Marks of A Caring Community

If you've been to Little Lack, Lackadaisical, Lackadaisical, anyhow, if you've forgotten to bring them in the past, and especially early in the morning, you may not remember where you put it, set it out the night before, because we're going to be in the Scriptures substantially in the coming weeks here, and today we're looking at Ephesians chapter 1. Are you ready to read? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. And you also who were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory. Well, there's a fair amount of substance in that passage, wouldn't you say? I couldn't help but wonder, if you don't have a Bible, you'd probably say, would you please read that again? That's the kind of incredible revelation that God gave the Apostle Paul for us. I want to speak today just briefly, almost in an introductory kind of fashion, about the church, about who we are as a church, about what it means to you to be part of a church. You see, identity is a very important thing in our lives, folks. People who don't have a clear identity tend to drift through life. In fact, psychologists will tell you that one of the things that brings the downfall of many people is the lack of identity, lack of knowing their roots, who they are, who their parents are, that kind of thing. Who are you today? I mean, I know your name. You may know your family somewhat. You may know your job and so, your title, your status, but who are you really? And who is the church? What is the church about? What's the purpose of the church? And it's not all that easy to know. It takes a little digging. It's like the little girl back in the Sunday school class who was drawing something on a pad of paper and her teacher walked back and said, Suzy, what is it that you're drawing there? She covered it up with her hands and said, I'm drawing a picture of God. The teacher said, Suzy, no one's ever seen God. They don't know what He looks like. She said, they will when I'm through. It's not that easy to know what the church looks like. But fortunately, happily, we have here today something of a description, the beginning point of it, that Paul spells out for us and I want you to know something, folks. I think it's very important for you and for me as individuals to know what the church is about because I believe that God loves the church very much. In fact, I believe it's the only thing in all of creation that's worth giving your life to. Think about it. What job are you in that on the day Jesus Christ returns is really going to be significant? He's going to say, oh, we have to keep that job. What pursuit is important to you? What hobby that when Jesus Christ comes, He's going to say, oh, you know, you can keep that going. That's important. Nothing. And if you don't understand the church and your role in the church and what the church is about, you're missing the element of life that causes it all to make sense to you. Now, I'm not minimizing the importance of your job to you or anyone else or the things you're into, but if you do that at the expense of the church, do you hear what I'm saying? You're missing what life's really about. And I want you to know I've given my life to the church. I chose to do it. I was actually, I shouldn't say that, I was called to do it because I believe that the church is the most important thing in all the world. Jesus called this church His body. Think of the metaphor. That's not an accident. It's His body. He also called it His bride, which means He has affection for it and loves it and cares about it. The problem seems to me to be that because we don't really understand what the church is about, we're kind of drifting along. And frankly, folks, it isn't easy all the time to keep at a consensus point of what's happening. Part of the problem is, you know, we all have our ideas, don't we? I mean, some of you think, oh, I think the church should be this way and some, oh, we need this in the church to make it go, and I think this part's missing, and so on. And then we have the problem of starting to find fault with the things that aren't the way we think they should be. A lot of this simply is perspective, wouldn't you say? It's really perspective. We all see it from this way or that way, this angle, this. God has a different perspective, don't you know? In fact, the book of Ephesians gives us God's perspective. It's, I think, the highest statement of what the church is about in all of Scripture. And it's important to have God's perspective, don't you think? Let me use an analogy. How many of you heard about the midfield terminal that's being built out by the airport, okay? Giant project, $700 million, three and a half years they've been working on. People who live over that way, and I have some friends and relatives that do, have told me, you know, you don't know about it over here in North Hills, but there's been a lot of dirt and dust in the air. There's been a lot of noise. There's been a lot of inconveniences, roads have been torn up, things have been closed. There's even been some tragic accidents, and it's been quite a long project, and we're really glad that it's almost over. And I was thinking about all this, and about a month ago, I had the privilege of flying out of the airport, and we took off, our aircraft took off right in front of the terminal, the new one, the taxi way out there, and took off and lifted off right over the whole thing and banked around. And so I got to see a clear picture of this enormous new terminal, you know, with all of its attendant out parcels and buildings and so on. I saw the new South Expressway entrance. I saw the brand new major entrance that they've designed right in the highway. I mean, you could see it all, and it all made sense. It all had, it all fit together, and I understood why it's going to be such a benefit to our city. But from down below, from the perspective of just the little guy in the car driving along, I didn't understand it, it didn't make sense to me, and it seemed to be kind of a mess. Do you see what I'm saying? You see, God's perspective, He's up above looking down and seeing the church and saying, this is what the church is to be. Get my perspective on it, and maybe it won't be quite as critical. Maybe it won't perplex you quite as much. Maybe you won't find yourself frustrated quite as much as you had in the past, and therefore, maybe you can trust me a little bit more with what I'm doing, because after all, folks, who's building the church? Jesus. Matthew 16, 18, who said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it? Who said that? Jesus Christ. And He has said elsewhere, even here, in fact, turn over to Ephesians 4, if you would. It says right there that He's given gifts, this Jesus who's building the church, turn over to Ephesians 4. He's given some gifts to keep the church going. Look at verse 11. And it was He who gave, that's Jesus, some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. That word, preparing God's people, is a very important word. This is how God is working in the church. The word, if we have an overhead for this, please, is called katertizmos. That is the Greek word. I'd like you to say that this morning. Let's see how your tongue is doing. Say it. Katertizmos. Flash it up there, Barb. Alright? It means perfecting, equipping, and preparing. That's number one, say. Here's some of the meanings of it. The original Greek, it meant to set a bone. When you broke a bone and set it into place, that was the word that was used. And I started thinking, God is setting broken things back in place so that they might heal properly. How many broken lives here today has God set back in place? The next meaning was to, go ahead, pop back into place, referring to a dislocation. Anyone here ever dislocated a joint? Painful stuff. When I played basketball years ago, this would happen on occasion, and our trainer was really pretty good at it. He said, here, I'll show you how to do it. I said, no way. I don't even want to know how to do that. I mean, this is too painful. That's what that verb meant, to pop back into place. And I started thinking, how many people have been dislocated in their lives? Out of place, out of joint. And God has given us a ministry of helping them to pop their life back into place so that it functions. But the third rendering is the most important to us. It's to mend. Jesus used the word in Mark chapter 1 and Matthew chapter 4 when he said to his disciples, they were mending their nets when it came to them. Think about that for just a minute. To mend. Three things about fishermen's nets in those days. When they threw them out there, they were large circular nets. They used to pull them in, and they'd be full of fish many times, but also full of a lot of other stuff. Six months ago when we were, maybe a little longer now, just in a brief little time at Myrtle Beach, commercial fishermen were throwing their nets out. And when they'd pull it in, I mean, they had a lot of fish in there, but they had a lot of garbage and junk and stuff that smelled weird and all. And they had to pull all that out and throw it to the side, and it kind of struck me because they dumped it back in the ocean just to pick it up the next time, but then they pulled the fish out. And I thought, you know, God does that with our lives, doesn't he? I mean, he pulls us in, and he helps us to get rid of the trash while saving the good in our lives. Another thing that those nets did, they'd have little tears in them, you know, because of pulling on them, and the fishermen would have to tie those knots together. And I thought, you know, God does that so tenderly with us. Something tears in our life, and he heals it. And the third thing that the fishermen did was they arranged those nets in a perfect order so that when they had to throw them out, it wasn't going to be, it was like a parachute. Anyone ever parachuted? I thought this was a smart-looking group. What do you do with a parachute? I mean, do you just stuff it back in the knapsack? No. What do you do? Very carefully. Same with these fishing nets. They had to very carefully arrange them so that they could throw them out. And I thought, you know, God does that with our lives, doesn't he? He arranges them according to priorities and according to his knowledge of where it is he wants us to go. So all this has to do with the Lord building the church. He's building it, and he wants us to be part of what he's building. And we're becoming what he wants us to be. And folks, if I read this correctly, there's at least one specific quality here. Back to Ephesians 1 that jumped out at me. What is he preparing us to do? Look at verse 6. To live to the praise of his glorious grace. Look at verse 12. In order that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. Look at verse 14. That we might live for the praise of his glory. Everyone say that. For the praise of his glory. Not everyone say it. For the praise of his glory. That's what the Lord wants the church to be and to do. To be and to do. To live for the praise of his glory. And the only kind of people that can do that are people that know what God has done for them. The beginning point. The beginning point of any growth in God's purposes as a church is to know what it is that God has done for you. Folks, listen to me. We praise the Lord today. But praise isn't something that we all enter into very freely, is it? And in fact, some of us still today are uncomfortable with the idea of praising. It's difficult for us. Some people say, well, I'm not going to be manipulated into praise. I'm not going to let anyone tell me what to do. And I have to tell you, I agree. No one in this church, I trust, no leader in this church would ever manipulate you. Tell you what to do so they can get something out of you. But dear ones, we will lead. We will help you to know how to go on in praise and to grow in it. But can I say to you, praise is vitally important. It's what God wants the church to do. And here's why. And if you miss everything else, don't miss this. And let's put this on the overhead, please. Nothing advances in the kingdom of God without praise. Your life will not advance without praise. This church will not advance without praise. But, number two, praise never rises without faith. And number three, faith never develops without understanding. Do you see the sequence? Understanding, faith, and praise. And this is very true for an individual as it is just as true for a church. By reason of praise, everything moves in God. A friend here in the congregation called me this week and said, Would you pray for me? I've got a situation that's really concerning me and it hasn't changed. I met with him for a little while and we sat down to pray about this situation. And the very first thing, and it wasn't like I hadn't prepared this in the message or anything like that. The very first thing out of my mouth was, I just began to praise. In fact, I even began to sing a little bit in my own kind of humble way. And to worship God. And I was really surprised to me. I didn't know where this was coming from. And I started to praise. And then he joined with me in his own humble way. And for the next 10 or 12 minutes or so, we just praised and praised and praised the Lord. And then I said a short prayer and we ended. I said, you know, that was really different. I thought we were going to get down on our faces and cry out to God. And lest it seem contrived, because it wasn't, he called me yesterday in the early afternoon and said, three hours after we had praised, three hours, the situation took a turn. Somebody called him, began to get things, and he said, here's what he said. He said, things are starting to move. I said, oh Lord. Why? Because praise will open doors. Praise advances where we are in God. That's why the Lord wants us to live to the praise of his glory as a church. That's why God's perspective here in this little terminal of the Holy Spirit, God's perspective is, let's be a praising church. And nothing would gratify me, nothing would please me more, folks, than if we would rise up right now in the midst of all of our changes, all of our reassessments and realignments and reapportionments, in all of who we are as the people of God, and begin to let praise rise up. Praise in our home groups. Praise in our ministry meetings. Praise here in the congregation. Because I believe God wants us to start moving past this place. And if you agree, would you say something? He wants us to move. But he can't expect us, and he doesn't expect us to move, without understanding. And let me just kind of draw things to a conclusion. By looking here in Ephesians, and some reasons why today it's no problem for me to give God praise. Let's look at it. Ephesians chapter 1. Here's just a handful of reasons why today praise should be coming from us. Verse 3, it says that God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. How many blessings is that? Every one. It says that he has chosen us to be holy and blameless. Verse 4, that he has predestined us and adopted us as sons. Verse 5, how many are glad that you've been adopted as a son or daughter of Christ? Verse 7, he's given us redemption. We're going to look at that word next time. And forgiveness of sins. Doug sang about it this morning. He's taken away our sins. Verse 7, he's given us the riches of God's grace. That's the basis of it all. Verse 8, he's lavished upon us wisdom and understanding. And all of this, dear ones, is so that we would see that God is worthy of our praise. And praise would be released from us to the praise of his glorious grace. Now, as these truths get a hold of you, today if just one of them does, it'll start a bubbling down inside. And as that bubbling, if you let it come out and be articulated, and you let that praise expand who you are, you'll start seeing something about God. He's able to take care of your problem. Anyone here find yourself when the problems arise, the struggles arise, you shrink back and start doubting if it's ever going to change? I mean, I'm in the middle of one of those in my own life right now. And every day I have to say, in fact, many times every day, Lord, I'm choosing to praise you. Because God wants even the worst situations we're in to be used for the good. Does the scripture say that somewhere? But he can only do that in people who by praising him declare their trust. And I'm just here today to say to you, perhaps today, maybe one person, maybe a handful of people, need to know that the God who gave his own son for you to pay the price for your sin, the God who did that, is he going to withhold anything else from you? Let's put up Romans 8.32, and just so no one misses it, would you read it out loud with me? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Do you see the point? The God who has forgiven you in Jesus Christ and declared you a saint. Did you read that? Did you catch that noun in verse 1? Did you catch it? Verse 1, To the saints in Ephesus. Everyone say, to the saints at North Way. To the saints at North Way. Now look around. How many saints do you see? Well, think about it now. Some of you know this truth. Some of you don't really believe it. Why could God, why would God call you or me a saint? How many of you would be happy to have the record of your last week and all of your thoughts and all of your actions right up here in the overhead? And yet, God has the audacity to call you a saint? Anyone here grow up in a tradition where saints were kind of acknowledged as almost worshipped and saint this and saint that? When you think saint, what do you think? You think someone that you could never be like, right? I mean, some kind of character that's above all reproach, some kind of selfless giving. I mean, a saint is someone to be adulated. And yet, dear ones, God's saying we're saints. How does He say that? I mean, doesn't He see how we goof up and mess up and fall in sin? Is God blind in death? No, He sees everything about us. But here's the thing. In Christ Jesus, God has declared, Him no longer have their record of sin before God. Those who trust in Christ no longer have to stand before God and say, Lord, I've done this and Lord, I've done that and this is all part of, you know, who I am all the time. But rather, He says, those who have come to my Son and believed in Him and trusted in Him, I will take my Son's record. And what was Jesus' record of life? Sinlessness, without fault. And I will attribute to them my Son's record. The Bible calls that one word. How many know what it is? Justification. Justification means in a legal court of authority, God who had judged sin to be worthy of death, says, wait a minute, no more. Those who trust in my Son will take His payment for their sin and put it on themselves. And I always remember that by saying, justification means just as if. Just as if I never sinned. Just as if I never sinned. I don't understand that exactly. All I know is, dear ones, God isn't up there every day saying, well, you know, today I'm going to bless you a little bit. Well, no, you really messed up and I'm not happy. He's saying, I look at your record and I see just as if you never sinned. And I don't know how bad it is for you, but if God can forgive whatever it is that you've done with your life, how many believe He can see you through in your trial today? That's the point of this. Therefore, what should you do? You should walk in praise. You say, well, Jay, does that mean I can sin to my heart's content and God never cares? Not at all. It means the more that you sin and fail to acknowledge that and repent of it, you just simply distance yourself from the flow of God's love. You're not able to receive it because sin will build a barrier. But on God's side, He sees you just as if you never sinned if you're in Christ. You see, and that's the perspective of God on the church. He sees it without spot or wrinkle or blemish. And therefore, I want to just submit to you all today, let's be a praising people and a praising church. The mark of a caring church is it knows it's salvation and it grows in praise. That's all. It knows it's salvation and it grows in praise because it knows that God is not through working with them. Let's stand together, shall we?