The Church was Made for More (Ephesians 1:15-23)

#LoveLosFresnos

Over the past few years, the Table has been able to serve the community in some meaningful ways. One of the ways we have done this is through Love Los Fresnos. #LoveLosFresnos began as an idea in 2018 to serve the community of Los Fresnos through service and mission. Over the past 4 years, we have cleaned up yards, built a handicap ramp, replaced a water-damaged ceiling, pressure hosed sidewalks and porches, and have provided Vacation Bible School at the Boys and Girls Club. At one particular home here in Los Fresnos, we were able to serve a family whose yard had become quite overgrown because the main provider had suffered a heart attack and the wife worked full-time here in Los Fresnos. That yard was transformed. We had a team from the Houston area here that week, and that team served side-by-side with others from the community here in Los Fresnos. When it was over, the yard looked transformed. And one of the nicest trees in Los Fresnos now stood in the center of the yard with no more brush to hide its beauty. The whole thing happened with the city, volunteers, a mission team, and the Table all coming together to the aid of a neighbor.

I tell this story for this simple question: what happened in that yard, what went down that week with all the different parties involved… is that what the church does or is that what the church is? Over the next few weeks, we are going to look at this question from a variety of angles. At this stage of the Table’s life, we’re in our second year as an established church, but we’re in our fourth year in our participation here in Los Fresnos. And it becomes very easy for us to begin to think that all the different ways that we serve the community is just things that we do, especially because we are the new kid on the block. But even in that light, is our community service a church planting method, or is it that who we are?

Here’s the Church

When I was a kid we had a game. Here’s the church. Here’s the steeple. Open the doors. See all the people. We’ve all grown up with that, right? The problem with that game is while it seems to be a fun exercise in teaching kids about church using very simple hand gestures, that game is also catechizing. That game is instructing kids on how to think about church. And very, very subtly, what have we taught them? Here’s the church. The church is a building. If you want church, you have to come to this place here. A location. Those of you who have been in churches with church buildings.. when there’s something to be done in the middle of the week and you’re headed out the door, you tell your wife or husband, “I’m headed to the ________.” Right. I’m heading to the church. And is the church gathering on a Wednesday at 2 in the afternoon? No. Now I get we use the word church as shorthand for all sorts of things in those instances. But we say those kinds of things often enough, and we condition ourselves to think of the church as a building. As a location. Even as a worship service for one hour. This hour today: is this all there is to church?

How did we get here?

Jesus spent a lot of time talking to his best friends, the ones we call disciples, and among those things he talked about was the church. He said he was going to build his church through his disciples, and in one famous conversation, he said that Peter would be the ringleader for the new church. We read that passage a few minutes ago. After Jesus death and resurrection and ascension into heaven, that’s exactly what happened. At a festival called Pentecost, the church was born. Peter preaches a magnificent sermon and at the end of that sermon, one in which he flat out told the crowd that they had crucified God himself, he says this:

Acts 2:37-41 “When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” With many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them.”

3000 people added to the church gathering in one day. And what were they doing soon after?

Acts 2:42-47 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

We aren’t going to break this down because we looked at this passage a few months ago. But this is where the church was born and this is what the church was doing.

Definition of church

Based on that passage, what is the church? The church, at the very least is a gathering of people. That’s what the term church actually means: gathering. But what makes this gathering different than the Rotary Club? Or the Essential Oils monthly get together? The church has gathered there in Acts around the apostles’ teaching or what we now know as God’s Word. And for the breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper. And all of this was created by The Word through the Spirit in baptism, in that passage we looked at just moments ago.

That passage and others in our New Testament, lead us to this definition of church:

Where God’s people have gathered around the Word faithfully preached and the Sacraments rightly carried out.

That’s the basics. God’s people have gathered. The Word is faithfully preached. The Sacraments are rightly carried out. If these things aren’t happening, we cannot call ourselves a church. But this is only the beginning. There’s a lot more going on there in Acts 2: they are going from house to house, they are eating together, they are spending time together, they are taking care of each other, and as we move through the book of Acts, they are spreading the Word and Christ’s kingdom is expanding all over the Roman empire. That’s also church.

Our Table motto

This rhythm of the church coming to life and then being involved and engaged in the world is baked into our own identity here at The Table.

This is us: we are:

Loved by Jesus.

For the love of Los Fresnos.

Loved by Jesus. Jesus, through His Word, loves us, forgives us, gives us life, and gathers us into a community. We are loved by Jesus. But it doesn’t end there. We’ve been given life and salvation for the purpose of serving our neighbor, so we say that we exist “for the love of Los Fresnos”. The Table doesn’t exist simply for itself, but for the community in which we reside: Los Fresnos. Our identity is in Christ. But that identity is always in motion toward our neighbors and friends and families.

Made for More: More Jesus.

We are going to spend the next few weeks in the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is a letter written by the great missionary Paul to a gathering of believers in the city of Ephesus, which was located in what we know as modern Turkey. He writes because it seems as though there were those in the gathering who were teaching things that were false. There were those who seemed to think in order to be right with God, you don’t need the church. The church isn’t all that important. And in a gathering that was made up of a mixture of ethnicities, this created division among them. In a sense, Paul is going to call them back to the basics. Back to who they are. He reminds them of who they are. They have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. They have been made heirs of all of God’s blessing in Christ. And then he says this;

Ephesians 1:22-23 “And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.”

This is a loaded statement. But what we need to see, as it relates to the church is this: It all begins with more Jesus. The church was made for more. But it all begins with more Jesus. Only Jesus can fill everything in every way. A core commitment of every local church is to continually illuminate this mystery: Jesus is More. Everything is all about Jesus because God has made everything in life, everything in history, everything in existence, all about Jesus. Only Jesus can fill everything in every way. Not our efforts, our strategies, or our plans.

Shift #1: From more effort to more Jesus

We can get so wrapped up in what we are doing or what we think we are supposed to be doing that we miss out on the Jesus part. Jesus—not our efforts—is our foundation for both gathering here around the Word and around Sacrament and then moving into the world. “More Jesus” is based on what God has done in Christ here in Ephesians:

These three statements we read moments ago:

“He exercised the immeasurable greatness of His power in Christ.”

By:

Raising Jesus from the dead

Seating Jesus at the right hand of the Father in heaven

He subjected everything under Jesus’ feet.

He appointed Jesus as head over everything.

Each one of those things are important… but get this: it’s all about Jesus. Jesus has been raised. Jesus has been exalted. There’s no place where Jesus doesn’t rule over all things. This is why everything we do is Jesus-centered. There’s a lot of things going on in the world. There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense. But do not be fooled. Do not despair. Jesus is ruler over all of it. And here’s why:

He appointed Jesus as head over everything… FOR THE CHURCH.

Do you understand this? Do I understand this? He did it for the Ephesian church. He did it for us. He rules for us. All things have been given to him and all things have been subjected under him FOR THE Church.

He doesn’t stop there:

He appointed Jesus as head over everything, for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

He has redeemed the church through the forgiveness of sins, so that the church could express His fullness into every corner of culture and into every sphere of society. Jesus is using the church to fill all things in every way. That statement is absurd. He doesn’t need us. He rules over all things, yet in his grand design, his body, the church will be used to express the great news that Jesus died and Jesus is king in all parts of the culture. The One who has been filled up is not filling up the church to fill they earth with His good news. Everywhere.

The Church is Made for More

The church doesn’t exist for itself. The preaching of the Word and the carrying out of the Sacraments isn’t simply an end to itself. Yes, this is Christ’s salvation for us. But this salvation isn’t just for us. It’s for the world. Not just the message for everyone. Salvation itself is on mission through the church. The reason we gather together each week, the reason that we have this physical location, and this organization is so that you and I can be launched into this world to make an eternal difference in the lives of those around us.

Here in Ephesians 1, we get a glimpse of what Paul believes the church to be: an expression of Jesus’ fullness in every corner of culture and sphere of society. Notice I said “expression”. This isn’t a call for the church to take over every culture and sphere of society. That’s Jesus’ job, especially when he returns. But certainly the church is to be in every corner of culture expressing who Jesus is and the Good News of forgiveness and life in Jesus. Paul is saying the church is a body, not a building. It’s an identity, not an activity. It’s all of us on mission everyday filling everything, as Ephesians says. We do this as a church that looks like Jesus, talks like Jesus, and walks like Jesus, providing grace and peace and mercy and forgiveness wherever we go.

Christ in the world

I watched a video yesterday of Elon Musk walking through one of the buildings down on Boca Chica beach in the past few days. One of those buildings down there is where they build the engines. The building Elon and the video host were walking through is full of rocket engines. And in the video, Musk is describing the engines and what they do, and a lot of the conversation was about stuff I’ll never understand. A lot of it really was for rocket scientists. What I found funny is that it seemed like every other sentence he would say, “And if this little doohicky here (I’m paraphrasing) doesn’t work right, the whole thing blows up.” Piece after piece. You don’t want anything on that engine to fail, especially certain pieces because if they do, kaboom. And we’ve seen some of those kabooms up close. But all those engines he’s showing off… they don’t exist to show us what we can do with an engine. It’s fascinating stuff. And those engines look big and impressive. But those engines are designed at some point, to get people off of the planet. Moving away from Boca Chica beach and out of the atmosphere. The engines have to work right or they go kaboom. But an engine working right means people are moving and going and expanding and spreading out.

That’s the church. The church is obviously more than an engine. But we don’t exist just to sit here as an entity unto ourselves. God gave everything to Jesus and made Him ruler over everything, and now Jesus is using the church to fill up everything. The church is made to be moving, to be going beyond itself, to multiplication and expansion of God’s kingdom. And each one of us are part of the church’s own vocation and calling to be Christ to the world.

It can be easy in our western mind set to fall into the trap of just the gathering together with out the sending together. It is important to gather and we need to gather together around the Word of God and around God’s gifts to us in baptism and communion. It is where we hear and receive the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthen of our faith. Important work. Just like building the engines and rockets. You need. I need it. We need and must have the Word and Sacrament. But the mission is not simply to gather. The mission is to be sent and to illuminate the fullness of Jesus in a lifestyle of worship and mission where God has perfectly positioned you already where you live, work, learn and play.

So think of this gathering here at the Community Center, this time we gather each week, the organization that makes this all happen as the rocket engines that propel us into all those places we do life the rest of the week. We come here each week to get filled up because life is draining, but Jesus isn’t. So we fill up with Jesus and his message and we go out so that we can pour out Jesus into all those places he has perfectly positioned us! We’re made for more. Jesus is using us to fill up all things in our lives and in our community.

Let’s Pray.

Jesus is more for us every Sunday right here at this Table. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father filling all things. Jesus exercises that cosmic authority through grace and forgiveness in his body and in his bloody. We submit ourselves to His reign when we come to this Table and receive from our king exactly what we need most in a world gone crazy: love.