The Body of Christ

and self -serving culture, many churches have adopted worldly views of themselves.

Some examples that we're probably all aware of of the of the different types of churches, even in our own area, are maybe a cool place to be seen or make business connections, wear your fashionable clothes, and make important friends.

Maybe the church is really just a glorified family reunion because there's two or three churches that make up the entire membership and they go there because that's where Meemaw wants them to go before they can have lunch.

Some churches are political clubs. They're focused on Republicans and Democrats and the goings -on of the government more than of Christ.

Some churches are nothing more than a concert with a self -help guru offering a way for them to live a better life.

And some churches are nothing more than seminary lectures with dry theology being offered and nothing more.

Thankfully, Pastor Brad's been leading us for the past several years, diligently teaching us more about what we believe and what the

Bible teaches us. We are continuing to build on these essential doctrines.

We're learning who we are and what we're called to do based on this truth.

Our young church is growing. We're growing in depth of understanding and knowledge of the members who are here, and praise

God, we're growing with members who are joining us. So it seems right to explore what it means to be a church to build on what we've been learning.

And although we're going to be in a number of passages this afternoon looking at what

God's Word says about His church, the core of the study will be in the book of Ephesians, especially

Ephesians chapter 4 verses 1 through 16. So now please turn in your copy of God's Word to the book of Ephesians.

Turn to chapter 4 verses 1 through 16 and please stand for the reading of God's sufficient, certain, and infallible

Word. I'll be reading from the this morning. Ephesians 4 1 through 16.

Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit. Just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?

He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.

And he himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ so that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is

Christ from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Please remain standing as I read and we pray together this prayer from Matthew Henry.

Let's pray. O Lord our God we desire with all humility and reverence to adore you as a being infinitely bright and blessed and glorious.

You have all perfection in yourself and are the fountain of all being power life motion and perfection.

You are good to all and your tender mercies are over all your works and you are continually doing us good though we are evil and unthankful.

We reckon it an unspeakable privilege that we have liberty of access to you through Jesus Christ and leave to call you our father in him.

Amen. You may be seated. Well since we are in Ephesians and this is a new book that we haven't worked through in the past few

Sundays I think it's important that we have some background and context as we unpack what

Paul offers here in relation to the body of Christ. We also want to see what the context is that he's writing in.

So the Apostle Paul wrote this letter we know as Ephesians to the church at Ephesus and it serves as a broad survey of the doctrine and instruction he provided during his three -year ministry there.

This is relatively unusual in the letters because there aren't specific details about an imminent crisis in the church.

Many of the other churches had some specific doctrinal concern or a crisis of moral failing that Paul was addressing in his letter.

Instead he focuses on exploring the nature and purpose of the universal church. One essential idea that we're looking at today that's found throughout the book of Ephesians is found in a very simple word, it's the preposition in.

Thankfully that's also how you say it in Greek. But this word seems very insignificant but we'll see today that it is actually of ultimate and eternal significance.

The word in demonstrates the unity of the believer with Christ and with the universal spiritual church.

In the Greek rather than simply indicating the location of something, something is in the town of Lamar, it relates to sphere or relationship or the instrument by which something is accomplished.

From the beginning of Ephesians we see that to be in Christ means believers are placed within his redemptive work and covenant relationship.

Every spiritual blessing is found in Christ including election, redemption, inheritance, and sealing with the

Holy Spirit. Additionally the church is a unified whole including

Jews and also Gentiles. Pastor Brad spoke about this last week. Gentiles are no longer strangers and sojourners, they're relationally included in God's household by being in Christ.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves as we understand the body of Christ we need to be clear on what had to happen to allow us to be part of that body.

We have to be clear on the gospel. We have been, each one of us, have been vile and miserable sinners.

It was our natural desire to be a sinner. Left to our own desires we would stay sinners.

We would remain prideful, rebellious, angry, lustful, anxious, and fearful.

We would hate God and the wisdom that flows from his word. We would love to drink the sickeningly sweet poison of the world's foolishness.

We would die full of hatred for God and worshiping the chains that trap us in the tomb of our sinful flesh.

If left to us we would receive what we earned an eternity of judgment in unimaginable torment.

Thankfully Ephesians 2 4 through 10 says, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which

God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. When you confess your sins acknowledging them and that they are indeed as despicable as the holy and righteous

God of the universe says they are and repent turning from your sin and hating it like God hates it and you place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your

Lord and Savior you are saved to the uttermost. You are transformed through regeneration and you are born a second time your heart turns from harsh and flinty stone to a heart of flesh filled with love for God and your fellow man you are rescued from a slavery to sin and to your own flesh your chains are broken you're freed to become a joyful slave of Christ you are made an essential and permanent part of the body of Christ.

This miracle boggles our minds and overwhelms our spirits when we hated

God the most he chose us to be part of his body we were mangled and disfigured by sin completely useless to him but through his gracious and merciful love through dying on the cross where we each deserve to be he made the way for us to be part of his body.

Let us now explore this glorious truth promised to the members of the body of Christ if you have indeed repented and believed you are able to be part of this metaphor that Paul gives us in Ephesians 4 11 through 16 when he presents the church as one body with Christ as the head.

Laura I'm sure you're probably taking notes so the first point we're making is Christ as the head. Christ is the head and he this is

Ephesians 4 11 through 16 and he himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ so that we are no longer children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is

Christ from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

I wanted to recapitulate that passage for us to remember that it is

Christ that is the head and it is through Christ that all things are accomplished we start by understanding that Christ is the head because Christ is the authority so the head has multiple meanings here the authority the direction and the security that we as the church have because of Christ so Christ as authority highlights that he controls and sustains all other parts of the body it seems obvious I hope it seems obvious that Christ would be the head that's certainly why we are

Christ Reformed Baptist Church because he is the head he is over all things he controls and sustains all things it is only because of Christ that we can be unified as a body together as the head

Christ also provides the direction for us just as a brain controls all the other parts of the body and the nervous system we are all controlled directed by Christ also the church itself looks to its direction not through its own attempt to understand its authority or its role outside of Christ but through the direction of Christ and through his word and finally we understand

Christ is the head in that we have security in Christ since we are in Christ and he is our head we are secure in our in our salvation and his promises to us are sure

Colossians 1 17 through 18 summarizes this for us it says and he is before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body of the church who is the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he himself will come to have first place in everything since all

Christians are in Christ and securely held under the authority of Christ as the head we are unified in his body we're going to spend a bit of time here today discussing this topic of unity of the body because it is a glorious truth and it also has a lot of implications on our own lives and how we operate as a church ourselves there is a lot of disunity that we have seen in churches we've been able to see firsthand what happens when we are not unified over the same doctrines but there's also the universal church the the church of all believers the spiritual church that is also riddled with disunity division denominations and fights over all sorts of things from the color of the carpet to whether or not

Jesus actually rose from the dead when we understand unity of the body of Christ we start by understanding that you we are unified in Christ Dr.

Jeffrey Johnson offers a helpful explanation he says quote the unity of the body of Christ is a byproduct of the communion and union that all believers share in the person of Christ by faith this union with Christ is not physical or visible but invisible and spiritual he says in other words believers are not united to Christ by joining a local church rather they are united to Christ by faith and afterward they are inwardly compelled by the spirit and the word to join a local church in this way only believers are members of the universal church and only members of the universal church are proper candidates for local church membership this is important because there are times when people when you ask them are you a

Christian their answer is sure I go to church so and so but that doesn't actually mean that you're a

Christian because you're an attender of a church also the other side of that coin is are you a

Christian yeah but I don't really need to go to church I experience God in the cathedral of the woods but as Jeffrey Johnson makes this point that there is a natural progression of the believer when regenerated they are compelled to join with the body of Christ that unity is absolutely compelling we desire to be unified in the body we desire to be part of the body together

Ephesians 4 1 through 6 is the definitive unity passage so let's see a few things here that that help us understand what unity is and what it isn't in Christ therefore

I the prisoner in the Lord exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another in love being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace there is one body and one spirit just as also you were called in one hope of your calling one

Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all you might have noticed there that there are seven specific ones

I know that's a weird thing to say but one body one spirit one hope one

Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father these are the things that we are unified in each one of these things we could spend an entire sermon looking at how we are unified in the body unified in the spirit or unified in hope etc these are all key understandings for us in our understanding of doctrine to know what we are unified in and what draws us together it's also important to know what does we aren't united in we are not united in church tradition there are those who would look to the teachings of the church fathers to dictate how we are to understand our relationship with each other and that we are united in church tradition we're not united in ethnicity it's not our ethnic group that unites us and dictates what we believe it's not our culture even if we are on the buckle of the bible belt that is not a reason to be a

Christian we're not united in politics we're not united in our mutual enemies and we're not united in the certain specific theologians or youtube personalities that excite our minds and our satisfy our desire to argue about what the bible says we are unified in Christ as we understand that we're unified in Christ we understand that we're unified by the spirit 1st

Corinthians 12 12 through 13 says for even as the body is one and yet has many members and all the members of the body though they are many are one body so also is

Christ for also by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free we were all made to drink of one spirit this shows that it's not our work it's the work of the spirit that unites us so if we're unified in Christ and we're unified by the spirit we are unified in truth this is where we find a lot of challenge because truth is under such an attack our culture tries to encourage us to believe that there is no truth and even within the church we hesitate in an effort to foster unity we hesitate to acknowledge what is the truth there are many times when someone tries to stand on the truth of God's word the attack against them is that they are being divisive and they are not seeking unity and I would argue that to be unified in the body of Christ truly as scripture would declare it we are unified in the truth and that it is that truth that is divisive and that you are either in Christ or you are not in Christ there is no middle ground where you could be almost in Christ we're not given that sort of distinction you are in Christ you're out of Christ Christ is the truth you are in the truth or you're out of the truth we in our finite human minds can't understand all of the truth

I'm not making that claim but I am saying that what we are unified in what our feet stand firmly on is the truth found in God's word and it is all we need and all we could ever want

John Calvin in his institutes explains how the truth truth of Christ unifies us when he says the church is the society of all the saints a society spread through all the world yet bound together by the one doctrine and the one spirit of Christ Paul in first Timothy describes us as the church of the living

God the pillar and support of the truth the point is that the truth of Christ is what holds his body together we're united in our love for him and his saving work not in worldly ideas or passing fads we love the truth but we also speak the truth in love so in the same moment that I'm saying that we must remain fervent for the truth and that we must be willing to recognize how the truth can be divisive it is also essential that we understand that we as Ephesians 4 15 says speak the truth in love we grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is

Christ speak the truth in love Matthew Henry says love is an excellent thing but we must be careful to preserve the truth together with it truth is an excellent thing yet it is requisite that we speak it in love and not in contention these two should go together truth and peace so while our church and each one of us must be committed to standing on the truth knowing the truth and loving the truth we must not be harsh or critical or antagonistic how we carry ourselves and how we navigate the relationships that we have are how we show our membership in the body of Christ we have to remember that attacking members of the body is attacking

Christ himself because we are in him love must always come with truth we must speak the truth in love so for those taking notes we are unified in Christ unified by the spirit we are unified in truth and we are unified for God's glory all of this all that we are is for God's glory it is our visible unity that glorifies

God when it demonstrates to the world the love hope and good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ that's

Ephesians 3 8 John 17 20 through 23 explains this it says

I do not ask on behalf of these alone but for those also who believe in me through their word that they may all be one even as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me the glory which you have given me

I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one I in them and you in me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me our unity as the body of Christ is how the world sees the glory of God when the world looks at our church do they see a unified body of brothers and sisters in Christ who love the

Lord their God or do they see a group of angry antagonistic harsh violent people are we speaking the truth in love or are we seeking opportunities to attack and argue it's an important question as we consider unity as we consider consider what this says about how the world is seeing us we know that for the gospel to be proclaimed it must be preached that God uses in an ordinary means the word to bring about salvation so I'm not saying that we are called to just be light and salt and just kind of move about the world as happy Christians and that's how the gospel will be proclaimed don't mishear me we must stand on the truth and we must proclaim

God's word but the world is also watching us and they're assessing how we carry ourselves with each other and with them and how are we unified that's an important question to ask what is it that attracts us to be together why would we come at 2 30 in the afternoon to this place to worship you've at least proven you're not coming for the traditional time and to try to beat the crowd for lunch you've already had lunch

Lord willing but you must recognize how important it is that our unity is how we demonstrate

God's glory on earth since all believers are unified in Christ by the spirit to love the truth for God's glory we are all essential parts of the body of Christ this is the next section

I want us to focus on that all parts of the body of Christ are important although each part of the body has distinct roles and giftings they all operate together for the benefit of the whole body

I'm going to read a lengthy section of first Corinthians 12 because praise

God I think it does an excellent job of explaining the point that I would like to make and better than I could do it so please follow along in first Corinthians 12 12 through 27 because I think this is one of the clearest and most beautiful depictions of how each

Christian relates together in the body first Corinthians 12 12 through 27 for even as the body is one and yet has many members and all the members of the body though they are many are one body so also is

Christ for also by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free and we were all made to drink of one spirit for also the body is not one member but many if the foot says because I am not a hand

I'm not a of the body it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body and if the ear says because I am not an eye

I am not a part of the body it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body if the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be if the whole were hearing where would the sense of smell be but now

God has appointed the members each one of them in the body just as he desired and if they were all one member where would the body be but now there are many members but one body and the eye cannot say to the hand

I have no need of you or again the head to the feet I have no need of you on the contrary how much more is it that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary and those members of the body which we think are less honorable on these we bestow more abundant honor and our less presentable members become much more presentable whereas our more presentable members have no such need for God has so composed the body giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked so that there may be no division in the body but that the members may be the have the same care for one another and if one member suffers all the members suffer with it if one member is honored all the members rejoice with it now you are

Christ's body and individually members of it as you can see that gives you a pretty clear depiction of how important it is for us to understand the value of each member of the body of Christ it is also clear that not all parts of the body are doing the same thing there are no worthless parts even if you feel unworthy

God has called you to live and serve as a cherished part of Christ's body

I certainly know how intimidating it can be to sit with some of you godly men and women and realize my shortcomings and wonder how

I can even be of value to God when I see how you live your lives and it's clear here that that is an unworthy way to behave because as a member of the body we are each able to serve in a unique way so if you look and you say

I'm really struggling right now I'm struggling in my body

I'm I'm suffering and I can do nothing but pray and I might as well not even be part of the church think of that that you can still pray what a beautiful ministry it is to pray what a beautiful ministry it is to serve the physical needs if you say

I'm really struggling right now to have a good prayer life and and my devotion to God is really weak because I'm so stressed out but I really just want to hang out with my brother from church and and spend time that can be the moment that you're deeply encouraged but it's also the time that you can be encouraging to others if you say

I'm not a strong reader how do I know everything that the bible says and why are these other people reading all these books and knowing all this they might be looking to you to see someone who has true love and true compassion we shouldn't be intimidated by each other and we shouldn't be jealous of each other in the church we are all the same body members of it serving and living together and we are strengthened because of each other it is a beautiful thing a beautiful gift that God has given us each other along with that I hasten to add that we are not one -dimensional members of the body of Christ so while it's important that if you are very strong in your prayer life that you are indeed praying that doesn't mean that you forego studying

God's word and growing in your understanding of doctrine we are a church that adheres to the doctrines of grace some people call those people

Calvinists I guess I quoted Calvin so there we go it's been said sometimes that Calvinists are always the thinkers and our minions are those who are doing so in the body of Christ Calvinists are the head and their minions are the hands and the feet

I strongly push back against that kind of idea we are called each one of us to love the

Lord our God with all our heart all our soul all our strength and all our mind as well as our neighbor as ourselves we are each one of us as a member of the body of Christ called to grow in Christ and to grow in our knowledge to grow in our devotion and to love

God more and to love our neighbor more we are called to bear fruit we don't have the time to dive into the fruit of the spirit but I would invite you if you want to understand more to look at what that means and all of the ways that God has called us to bear fruit because unfruitful

Christians are like withering body parts it's like we're a body a part of the body that's riddled with gangrene or leprosy we're rotting away but it's not our own problem kept to ourselves we might say that's okay

I'll be a weak Christian I don't want to have to be challenged I don't want to be accountable I don't want to give up the secret sins that I deeply struggle with I'm going to hide them

I'm not going to tell anybody because no one suffers just because I am suffering in sin that isn't true because we are all part of the same body in Christ a sick withering unfruitful part of the body spreads that sickness and hurts the rest of the body we are all accountable to each other

Charles Spurgeon says it well he says I do believe it is before every

Christian either to serve his God with all his heart or to fall into sin I believe we must either go forward or we must fall the rule is in the

Christian life if we do not bring forth fruit unto the Lord our God we shall lose even our leaves and stand like a winter's tree bare and withered through our unified place in Christ we are called to grow in spiritual maturity a member of the body in Christ called to grow so the final point

I want to make is that our unity in the body leads to spiritual maturity the church's unity leads to maturity because the spirit binds believers together so they can grow in the full knowledge of the

Son of God remember what we said in Ephesians 4 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the

Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ so knowledge is key for maturity we are in Christ growing in Christ maturing in Christ we see this in 2nd

Peter 3 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity amen we are part of a growing body we are part of a growing body praise

God there are people coming and joining but we're also part of a growing body as we grow in our maturity

I look around and I see the faces of people who have clearly grown

I've clearly grown in the time that our church has been together as we grow together we sharpen each other we encourage each other to grow we are growing together because we are unified together and we are all focused on the same outcome which is spiritual maturity we won't attain our full complete perfection until glory but we are all as believers growing in sanctification this is an important point because when we look around to our brothers and sisters and we find that someone might be struggling to grow it is our responsibility as loving members of the body to encourage them we might not know why they're struggling but that's why we must be in relationship with one another we must love each other because we are accountable to each other as members of the same body our unity calls us to our accountability and it calls us to have very hard conversations sometimes

I'm not saying that we're supposed to be the the theological police and anytime anyone says anything that's slightly outside of what we agree with we wag our finger at them and call them a heretic we're not supposed to constantly be scrutinizing every single move our brothers and sisters make in some sort of a legalistic way but we are the closest family that we have on this earth we are in Christ our relatives by blood if they are not in Christ are farther away from us than those who are not of our blood but our brothers and sisters we are doing a huge disservice to one another if we fail to recognize our responsibility to encourage and to confront our brothers and sisters who are struggling to grow in maturity think of a time that you had to have a hard conversation but someone came to you and they helped you understand that you were outside of where you needed to be some of the most blessed relationships

I have are with people who have come to me at a time when I needed a a hard conversation

I know they really loved me because they were willing to to challenge our relationship in an effort to see a greater blessing for me as I grew in spiritual maturity it is not loving to ignore our brothers and sisters who are rejecting the

Lord or rejecting their call to grow in maturity because we are all a body together growing together this growth leads to corporate maturity corporate like corpse a body corporate maturity as Christ holds together each individual part and as verse 16 says causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love our unity leads us to spiritual strength

Hebrews 10 24 through 25 says and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near so let us think how we can be encouraging one another and stimulating one another to love and good deeds let's look over a few of these things as we conclude here first the profound love of God takes vile and worthless sinners and transforms them into the members of the body of Christ this miracle never ceases to amaze us and is the root of our praise and our love in this body

Christ is our head who directs us and sustains us all believers are unified in Christ by the spirit to love the truth for God's glory all the parts of the body are important because of our unity together and since all parts are important we love each other we encourage each other and we call each other to spiritual maturity so these leave us with some questions are you living out the unity that exemplifies your position in Christ are you a member of the body that is growing in spiritual maturity are you strengthening the rest of the body or are you coming getting what you can and leaving again rejecting the unity that is this great gift that we have in Christ let's pray together as we close dear