The Church in God’s Program (Ephesians 1:1–2)
Ephesians 1:1–2
Introduction
What’s your view of church? For many, the church is
· A social club—a place where our friends and family gather for weekly socialization and activities.
· A subscription service—a place where we come every week and give a small subscription fee in order to receive in return some religious services, like preaching, communion, baptism, and the like. In bigger churches, this could even mean free use of church facilities, or a meaningful web of relationships.
· A mental health club—a place to come in order to hear yourself affirmed, to have your fears stilled, your anxiety treated, and overall to foster a healthy sense of personal well-being. In its dispensing of religious services, the church functions as a free psychologist.
· A conservationist society—a place to preserve a little piece of history, or to foster a connection to the past. The church is a hub of historical conservation efforts, becoming focused on rote traditions rather than on truth.
What is the church? This is our first Sunday service together. Why are we doing this? Is there some social need? Psychological need? Do we see ourselves as a religious vending machine in Rosemount, or a way of conserving some bygone history of reformed and baptistic traditions?
One of the greatest concerns that I have regarding the church today is that they have no idea who or what they are, and therefore they have no idea what they are for or what they are to do. And maybe this is exactly why church attendance has been falling off in recent decades. 20 years ago, about 46% of Americans went to church every week. Now around 30% do. Surely one of the reasons is because the church has gotten sidetracked by all sorts of things that have nothing to do with God’s plan for the church.
And that is why we are starting out with this book of Ephesians, for that is precisely what the book answers. This book describes, as one theologian put it, the Church in God’s Program—the nature and function of the church in the present age; who we are, and what we are to do. In fact, that’s even the outline of the book: Chapters 1–3 describe who we are in Christ, and Chapters 4–6 describe what we are to be doing since we are that way. It is all about the church in God’s program of salvation.
In understanding this book, we are going to get exactly a sense of who we are and what we are to do. That should drive the meaning of everything we do here at Shepherd. Look at it this way: God wants his church to fulfill a certain task in the world. He is moving his plan of salvation along, and right at the center of it in the present age sits the church, and he has a special role for the church to play. But how can we fulfill that role if we aren’t doing what we’re supposed to do? And how are we supposed to do those things unless we first know who we are? And how are we to know who we are until Christ, our living head, teaches us? Christ gave Ephesians to the church to answer these questions.
What that should do for us is to emphasize the importance of the local church. Do you want to be in the stream of God’s blessing? Do you want to experience the amazing outflow of the riches of his grace? Well there’s no better place to do that than right here.
What are some of the features of the teaching of this book about the church?
· It teaches us that we are in Christ, and that we are “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:23).
· It shows us that God has been formulating the plan for the church since before the foundation of the world, and that we are therefore his peculiar people chosen for the express purpose of praising his glorious grace (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).
· It teaches us that we have the Spirit of God, and that because of that Spirit, we are sealed, kept safe, illuminated, given access to the Father, strengthened, and made one, even as we express that unity in our local church life.
· It teaches us that we have been saved by the sheer grace of God and that there is nothing in ourselves that qualified us for such a great privilege.
· It teaches us that we are one in Christ, and that we are “one new humanity” (2:15), built upon one foundation with one cornerstone.
· It teaches us that we are all united, Jew and Gentile, as God’s mystery, called from both peoples into a new body, in order to demonstrate to angels what is the magnificence of his wisdom.
· And it teaches us that we are to live as that brand new human society in this world and thereby demonstrate the kind of saving power that God has.
· It teaches us that by being brought into the church we have been swept up in a spiritual war that has been raging since the words “did God actually say” were uttered. We enter into that war, not as an army of militants, but as soldiers deeply dependent on their heavenly general to fight their battles for them.
Ephesians describes the Church in God’s Program, the place and the function that the church has in God’s unfolding plan of salvation.
It’s amazing to think that such grand things are being expressed in such a little body of people. People look at us as a core group of about 20 adults, meeting in a building we don’t own, weak, powerless, hopeless apart from Christ. And nonetheless that is the people through whom God is demonstrating his everlasting wisdom.
So this sermon really has two purposes: 1) To introduce us to this amazing book and 2) to begin to grow our appreciation for the importance of the church in God’s program. And in order to do that, let’s see three features which frame the message of Ephesians: The Man, the Church, and the Need.
I. The Man: Paul
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”
And the first part of our appreciation of God’s plan for the church is to be introduced (or re-introduced) to a man named Paul. Perhaps nobody loved the church more the Paul, because nobody has such a unique and special relationship to the church like Paul did—except for the Lord himself.
We meet Paul first by his Hebrew name, Saul, in Acts 7:58 as a young man approving of the stoning of Stephen and shortly thereafter a leading persecutor of the church. He was a mover and shaker in Judaism. He was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness before the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5–6).
His zeal for Judaism caused him to hate the church of Christ. Acts 8:3 says he “was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” And Acts 9:1 says he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” His own confession years later in Galatians 1:13 was that “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.” It was something of a constant area of guilt and shame for him, according to which he considered himself the worst of all sinners, and unworthy to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God. The remembrance of his former life was both a great pain to his soul that he should have been so cruel to the church as well as an occasion for great rejoicing, because his Lord still had mercy on him.
And then God saved him. He stopped him in his tracks in the middle of his persecution of the church, knocked him off his horse and struck him with blindness. Then he sent Ananias to him and told Ananias this when he expressed his anxiety: “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15–16). Paul was uniquely tasked with going to the Gentiles with the message of the gospel. That doesn’t mean he never went to the Jews (he always went to them first and never backed down on the importance of Israel in God’s plan, as Romans 9–11 teaches). And that doesn’t mean that the other apostles never went to the Gentiles (E.g., 1, 2 Peter). It was a matter of emphasis. In fact, in Galatians 2:9 he recounts receiving the “right hand of fellowship…that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.”
In this very Epistle, he expands in Ephesians 3:8ff: “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
This is why he insists on his apostleship. There were only 12 men who were named apostles by Christ, minus Judas, plus Matthias, and then as one untimely born, there was Paul—the latecomer, the unnatural apostle. And in order to be an Apostle with a capital A you needed to have seen the risen Christ, been commissioned by him as an apostle, and be able to perform the signs of an apostle. Apostles were authorized emissaries, ambassadors sent by Christ to speak authoritatively on his behalf. These men were given to the church during its founding, to lay the foundation for the church in their teaching: Ephesians 2:20 – the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” Those who claim to be apostles today, correspondingly are, 2 Cor 11:13, “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.”
But in contrast, he was an apostle by the will of God. Gal 1:1 helps us here: “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.” That is, he was not an apostle because any human being sent him. Nor was he appointed an apostle through any church or human agency. He was appointed an apostle directly by and through Jesus Christ and sent directly from him. It was by God’s will—and oh the responsibility that he must have felt. To know your place in God’s story with such specificity and then to carry it out through the writing of a letter like this must have had great meaning.
Now all of this becomes very interesting and very relevant when we begin to realize that the church in Ephesus was established by Paul himself, and he (uncharacteristically) spent two years teaching in that church so that all the surrounding area heard about the gospel through his ministry there. When he parted with their elders, there was much weeping! They knew who Paul was. So here’s the question: if they knew who he was, why repeat your authoritative title when you write them a letter? I would only get up in front of you and say, “I, Pastor Justin Feland, am…” if something very official and significant were happening. Yes, his apostleship causes these words to have great weight, and we should heed them because they are the genuine words of Paul. But why say that to a church he founded and knew well? Something genuine and significant is happening in these words. But to understand that more specifically, we need to look at the church to which he wrote.
II. The Church: Ephesus
“To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesus had a textured history and changed hands many times until it came under the control of Rome. It was a leading city, extremely wealthy. It was the richest city of the richest region in the entire Roman empire. It was also the provincial capitol of Asia Minor, and administrative and governmental hub for the area. It was so important to the area that the mileages to other cities were measured in relationship to Ephesus.
It was a cultural wonder. It boasted of a theater seating 24,000 people with a colonnaded street leading directly to the city harbor. It had a beautiful town hall for administration, several Agoras – outdoor marketplaces for trade etc, one of them being 110 meters square (that’s two and a quarter football fields) with covered promenades on all sides. It had public baths and Gymnasiums complete with lecture halls and meeting rooms. It had a stadium 229 meters long used for chariot races and gladiatorial fights as well as public ceremonies and athletic contests. It possessed a medical school which trained the most famous doctors of the time. But among all the wonders of Ephesus, the greatest was the Temple of Artemis (Diana), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The Temple of Artemis was the largest building in the Greek world when it was first constructed in 550bc. It was 220x245 (53,900 sqft) (this room is 80x60, or 4,800, about 11x bigger) and contained 127 columns, many of which were 60 feet high made of pure stone. It stood high on a hill overlooking the city. The worship of Artemis was surrounded by mystery and magic. In fact, on the statue of Artemis were inscribed six “Ephesian letters” which were deemed to be magical. We see something of that influence in what happened when Paul visited the city.
After a brief visit, and a short ministry by Apollos Paul returned to Ephesus. He evangelizes some of the apostles of John, and reasons in the synagogue with the Jews until they reject him. When they do, he takes those who believe and establishes the first seminary in the Hall of Tyrannus where he “Reasoned daily” with them. From those labors the whole area heard of the gospel as men poured out of Ephesus from Paul to evangelize surrounding cities (Acts 19). One day, through some demonic activity against the sons of Sceva, the whole city comes to repentance and gathers in the theater and burns their books of magic worth an astronomical amount of money. Demetrius, a silversmith who made his money off such things, incites a riot, after which Paul has to leave the city for his own sake. He would never see the church again, and the elders only for a brief visit on his way to Jerusalem in Acts 20. Later he would send Timothy to them (where Timothy ministered when Paul wrote his letters to him). Then it was John the Apostle who pastored there. The last mention of Ephesus in the Bible is in Revelation in the seven letters, where we find that Ephesus lost its first love.
But now you should have a better idea of why Paul writes in such a majestic and transcendent tone to the Ephesians. To bring it all together, Paul understands his situation. He understands his role in God’s plan—to bring the message of the gospel to the Gentiles. He understands his apostleship—the authority to teach a foundation of truth for the church and write authoritatively to the church. And he understands the importance of strategy—that Ephesus, because it was the portal between the Eastern and Western world, was a significant and strategic city in which to see a church. GATEWAY ARCH ILLUSTRATION. In other words, he writes to Ephesus not only to teach Ephesus, but to teach all the other churches as well. By writing to Ephesus, you were writing to everyone.
In other words, Paul realizes that in writing to Ephesus he has an opportunity to define for the whole church the nature and function of the church in God’s program. He has the ability to define for all time what Christ is doing in his church, and what he has done for them. He brings it all together for them, and for the church of all ages. That is part of Paul’s intention. Paul writes at a strategic moment in God’s plan to a strategic church in order to accomplish the mission for which Christ had chosen him as a special vessel.
And even in doing so, he begins to define what the church is in these words. Three characteristics of the church.
1. The Saints – The church is composed of saints.
That doesn’t mean that the church is full of “canonized Catholics.” The church is not some breed of super humans, some special class of super-spiritual heroes. In fact, the idea is just the opposite: everyone is a saint. A saint just means “holy”—those who are set apart for God’s purposes. Those who have been made holy by the blood of Christ, and are therefore making slow, steady, sometimes painful progress in their daily life.
Paul has a lot to say about being holy—saints—in Ephesians. Our perfect holiness is part of the goal in creating the church (1:4). Holiness comes from the Spirit of God, who is called the “Holy” Spirit for that reason (1:13). Love towards other saints is part of our holiness (1:15). In fact, our very inheritance (1:18) is “in the saints” even as we are “fellow citizens with the saints” (2:19) which are a holy temple in the Lord (2:21). Part of what it means to be in the church is to begin to “comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for us in Christ (3:18). 4:12 says that the saints need to be equipped by the teaching of the church’s leadership to do the work of ministry. 5:3 says that there is a certain kind of behavior which is “proper among saints” which extends from their holy calling. And to that end 6:18, we need to pray for all the saints.
The church is the saints gathered. The saints together form the local church. And it is through these local outposts of Christ’s body that we begin to express and realize God’s purposes for us in this age. To be a saint is to be set apart, not just from sin, but for holy use—to play a unique and special role in this present age in the unfolding of God’s plan. But we cannot do that if we do not walk in holiness! For that holiness is precisely the way we function in his plan! We will see much more of this in weeks to come.
2. The faithful – the church is not only composed of saints but they are also faithful—that is, trusting and loyal.
In that term faithful are blended together two ideas. First, is the idea that we are believing. That is to say, we trust in Christ Jesus. He has made promises to us and then has worked in our hearts so that we trust those promises. Another way of saying it is that we have faith in Christ—faithful, “full of faith.”
But secondly, the idea is that we are therefore loyal, or faithful. To say you trust something without being committed to it is nonsensical. The natural fruit of trust is loyalty. Without trust, there is no faithfulness. Faith in Christ begets faithfulness to his cause. A faith without an expression, as James puts it, is not faith at all. Thus, “faithful” does not just mean that we believe certain things to be true about God—it means that we then act that faith upon him, and then act out that faith by living consistently with his promises. In other words, faith pledges our dependence on him, and then proceeds to manifest in loyalty which demonstrates itself through obedience.
And again, this is the church. We are holy, but we are also faithful—full of faith and consequently full of obedience.
3. In Christ Jesus – that is to say, we are united to Christ.
This phrase and its parallels occur no less than 36 times in Ephesians alone. It is, as some have argued, the controlling concept in Paul’s thought. The goal now isn’t to exhaustively explain it, but rather to simply introduce it. In short, union with Christ, being “in him,” embraces the whole of what it means to be saved. In fact, all the other parts of being saved are just the process of unfolding all of what it means to be united to Christ.
Our union with Christ is nothing less than the sum total of what it means to be saved. Every other doctrine regarding salvation flows from union with Christ. It is a doctrine which stretches back into eternity and forward into eternity. Everything we are, everything we have, it is because of him. Are we chosen? It is because we are in him. Are we called? It is because we are in him. Are we given new life? It is because we are in him. Are we justified? It is because we are in him.
That’s why Paul puts it right at the front of the letter. Everything in Ephesians hangs on being “in Christ.” The church cannot be conceived of properly without conceiving of it being “in Christ.” And, within this verse, you have a very good definition of what it means to be a Christian: to be holy and believing because you are in Christ.
III. The Need: Salvation
So, we have seen the man and his calling, whose unique job it was to reach the Gentiles with the gospel of God. We have also seen the unique opportunity Paul had to define what the church is and how it should function to the church of Ephesus. Now we see something of his message—what he preached and the defining reality of the church. Namely, grace and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Grace” is God’s saving action on our behalf. A lot of us read that word grace and we think that the only thing its saying is that God is really nice towards us, that he is gracious. And that of course is true. God is kind. But that is not what Paul has in mind. Grace is not a feeling or a disposition, but an action. In other words, Grace is God reaching down in love through Christ to save us from the just consequences of our sins.
And how good that news is! As we’ll come to see, we were helpless! If God didn’t act, then there was never going to be any hope! But he did. Even while we were sinners, “dead in trespasses and sins,” enslaved to the power of Satan and our lusts. But God intervened and raised us up with Christ, and by virtue of our relationship to him we have now become alive. We used to be alienated from each other, far away from him, but because he has acted in Christ, we have been brought near and have been reconciled to one another. We used to be futile in our minds, darkened in our understanding, alienated form the life of God because of the ignorance that was in us due to our hardness of hearts. We were callous and gave ourselves over to sensuality, greed, and practicing every kind of impurity. But God acted in grace and taught Christ to our hearts. That’s grace.
Do you realize you are a community created by the grace of God? We aren’t a church primarily because we chose to come to a plant. We aren’t a church because we are more special than any one else. We aren’t even a church because we all agree that we’re a church. We’re a church because God acted in grace. And that should give us great confidence.
“Peace” is the result that follows on receiving grace. It isn’t just inner peace, or interpersonal peace, or international peace, but wholistic peace. It is restoring the wholeness of creation. In a different biblical word, it is bringing back rest from creation—the perfect state of everything. That’s why we’re called a new man—renewed humanity. That’s why we are “created” in Christ Jesus for good works. That’s also why we are to live out that renewal in our daily lives.
Did you know that your daily living, the way that you speak to one another and treat one another, demonstrates that God has restored creation? You aren’t just doing nice things for each other. You aren’t just obeying the Lord (though you are). It’s that the meaning of your obedience has implications for the entire cosmos. If God has re-created his people, doesn’t that mean that he’ll also recreate the entire world? So, when we gather and sing, or when we speak the truth in love, or when wives submit to their husbands and husbands love their wives, or when we teach our children to obey their parents, we are acting out the new creation.
And that’s what people will find so attractive about us. It isn’t going to be the programs or the budget or the children’s ministry or the space, or whatever. It will be because we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Every healthy church I’ve been to, people say the same thing: “I came because of the preaching but stayed because of the people.” Would the Lord make it so among us, that we would be a people so transformed that we would be a magnetic community.
Conclusion
So, what is your view of the church? Is it getting higher? Hopefully this morning has increased your appreciation for the church. Hopefully it has done that by meeting Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, a man specifically called to bring the message of the gospel to the Gentiles. And through the unique opportunity that presented itself through the church at Ephesus. And then the nature of what God has done to meet the need of the church—grace and peace.
But I hope most of all what this has done is to marvel at the grace of God. He orchestrated all of this for your sake. Without the ministry of Paul, we would never have heard the gospel! We are Gentiles. And without the church at Ephesus, we would never know who we are or what we’re supposed to do! And without God’s perfect providence in bringing the message of the gospel, we would never have received grace and therefore peace.
Shepherd, as we walk through this book, we need to appreciate these things. And we need to always grow in our understanding of the significance that God has placed on the church. Which means that we should want to be here. There is nothing more exciting than being part of a local church, because the local church is where these grand, majestic, expansive, all-encompassing theological ideas take on flesh and become real life.
The Lord’s Supper does the same thing. It is very appropriate to celebrate the Lords Supper on our first Sunday morning. And that is because we are in Christ together. We have been built together as a living temple upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the cornerstone. We have been made holy and are faithful in Christ, joined to him in a bond that death itself cannot dissolve. And we have received the grace and peace of God together.
As we eat and drink, remember these realities and celebrate them together as we enjoy these things together. PRAY.