Why the Church is a Big Deal

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

We are probably all aware that today the church is under attack more than at any time in recent memory. Overall church attendance is in decline. Many blame that on the pandemic, but the truth is that the trend started long before that.

And there is certainly no shortage of critics when it come to the church, even among those who would call themselves Christians. I’m sure you’re familiar with many of the criticisms:

“You don’t have to go to a building to worship God”. True. Being in a church building doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car. But that does’t mean that there isn’t great value in gathering for worship with other disciples of Jesus on a regular basis.

“The church is filled with hypocrites”. I’m not sure that is 100% true - is the church really filled with hypocrites? But no doubt there are people in church who have ulterior motives for being there.

“The church is always asking for money”. While there are obviously a few exceptions, that just isn’t true overall. Besides that really doesn’t keep us away from other activities does it? If you go to a sporting event, or a concert or a movie, guess what. They are going to ask you for money. A lot of money. And not only will that not keep you away from those events, some of you will willingly spend $10 to buy popcorn and a soda or $25 for a t-shirt.

“Church is boring, not relevant, and too long”. The same people who say that don’t have any problem going to a two hour movie, binge watching their favorite TV series or watching their favorite sporting event. Many of you here, especially all the Chiefs fans, watched the entire Super Bowl game this last February, spending well over four hours glued to your TV. But did you know that a recent Wall Street Journal study found that in the average NFL game there is less than 11 minutes of actual game play - 10 minutes and 43 seconds to be exact. But I’ll bet that none of you said the other 4 hours you spent in front of the TV were boring or irrelevant. Not only that, you were constantly bombarded with messages asking you to give money to one of the advertisers. And maybe you were even watching with some hypocrites who were there with you for ulterior motives.

Tension

The one thing all those criticisms have in common is that they fail to recognize just how big of a deal the church is to God. Now I’m pretty sure that most, if not all, of you here with us this morning would say that the church is important. That’s likely why you’re here today. But my guess is that most of us don’t really have a sense of why the church is such a big deal to God and why it should be a big deal for us. So my prayer for all of us this morning is that God’s Word would cause us to leave here today with a deeper appreciation of the magnificence of the church, that we’d have a renewed sense of awe and wonder of God’s purpose for the church. And that seeing that, we would all take some concrete steps to demonstrate the importance of the church in our day-to-day lives.

Truth

This morning, we’ll pick up our study of the book of Ephesians in chapter 3.

Ephesians 3:1 ESV

1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—

For this reason…

This is one of those connecting phrases like “therefore”, “because”, “since” or “for” that Paul uses that ought to cause us to pause and to look back to what he has previously written. In this case, Paul is probably referring back to all of chapter 2, but particularly to the idea that Jews and Gentiles have been brought together through Jesus Christ into this new creation that God calls the church.

Now, remember that Paul is likely writing these words from a Roman jail cell, which is why he uses a play on words when he calls himself “a prisoner of Christ Jesus”. While he is literally a prisoner in a Roman jail, he recognizes that ultimately he is there because of his ministry to the Gentiles in the church in Ephesus.

As Paul often does, he then proceeds off on a “rabbit trail”. So verses 2-13 are what we might call a “parenthesis” and Paul doesn’t get back to his main idea until verse 14, where he repeats the phrase “for this reason” and then proceeds to pray for the Ephesian Christians.

But what a rabbit trail this is. Even though Paul is in jail, he gets so excited about the fact that he gets to be a part of this body of Christ called the church, that he can’t even finish a sentence. He’s so caught up in the wonder of the church that he can’t help but take some time to express that in his letter. Let’s continue reading and see what Paul is so excited about.

Ephesians 3:2–13 ESV

2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 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, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

There is one key word that appears four times in this passage. Can you help me identify it? That’s right: mystery.

I am a huge fan of mysteries. When I was a kid I read all the Agatha Christie mysteries. And even now as an adult, I love to watch or read mysteries. And, not to brag or anything, but I’m usually pretty good and identifying the perpetrator of the crime. I often kid Mary that for my next career, I’m going to become a detective.

But that’s not the kind of mystery that Paul is writing about here. I think Warren Wiersbe does a really good job of defining the way Paul uses that word here:

A mystery is a truth that was hidden by God in times past and is now revealed to those who are in His family.

The mystery that Paul writes about in this section is nothing new. It was part of God’s plan from the very beginning. And throughout the Old Testament, beginning with God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12, there had been clues pointing to this mystery, but without the death and resurrection of Jesus and the revelation given to Paul directly from God, that mystery couldn’t be fully understood. So what is the mystery?

Paul essentially reveals that mystery in two stages:

THE MYSTERY

The gospel levels the playing field (v. 6)

There was a misconception in the early church that there were essentially two ways to God. Even though the Jewish Christians believed in the idea of salvation through faith in Jesus, many of them also held that one first had to become a Jew and observe the Jewish law, including circumcision. The Gentiles adhered more closely to the idea of salvation though faith in Jesus alone. As we saw last week in the last part of chapter 2, those conflicting ideas essentially created a dividing wall between these two groups of Christians. But Jesus came to tear down that wall and put every person - Jew or Gentile - in the very same position. Everyone, regardless of race, gender, economic class, religion, or any other thing which might divide us, must come to God through faith in Jesus alone.

And when we do that, every single disciple of Christ becomes part of the body of Christ, which we call the church. And within that body, it is God’s desire that we have unity because we are all united by the fact that we are sinners who have been declared righteous by God based on what Jesus did for us and not anything we have done to earn God’s favor.

Paul wants to emphasize the fact that in the body of Christ we are all equal, so he does what he often does and when he can’t find a Greek word that adequately expresses what he wants to say, he coins a new word. Each of these words is a compound word formed by adding the prefix “sun”, which means “together with”.

fellow heirs = inherit together with

members of the same body = in the body together with

partakers (of the promise) = participates together with

That prefix expressed the idea that we are so mixed in together that nobody can tell the difference between the individuals. It would be like the pancakes that I cooked for breakfast this morning. I mixed together the individual ingredients - pancake mix - which was also a mixture of other ingredients like, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt - eggs and milk. But once I mixed the ingredients together and cooked the pancakes, no one could discern the individual ingredients.

Now obviously in the church we don’t lose our individual identities. God desires unity but He doesn’t expect uniformity. But the idea here is that within the church we are all on equal footing. We certainly have different degrees of maturity and we have different roles and responsibilities. But in God’s eyes we are all equal in value.

The second stage of Paul’s revelation of this mystery is our big idea this morning and I’m going to spend most of my time developing this idea further:

The church is a big deal because it demonstrates the wisdom of God on earth and in heaven (v.10)

I think that most of us want to live for something bigger than ourselves. At least I hope we do. I love what Paul David Tripp writes about that desire:

There is woven inside each of us a desire for something more – a craving to be part of something bigger, greater, and more profound than our relatively meaningless day-to-day existence.

Paul is telling us here that the church was created by God to fulfill that desire in our lives. It was God’s purpose from the very beginning that the church would be God’s primary means of demonstrating His wisdom both to the seen and the unseen worlds. And we get to play an important role in that process. I guess that makes us kind of a big deal too!

In the first part of our passage, Paul describes how, as part of the church, God is using him to declare the gospel here on earth. He begins by telling his readers, and us, that he was given the “stewardship of God’s grace”. In the Bible a steward is one who manages that which belongs to someone else for the benefit of that other person. Paul acknowledges that here when he writes that the mystery that had been revealed to him had been given to him by God. It was not something that he had figured out on his own. And that revelation had not been given to him so he could show how great he was. It has been given to him so that he could pass it on to others to show how great God is.

We’re going to talk a bit more about this in a moment, but we are to be just like Paul in this regard. God has also given us a stewardship of the gospel so that we can pass that on to others and when we do that we are a part of God demonstrating the wisdom of his plan both for us as individuals and for the church.

Paul reinforces this idea of being a part of the church who is demonstrating the wisdom of God here on earth a couple more times in this passage.

In verse 7 he writes...

…I was made a minister…(v.7)

The word translated “minister” there is the same word translated “deacon” or “servant” elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul views his role on the body as being a servant of the gospel. As we often say here at TFC, every disciple of Jesus is called to be that kind of minister - one who uses whatever gifts God provides to serve the cause of the kingdom, even at the expense of self.

In the very next verse Paul writes this:

…this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles…(v.10)

God gave Paul a specific role in the church - to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. That role was no more important or less important than what any of the other apostles were doing. In fact, and we see Paul point this out in many of his letters, it was no more or less important than those who served him by tending to his needs while he was in prison. What we see here, and in the rest of the New Testament, is that when every member of the body carries out whatever role God has tasked them with, the church operates as God intended and that serves to demonstrate the wisdom of God in creating the church and that brings Him glory.

I don’t think the idea that we demonstrate God’s wisdom here on earth when the church operates in the way God intends is anything new to most of us. But the idea that we also do that in the heavenly realm is probably not something most of us consider. But that is exactly what happens according to Paul in verse 10. Let’s look at that verse again:

Ephesians 3:10 ESV

10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

I’m going to admit right up front that I don’t completely understand what Paul is saying here. But what I do know for sure is that Paul is saying that there is a lot more to the church than what we see on the surface. And if you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re part of that! And just knowing that alone, without understanding all the details completely blows my mind! Think about that for a second. Somehow, as part of the church, we’re making known the wisdom of God in the heavenly places. If you aren’t completely astonished and overwhelmed by that idea, then I am really sorry for you. If that’s the case, I hope that before we’re done this morning, God will really wow you with this truth.

The first question that comes to mind here is “who are these rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms that Paul writes about?” We can certainly get some clues from how Paul uses those same words elsewhere here in this letter and in his other letters. We’ve already seen Paul write about the “prince of the power of the air” in chapter 2. And he’ll write about “rulers, authorities and powers” when we get to chapter 6. But we still don’t get a real clear picture of who these ruler and authorities are. I’ve read a number of commentaries on this and there are essentially three different views:

· These are only the “good” spirit beings – i.e. angels

· These are only the “bad” spirit beings – i.e. demons

· This includes both groups

If all these learned commentators can’t agree on this, I’m certainly not smart enough to figure it out, but, based on the context both here and elsewhere, it seems to me that these rulers and authorities include both groups – the good and the evil spirit beings.

But whether I’m right or not, it really has very little effect on the main point Paul is making here. These spirit beings, whoever they are, are observing the church here on earth and that the church is God’s instrument that He uses to demonstrate His manifold wisdom to these heavenly beings.

Paul tells us here that the “eternal purpose” of the church is to demonstrate the wisdom of God’s mysterious plan. The wisdom of that plan is demonstrated by the fact that it works. When the church operates as God intends it demonstrates that the death of Christ was not in vain. It proves that we have been reconciled to God and that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of hostility that once separated us based on all kinds of external factors. It shows that in Jesus, God has produced one new body that provides us with the hope that comes from having direct access to God and from knowing that even our suffering is furthering God’s purposes and plans. In short, we show the wisdom of God’s plan by being the church that Jesus died to create.

Application/Action

We’ve seen this morning that...

The church is a big deal because it demonstrates the wisdom of God on earth and in heaven (v.10)

Since this is not an easy passage to deal with and we’ve spent a lot of time digging into it in order to develop our main idea, I’m going to leave you with just one...

IMPLICATION FOR MY LIFE

The church needs to be my highest priority

The church is not just an afterthought. It’s not just an appendage to our faith. It is central to the eternal purposes of God. We’ve clearly seen this morning that for God, the church is a big deal. His Son died to create it and sustain it. And if it is that big of a deal for God it certainly should be for us. Unfortunately, we live in a culture today that demands our attention in so many ways that draw us away from the church. I’d be happy to give you a list, but I think most of you already know what’s on the list.

My goal this morning is not to guilt you into making the church the highest priority in your life. So I’m not going to do what first came to mind this week and ask you to think of all the things in your life that might be keeping you from genuinely making the church your highest priority. If that’s needed, I trust that God will do that anyway.

What I pray that I’ve done this morning is to get you to understand the magnificence and grandeur and glory and wonder and awe of the body of Christ. Because I’m convinced that once you really see that, no one will need to talk you into making the church your highest priority. You will do that on your own because you can’t wait to be part of something bigger than yourself.

Inspiration

For centuries, Satan and his demons have been throwing everything they can at the church. They’re pretty good at what they do. To make it worse, humans are pretty good at messing things up, and the church is full of humans.

After centuries of this, the church has made plenty of missteps and mistakes. And yet throughout the world today hundreds of millions of people are bowing before the God who has made the mystery of salvation known, brought dead people to life, and turned enemies into family. And in the process, the church continues to demonstrate God’s wisdom in creating the church, both here on earth and in the heavenly realms. You’re part of that today. I can’t think of anything else that I want to give my life to and I pray that is true for you, too.