not like a society. But a church is a group of people that sometimes ought not to be together, but they are together because of the cross. Jesus was the inventor of the church, and we know that it matters deeply to him because he was prepared to die for it. Some of us are not prepared to break our sleep for it, but he was prepared to die for it. Ephesians 5, 25, 27. We've been talking about marriage earlier this morning, weren't we, before we went on air? And we're talking about marriage here. In Ephesians 5, 25, 27, it says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Let me tell you, if you understand something about marriage, you understand something about the church. And if you understand something about the church, you. You understand something about marriage. Both marriage and the church depend on the cross. Let me tell you, because if Jesus didn't die for us, we might kill each other. But because of the cross, because of the. I'm saying I am alive today because of Jesus. Hallelujah. For all those times when I was sleeping peacefully in my bed and my wife was still awake, and she looked across at me and said, oh, I could just. And then she remembered. Hallelujah. We are together because of the cross. Now listen, seriously, Jesus shed his blood. I mean, sometimes we don't meditate on that enough to just feel it a little bit. You got to feel it a little bit. You've got to feel it a little bit. You know, it's become so filled with religious overtones. You know, you go into a church, you see a crucifix somewhere, or people wear a cross. They used to say, years ago, would you go around with a chain and an electric chair with a man dying under, you know, judgment and execution on your. Would you wear that around your neck? And so we see it as a piece of jewelry, something beautiful in a church, a wonderful painting. It's not that we shouldn't wear a cross. Don't get me wrong there. Otherwise someone's going to come to me afterwards and you're going to to say, pastor, I threw my cross in the bin because you said it's not. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is sometimes we need not to focus on how beautiful that jewelry is or how beautiful that ornamentation is in the church or how beautiful that painting is, but upon what actually happened and what it was actually like. There's blood and guts and pain. And he thought it was worth it for the church. And it describes it like this. And it describes it like a marriage, a union. If you understand the church, you understand marriage. If you understand marriage, you understand the church. And then in Acts 20:28, it says, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock. Paul is is speaking here and it says, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. Church was paid for by blood. Hallelujah. It wasn't paid for by tithes and offerings. It wasn't paid for by prosperity teachers. It was paid for by the precious blood of Christ. And what was paid for was not some kind of show or organization or grand building. All of those things are useful. You know, a building is useful. Equipment is useful. Resources are useful. But what was paid for was a group of people that are tied together by blood. Hallelujah. Sometimes you'll talk about your family. You'll say, my blood. Well, we are tied together by blood. And I think maybe we need to wake up and realize it. In this day and age, if the church was important enough for Christ to shed blood, how important is it to you? How important is it to me? We need to ask ourselves that question, don't we? We need to ask the question, how important is the church really to me? How much priority do I give to the reality that I am church, that my neighbor is church, that we are tied by blood, that we g together under Christ to worship the living God? How important is that on our hearts? Sometimes I think the idea of church is optional to many people, which is why I've said several times, people say I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. One answer I gave was, you don't need to go to church to be a Christian, but you know you're not going to function very well as a Christian if you don't go to church. And then I thought, you know what? I need to practice what I preach. You're right. You don't need to go to church to be a Christian. And actually, let me take it a step further. You can't go to church. You are the church. We are the church. And it happens in a million different ways. There's the church gathered today. We are the church gathered. And we're supposed to do that because we read In Hebrews chapter 10, do not neglect the gathering of the saints. And just because you gather and you grace us with your presence once a year or once every three months or whatever, then I don't think that is gathering. We all have families. We understand the importance of family coming together. Hallelujah. You know, I know I've seen houses where, you know, everyone's like ships that pass in the night. And, you know, there might be a very good reason for that. Some of us are working. It's horrible, isn't it, when you're working the night shift and your spouse is working the day shift and, you know, you don't know whether you're coming or you're going, and you know you're like ships that pass in the night. And, you know, you can't do much about it right now. But one thing you do know is it's not supposed to be like this in an ideal world. And in the same way, you know, the church is supposed to gather. And I know that sometimes you're working the night shift and sometimes you're working the day shift, and sometimes, you know, things conspire against you. But actually, with whatever ability we have, we should be seeking where we can to be part of the church gathered. That's why we've put it online as well. Not so that we can miss gathering together, but so that people out there, and I don't know, right now, some of you may be watching. You may be members of our church. Maybe you're at work, maybe you were unable to come. We want you to know that you're with us in spirit, and we're so happy that you've joined us that way. But the gathering of the saints is absolutely, absolutely vital. But it's not just the gathering of the saints. We are the church gathered, but we are also the church scattered. And the church matters to Christ. Not on a Sunday, but every day. The church Matters to Christ. He didn't shed his blood for meetings. I often say, you know, John 10:10 doesn't say that, you know, that he died for us so that we could have meetings in abundance. He died for us so that we could have life in abundance. Hallelujah. So, you know, you can go the other way. You can neglect the gathering of the saints and you can also make the other mistake, which is to make the gathering of the saints your benchmark on the quality of your salvation. You know what I mean? You know, you just, you can attend so many meetings, you feel that you are, you are just up there with the saints. You know, in Kenya, we used to have, we used to have, we used to have Sunday meeting, of course, then Sunday evening meeting. And then in the mornings we had morning glory and then we had lunch hour and then we had, we had overnight prayers on Friday and we had. And you know, some people would be at every single meeting. I don't know how their kids got fed. I don't know how they earned their money. I have no idea. But you know, that doesn't make you spiritual. But you do have to take seriously the gathering of the saints. But on the other hand, the church is more than the gathering. There is the church scattered. Hallelujah. It mattered intensely to Christ. And that brings us to the second one is that the church matters to Christ. Point one, the church matters to Christ. He died for it. Point two, the church matters to Christ. It is his strategy for the world. I love what. There's a man called Wolfgang Simpson. He wrote a book called Houses that changed the world about the house church movement. And he said those who are saved vertically to God are also those that are horizontally converted to each other. Those that are converted vertically to God are those that are converted horizontally to each other. He said, like the 30 times or more in the Bible that we have those one another sayings, those one another statements. And he says we are also broadly converted to serve the world in love, compassion and power. You are saved vertically. You relate to Christ vertically. How is the horizontal in your life? The church matters to Christ. It's God's strategy. In Matthew 16, 18, 19, Jesus said to Peter. Now he said, I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Church. We are not just vertical people, we are Horizontal people. Now, I need to clarify that because this afternoon I'm going to have a big lunch and then I will be horizontal. That's not what I'm talking about. We are not just living in the vertical plane. We are living in the horizontal plane where we relate to others and where we have a mission and we have a purpose. If you are church, can I see your hand? If you're not church, don't raise your hand. Keep it down. But if you are church, raise your hand. Hallelujah. You are church. You have a mission. It's not just me that has a mission. It's not just missionaries that has a mission. It's just not the special people that has a mission. You are part of the mission of the church. It's a horizontal thing. And Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. Now, listen, whenever I hear people listening to that verse, they think, the gates of hell. And they see it like that verse in Isaiah, you know, the one in Isaiah that says, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. And they think, okay, the gates of hell can't get me. Listen, gates don't chase or attack anyone. Are you hearing me? I never saw anyone running from a gate. It's not about protection. It's about power to advance. Who has the gates? The one who locks the gates is the one that is in a defensive position. They see the enemy coming and they say, lock the gates, lock the doors. The enemy is coming. So if the gates of hell will not prevail against us, who is it that is advancing? The devil is not the one that is advancing. See, I know we have an enemy. I know he prowls like a roaring lion and all of that. But so many people live in the realm of, oh, the devil attacked me today. The devil attacked me yesterday. The devil's always attacking me. There's a demon and a devil behind every tree and every lamppost just waiting to attack me. But actually, no, we are the ones on the advance. But so many believers, so many who carry the name of Christ, they've got to the gates, and instead of knocking the gates down, they've surrendered at the gates. And so there's all kinds of stuff going on in our lives where we're living as though we're under the dominion of the power of darkness, whereas we are supposed to be of the kingdom of light and attacking the gates of the enemy. And Jesus says, they will not prevail if the gates haven't fallen behind you. Sorry. Ahead of you, then perhaps you haven't pushed, perhaps you haven't tried. He says they will not prevail. He says nothing about the level of force that is required. He just says they won't prevail. And so even little Erie can walk up to the gates of hell if he believes and he can just. And down they go. They will not prevail. They will not prevail against us. His church, 1 Peter 2, 9, 10, says, but you are a chosen people. Not chosen, but chosen. If you know, you know you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Think about that. When you are deciding how to entertain yourself, think about that on a Friday night, think about that if you are single or actually even if you're married, when you're interacting with the opposite sex, think about that in every decision you make. Do you do things the Jesus way, the Bible way? You are a chosen people. Is there something in the word of God that you can't challenge your neighbor with because there's just too many fingers pointing back at you? I don't want to start naming things because then I get that thing where people think, oh, pastor knew something and someone told him. And now listen to me. We are a royal priesthood, a holy people set apart for God to live the Bible way. Our relationship with God is not just a blessing and favor thing. Our relationship with God is not just you're forgiven now, whatever you do doesn't matter thing. But our relationship with God is he has saved us. He has died for us. We heard that in the first point, that he has died for us. What did he die for? To lift us out of sin, to lift us into a whole new way of living so that we can be this, the church that is making a difference horizontally. Because we are the church and we are a holy people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God spirit, special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness. He has called us out of darkness. Have you listened? Have you responded? Have you come out? Have you listened to the call? Or are you singing worship songs in a dark room? Hallelujah. I think I told you the story several times about back in the 90s. Bill Sobritsky was a very well known deliverance minister. But let me tell you again, in case you haven't heard it, it's just a wonderful anecdote of his that he was going everywhere and he was seeing amazing deliverance demons coming out. And he said, I never talk to demons. He said, I just cast them out. I don't have Conversations with demons. That's. That's not right. We don't do that. But he said one day I had to, he said, because as I stood there ministering and demons were coming out, one particular man was manifesting and there was a demonic power that had a hold of him. And he was walking up to the front, and all the way as he walked up towards the front, he was singing the most wonderful worship song you ever heard. This demon was singing a worship song. And so he said, I have to ask you, why? Why, as a demon, are you singing a worship song? He said, well, I'm in church all the time and it's my favorite song. I wonder how many of us are worshiping God in the darkness with no desire for deliverance, only a desire to receive what God has done for us and to have some kind of sense of safety, that maybe I won't go to hell when I die or something of that sort, or, you know, money won't fail to locate me or whatever it is that is going through your mind. But the reality is that many people, many people are worshiping God in darkness. And if you want to know whether your worship is happening in darkness, take a look at your life. I'm not saying that you can save yourself by how you live. Only Christ can save you. But when he saved you by grace and faith alone. Grace and faith are never alone. But there is fruit, and there is living, and there is character, and there is morality, and there is holiness, and there is righteousness, righteousness that flows out of that salvation you have. And if your life is filled with infidelity and lies and dishonesty and you are moving like this, I think we know this is the universal symbol for something. You are moving like this, then in that case, I want to tell you you need to test yourself. As Paul says, test yourself. Test yourself to know whether you are in the faith. Test yourself. Because we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God's special possession. How horrible to be God's special possession and to take that into filthy places and filthy ways and filthy actions. How terrible to take holiness into such places. Filled with the spirit of Christ. We are in bed. Christ is there. Regardless of who you were in bed with, Christ is there. 1 Timothy 3:15. Paul is writing to Timothy. He says, if I'm delayed, you will know how people want to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. The church is the pillar and foundation of truth. In other words, truth is failing in society, you only have to turn on your televisions to see that truth is failing. But truth in scripture is not just propositional truth, like I think, therefore I am. I am handsome, as you can all see. Truth. Pray for me. I know my wife is. It's not just propositional truth, not just propositional truth. It's the truth between what I say and what I do, between what I believe and how I act. I am pressing on this because I'm so concerned that we have people even among us that may be lost because we have a kind of religion, a kind of sense, oh, I need to go to church, because, you know, I've been for a while and that's the beginning and end of it. I need to go to church because, you know, my mom said so, and she said, if I don't, I'll be in trouble. And so we've grown up with it, and it's so central to our lives that we go to church and that we try and open our Bibles once in a while, but we are not aligning our lives with Christ. We're not following him. And Jesus walked beside the beach and he said to the disciples, he didn't say, come and listen to me, come and sing some songs. He said, follow me. And I'm so worried because there are people who don't know. You know, the problem is church breeds two kinds of people. Church can breed two kinds of people. It breeds people who find Jesus, and it breeds people who are so overexposed to Christian things without salvation that they become sermon proof and believe themselves to be okay. You know, that. You know, getting. If I go out there and I find somebody who's just come out of prison or somebody who's just come out of hospital, or somebody who's been in a very difficult situation, never heard anything about Christ, it's very easy for me to speak to them and say, you're in a condition where you need Jesus. That's an easy thing out there. In fact, evangelism on the streets is easier than evangelism in the church. Because the devil puts something on people that says, I'm in church. Maybe he's preaching to the guy who just walked in the door. He looks like it. The hardest people to reach. Jesus loves the church. It matters to him because we are more than that. We are the pillar and ground of the truth. Where else can people find truth if they can't find it in the church? Ephesians 3:10. His intent that was now. Sorry, was that now through the church, the Manifold wisdom of God. We studied that you might remember a few weeks ago, the manyfold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. How we live is speaking. How we live is spiritual warfare. Every time we get drunk and embarrass ourselves, behold the whole world. Every time we sleep with someone who's not our husband or our wife, every time we lie because we need to get out of a fix, and lying is the only way. Every time we lie on our tax return, every time we do whatever we have to do, every time we do that, we are seeding ground to the enemy. We are seeding ground to the enemy. But when we live holy, that is spiritual warfare. We are declaring to the powers, to the principalities. John 17:23. I in them, and you in me. Jesus is praying for the church. He says, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and I've loved them even as you love me. He says, our unity, our togetherness. Unity is not just. We said this last week, unity is not just. We can bear to sit with one another in the same room, or, you know, you can come to my house and we can have some polite conversation. It means we are together. We are together. I always remember years ago, someone, you know, they play sometimes a game that we like to call divide and rule. You know that game? And sometimes in church, someone would come to us. They come and tell me one thing about Pastor Joyce. And then they'd go and tell Pastor Joyce something about me. And they'd expect that we would be. We would be divided up, that somehow they would put a wedge between the two of us. And right in front of them, we would say, do you know he said that? Is that true what he said right there? Bring it into the light. Hallelujah. Because we're unified now, you might find us getting irritated with each other. Anyone who doesn't get irritated with your spouse once in a while, let me know. I want to know the secret. But nevertheless, we are unified. You try and drive a wedge between us, you can't, because we are unified. That's the church. And I said earlier, when you know marriage, you know the church. When you know the church, you know marriage. He died for it. And it matters to him. What about you? Does the church matter to you? John 13:35, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Amen. And that brings us to our third point. The first point was the church matters to Christ. The second Point was the church matters to Christ. And the third point is, the church matters to Christ. And he will defend it. He will defend it. He cares about it. Anyone know that if you touch me, you touch my wife. If you touch my wife, you touch me. There's a lot of marriage illustrations today, by the way. And that's not because I think my marriage is awesome. I do think it's awesome. I love my marriage. But nevertheless, it's not just because of that. It's because that's how the Bible paints church. Hallelujah. That's how the Bible, he will defend it. If anyone touches your wife, I hope you'll be mad. I hope you'll be mad. Hallelujah. Sometimes my wife doesn't like to tell me when someone's treated her badly because she knows now she has to have the job of calming me down. Right. So I hope that if someone touches your wife, men, you'll be mad. Women, if someone touches your husband, I hope you'll be mad. Even if they're right. Even if they're right. Hallelujah. Sometimes your wife or your husband will come to you and they'll say, you know, so and so did this. And part of you wants to say, mm, I've been wanting to do that for a while. So. No, but. But the truth is. The truth is that, you know. Yeah. At some point you're going to have to counsel your husband, counsel your wife and say, you know, maybe there's something there that you can learn from. Other way, other way. Maybe there's something there that you can learn from. But at the same time, before that, you say, aren't they horrible? You just feel there's something about you that just wants to defend. Hallelujah. That's how Christ feels about his church. And that's why I want to say in this last point, be careful. Tell your neighbor, be careful. Tell your neighbour, be careful. Let's do the external one first. Paul was on the road to Damascus. As he was on the road to Damascus, Christ appeared to him and he said, saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Why do we get so mad when you touch my wife? Because you touch me. You touch me. Hallelujah. When you touch the church, you touch Christ. He says, why are you persecuting me? In fact, in the book of Matthew, when he's talking about the judgment at the end of the age, he says, whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me. That's the issue. Not that you did something to them, but you did it to me, he so identifies with his church. Now the first thing that I ought to do is encourage us. We are the church of Christ. Our God is jealous over us. Joyce sings that song, doesn't it? It's got the line in it. He is jealous for me. He's jealous over us. He's jealous over the body of Christ. That should encourage us. We are the apple of his eye. Why would we not want to gather together? Why would we not want to serve in the church of God, in the church of Christ? After all, he's so jealous over us. Now here's one for us, not just those people out there. 1 Corinthians 11, 29, 30. We all know this. We've read it recently as well. I think we did it last week. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ, eat and drink judgment on themselves. And we said last week, we always think that's about communion. It's not. It's about the body. It's about the people. Because they were busy eating food. The rich were busy eating food. The church and on the other side of the church, people were struggling and not having food. And they were eating it right in their face. Hallelujah. Right in their face. They failed to recognize the body of Christ. Christ will defend his church even from you. Christ will defend his church even from me. Christ loves the church. The church matters to Christ. Does it matter to us? Let's think about that. This is not a stand up and come to Jesus moment. This is a selah moment. Think about it. Think about it. Does the church matter to us? The good news is you are the church and Christ loves you and he is jealous over you. And we have a mission together, not just vertical to worship him, but horizontal to serve him. And he's going to use us if we will recognize the church. I want to tell you, if you just begin to look through the word and see the things that God says about his church and who we are in him. I want to tell you we are getting ready to shake the world for Jesus. Hallelujah. Let's stand up, let's pray, and let's spend a minute praying and just imagine what it is for the gates of. Of hell to fall before the Church of Christ. We are the Church of Christ and the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Can we pray about that for a minute? Let's just lift our voices in prayer. Father, in Jesus name, we give you glory, we give you honor, we give you praise. Lord, we want to thank you for the church that you created Lord we want to thank you that you are Jesus jealous over your church that you love your church that you shed blood to create your church Lord we thank you that we are not just the church vertical but we are the church horizontal Father in Jesus name help us to relate to one another to love one another to serve one another to bless one another help us Lord to be a servant to to the world to be those that go out and make Jesus known to be those that go out and help those in distress to be those who go out and even love our enemies to be those who go out and bring forgiveness where there is hatred to be those that go out and show the love of Christ wherever we go Lord thank you for your church thank you for your church thank you for your church church Lord help us to be the church that you created us to be and we pray it and we believe it in Jesus name and we all say amen.