Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Our dear Heavenly Father, I pray this morning that life in Christ might have a new interest to us.
[00:00:13] We have a new fascination with really living in a spiritually healthy and powerful way.
[00:00:24] I feel like life pushes us around and we get sidetracked and, and, and we lose our sense of living with spiritual strength.
[00:00:43] So I pray your Holy Spirit would speak to us this morning and I pray that we would have a new reckless longing in our heart to genuinely be the people of God.
[00:01:03] In Christ's name, amen.
[00:01:07] Paul went to Ephesus about 25 years after Christ's death and resurrection and he worked there for three years.
[00:01:22] Ephesus was on a double trade route. The trade route that went north and south and the trade route that went east and west.
[00:01:34] And it became a very thriving city. In fact, they believe that about 200,000 people lived in Ephesus.
[00:01:46] And that doesn't sound like a big city to us, but it makes it the fourth or fifth largest city in the Roman world.
[00:01:56] Ah.
[00:01:58] And the city had a reputation around the Mediterranean not only as this thriving commercial center, but they called themselves the Neo Koras and it means temple guardians because one of the largest temples in the Roman Empire was in Ephesus.
[00:02:22] This is an artist conception of what it looked like and it's called the Artemisian, the Temple of Artemis.
[00:02:38] It was 220ft wide and 425ft long.
[00:02:46] Each one of those columns you see there, 65ft tall and 6ft in diameter.
[00:02:56] And I want you to remember that's all built without power tools.
[00:03:03] It was a phenomenal place and people from all over the Mediterranean came there.
[00:03:11] And when Paul arrived in Rome, most, Paul arrived in Ephesus. Most of the people who lived there were worshipers of Artemis.
[00:03:26] He was there three years and at the end of those three years there was a riot because there was an entire business that grew up, a silversmith business that these silversmiths would make replicas of the Artemisian people would buy them, take them home, put them in a little niche in the wall and worship Artemis in their living room.
[00:03:59] And Paul's ministry was so, so powerful that the art guild, the Silver Guild got together and said, this guy's putting us out of business.
[00:04:13] People aren't coming here and nobody's buying our shrines. They're all becoming Christians and created a full bledge, a full fledged riot.
[00:04:31] What is it about Christianity that made it so powerful in the Roman world?
[00:04:44] When Paul went there, there were maybe 10 Christians in the whole city.
[00:04:49] And when he left, the majority of the city was Christians.
[00:04:53] What was happening?
[00:04:56] Well, Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians.
[00:05:00] Here's what he says.
[00:05:02] The first three chapters he gives us the theology of the Church.
[00:05:08] The second three chapters he says, this is how you live it out in your daily lives.
[00:05:14] So what I'm arguing is the very same reality that Paul shared with the Ephesians that radically changed their world. We have that same reality.
[00:05:27] And I believe if Christians would live life in Christ Jesus, we would have an equally remarkable influence on the world.
[00:05:39] I don't believe the problem is in the message.
[00:05:44] I believe the problem is, ah, we make too many compromises and we don't live life in Christ Jesus in a powerful and meaningful way.
[00:05:59] And people miss the majesty of Jesus Christ.
[00:06:05] Ah, so Paul says in Ephesians 4:7.
[00:06:10] But Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
[00:06:17] Therefore he says. Now here Paul is quoting Psalm 68, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.
[00:06:30] In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had descended into the lower regions of the earth.
[00:06:41] He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he may fill all things.
[00:06:50] The thing I want you to see right at the very beginning, living life in Christ Jesus begins with a gift of grace.
[00:07:01] Grace was given to each one of us. Do you hear that?
[00:07:06] Every one of you who is a Christian right now, the reason you are a Christian is because at some point Christ met your soul and gave you grace.
[00:07:19] Let me remind you what that means.
[00:07:22] God looked at our souls and he saw that we were messed up.
[00:07:28] He's not blind, but he said, I'm going to treat you better than what you deserve.
[00:07:38] Christ's first movement toward us is an acknowledging that we're messed up.
[00:07:45] And his commitment then says, even though you're messed up, I'm going to treat you better than what you deserve.
[00:07:52] Listen.
[00:07:53] God makes us better by treating us better than what we deserve.
[00:07:59] I want you to hear that.
[00:08:01] Some of you think God makes us better by punishing us. Some of you think God makes us better by ignoring us. That's all wrong. His plan to make you better is to give you grace.
[00:08:14] Now, some of the grace God gives me is to make me better.
[00:08:20] But some of the grace he gives me, he gives it to me for me to share with others and help them get better.
[00:08:31] Paul says in First Corinthians, now, there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit, there are a variety of Service, but the same Lord. There are a variety of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. All right, here it is.
[00:08:52] To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
[00:08:58] God gives you grace so that you can treat other people better than what they deserve.
[00:09:06] All right, let's make this real easy, brother.
[00:09:16] The next time your wife gets on your nerves, instead of saying the ugly thing you normally say, you can pause for a minute and you can say, dear God, give me grace.
[00:09:38] And instead of saying the thing that would separate you, you might say something beautiful and kind.
[00:09:47] You are receiving and giving grace.
[00:09:53] Ladies, what do you think?
[00:09:57] Well, that's. Sorry, man.
[00:10:01] I'm trying to do you a favor here. All right? All right.
[00:10:05] Now, ladies, it's your turn.
[00:10:08] Next time your husband gets on your nerves, instead of reciting the critique, pause for a minute, whisper a prayer, and say, oh, God of all grace, make me gracious.
[00:10:28] And instead of critiquing, encourage.
[00:10:32] Can you see that giving grace makes everything around you better?
[00:10:39] When you treat your spouse better than what you think they deserve, you make things better when you treat them the way you think they deserve.
[00:10:55] We all know where that goes.
[00:10:57] Church. The same thing works at work.
[00:11:00] God gives me grace so that I can be gracious to the people I work with, which means treat them better than what they deserve.
[00:11:12] You see, when I'm living life in Jesus Christ, I am receiving grace, but I am also giving grace.
[00:11:22] It empowers the message of Christ in the world.
[00:11:27] When people get used to Christians treating other people around them better than what they deserve, our message loses its power.
[00:11:39] When we are just like everyone else and we find it annoying to treat people better than what they deserve, our message loses its power.
[00:11:53] Can you hear this? All right.
[00:11:56] Ah.
[00:11:57] Paul quoted Psalm 68. Here. Here is. I'll read a couple of verses.
[00:12:03] You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train, and receiving gifts from men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.
[00:12:17] Blessed be the Lord. Here it is. Who daily bears us up.
[00:12:24] God is our salvation. Selah.
[00:12:27] If.
[00:12:30] If you were listening very carefully, you notice that Paul didn't quote the psalm exactly the way it was.
[00:12:39] Listen what Paul said.
[00:12:42] When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to be men.
[00:12:50] Listen what David wrote.
[00:12:53] You ascended on high, leading a host of captives of in your train, and you received gifts from men.
[00:13:02] In David, there is a receiving of gifts. In Paul, there is a giving of gifts. And now there's literally been Hundreds of pages written about this. It's ridiculous. Ah, okay.
[00:13:16] Here's what I believe.
[00:13:18] I believe Paul was moved by that passage, but he purposefully changed it.
[00:13:26] If you read this passage, it's about the Lord winning a victory over David's enemies.
[00:13:32] And normally in the ancient world, if you defeated your enemies, you received their stuff.
[00:13:39] David became very rich because he defeated his enemies and he got all their stuff. All right, so David is saying when God wins a victory over evil, he receives the spoils of having won that victory.
[00:13:58] All right, now Paul wants to re. Wants to emphasize something different. He says when God wins a victory over his enemies, he takes the spoils and shares them. He gives gifts to man.
[00:14:13] Is that interesting? Paul says, using this image from King David, he says Christ wins a victory in the world, and he doesn't hoard it. He shares it with us.
[00:14:28] Another expression of God treats us better than what we deserve.
[00:14:35] Ah.
[00:14:36] And now this business about descending and ascending.
[00:14:47] We believe that Jesus Christ existed before he was born.
[00:14:57] We believe he's the second person of the Trinity, that he is eternal.
[00:15:02] John tells us in his Gospel, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from God the Father, full of grace and truth. Now listen to this.
[00:15:22] I didn't exist before 1953. There was no me around.
[00:15:31] All right?
[00:15:34] Jesus existed eternally.
[00:15:40] His body was born in Bethlehem, but his personhood, his reality, his authentic self, that's eternal. He is the second person of the Deity and He is an eternal being.
[00:15:57] So when Christ came to earth, that wasn't the beginning of his life like us. It was him descending from heaven to live with us and teach us what we couldn't know otherwise and to die on the cross for our sins.
[00:16:14] When Jesus Christ came to the earth, he didn't begin to exist.
[00:16:18] He descended from his eternal existence. All right, Then he lived among us, and then he was crucified. He rose from the dead, and on Pentecost, he ascended up into heaven.
[00:16:34] He went back to where he was before he descended here.
[00:16:42] Ah.
[00:16:43] Ah. What Paul is trying to say is Christ understands life better than anyone else because he has descended and he knows what it's like to live here, and he has ascended and he knows what it's like to live there.
[00:17:00] So that everything Christ shares with us about life, it is better than we can get anywhere else.
[00:17:08] In fact.
[00:17:10] In fact, He's not experimenting.
[00:17:17] He's not guessing. All his instruction is right.
[00:17:23] You can get a lot of advice that's good. Guessing or just experimenting.
[00:17:31] When I was a boy, somebody got this wise idea that you didn't need to teach kids phonics. They could just learn to sight read everything.
[00:17:41] Ah, well, it was. Oh, that was the greatest thing that ever happened, and it turned out to be a failure way to teach kids because you can't sound out words.
[00:17:53] If you can't cite. Read it, you don't know what it is. All right?
[00:17:59] Somebody thought it was good advice.
[00:18:01] Somebody thought it was a good idea. It was an experiment. They tried it and it failed.
[00:18:07] Life in Christ is not an experiment. God's not experimenting with us to try to figure out what works.
[00:18:16] God's not guessing.
[00:18:19] He clearly understands, not in a abstract way, but in a. In a real way, because he has. He has descended and lived a life like we live, and he has ascended and he is seated next to the right hand of majesty on high.
[00:18:39] And by the way, I want to remind you, what's he doing up there?
[00:18:43] He ever lives to make intercession for you.
[00:18:49] You know what that means?
[00:18:51] You're having a hard day tomorrow.
[00:18:55] Jesus says to the Father, let's bless them.
[00:19:00] Ah, you're confused.
[00:19:05] Jesus says to the Father, let's send somebody to help them get back on track.
[00:19:12] Ah.
[00:19:14] Ah.
[00:19:15] You're feeling isolated.
[00:19:18] Ah. Jesus says to the Father, ah, let's comfort their hearts. Do you hear this? He ever lives to share in the life you are living so that he can be gracious to you and show you his goodness again and again and again and again.
[00:19:49] Then Paul says, to live this life in Christ, you need to have a good connection with the church.
[00:20:00] He told us that week, last week, he's reminding us this week.
[00:20:04] And he says God has people in the church that he's giving grace to so that they can help you live life in Christ better.
[00:20:16] And he says this in verse 11.
[00:20:18] He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
[00:20:33] He says God placed in the church five offices that are specifically designed to help you live the Christian life.
[00:20:45] And we're going to look at each one of them. The first one is apostles.
[00:20:51] The apostles were the people who were originally chosen by Jesus Christ, and they saw him and heard him teach.
[00:21:00] And all of that is connected to us because most of the New Testament is written by apostles.
[00:21:09] Our New Testament is the writing primarily of people who saw and heard Jesus Christ themselves.
[00:21:18] All right, so the apostles give us the New Testament and the apostles Give us the, the original church, all right?
[00:21:35] The Bible and the church is God's first method of working in our lives to help us live the Christian life.
[00:21:45] All right? But then he goes on, he say he give and he also gave. Prophets. I know you think the word prophet means to predict, but it doesn't mean primarily predict.
[00:21:56] It really primarily means the word preach. Pro means before.
[00:22:02] And fame means to say or to speak before people.
[00:22:08] God gives preachers to the church to preach the truth to help you live a better life, all right?
[00:22:19] And here I'm going to tell you a stone cold fact.
[00:22:22] The church thrives where there's good preaching, the church dies where there's not good preaching, just church history. That is just church history, all right?
[00:22:37] Which is why I am fanatical about mentoring the next generation of preachers in this church. And it's why I'm fanatical about not letting just any old Joe wander up here and preach in his, in his pulpit. I am. If you've come here at all very long, you know, I'm fine. Fussy about who gets up here.
[00:22:59] And if you get up here and you do a bad job, you'll never be up here again, okay? Because the church thrives on preaching. When Paul started churches, what did he do? He went to cities, got a crowd together and preached to them.
[00:23:18] What did Jesus do? He got crowds together and preached to them.
[00:23:22] The church stimulates the Christian life by good preaching.
[00:23:30] Then the next one is, it's translated evangelist, but it means able to share the gospel.
[00:23:37] There have to be people in the church who can share the gospel. I think every life group ought to have at least one person in it who can tell somebody the story of Christ and help them make a commitment to Christ.
[00:23:53] I think our ministry should have somebody who can share the gospel. I think everything we do there ought to be some people who are prepared for when the opportunity comes up, we can tell them the Christ story and give them a chance to put their faith in Christ.
[00:24:13] The church thrives when we are sharing the gospel and people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:24:20] Look, if nobody, if none of you can share the gospel, then how are we going to, how we're going to bring God's lost kids home?
[00:24:30] There have to be people in our church who will commit themselves to the holy work of learning how to share the gospel in an interesting way and lead someone in a prayer of faith.
[00:24:42] Where that's happening, the church will thrive.
[00:24:45] The fourth is, it's translated shepherds, some of your Bibles translate Pastors the church has to be run well.
[00:24:59] We have a staff of 30 people.
[00:25:03] We. We actually have a congregation of about 5 to 6,000 people call this their church.
[00:25:11] And we have hundreds of ministries to serve people well. All of that has to be done well.
[00:25:18] The first statement of our mission statement is we attract people to the excellence of Jesus Christ.
[00:25:25] Where the church is led and organized well, people are attracted to Jesus Christ.
[00:25:33] Have you ever driven by a church that's not being taken care of?
[00:25:37] There's weeds everywhere, there's broken windows, there's shingles missing off the roof.
[00:25:44] Anyone?
[00:25:46] Do you ever look at that church and go, isn't God glorious?
[00:25:56] No.
[00:25:57] You can be honest. You look at that and go, this place is a dump. Nobody's taking care of it.
[00:26:04] And that doesn't attract anybody to the excellence of Christ.
[00:26:09] But where the church is led well, where the church is organized, well, people see excellence and they're attracted to it.
[00:26:18] I can't tell you how many people I've met who have drive by this place all the time, and they say, I've always.
[00:26:29] I. I've always felt like I wanted to come in there and look at the place.
[00:26:35] Uh, there's something.
[00:26:38] There's something interesting, okay, that is attracting people to the excellence of Christ.
[00:26:45] They see something that has beauty. They see something that has something appealing to it, and they. And. And that. That gets attached to Jesus Christ.
[00:26:55] And they end up feeling drawn to Christ through the excellence that the church represents him with.
[00:27:05] Can you hear me, church?
[00:27:07] The church thrives by demonstrating the excellence of Christ in how we do what we do.
[00:27:16] And people are attracted to Christ.
[00:27:20] And then the last one is teachers.
[00:27:22] There have to be good teachers in the church. Life group leaders, ministry leaders, seminars.
[00:27:32] We have all kinds of classes here. You can study theology, you can study exegesis. If we don't offer it, we have a relationship with the seminary in Cleveland, Emmaus, and you can take classes there.
[00:27:46] There has to be quality teaching in a church.
[00:27:49] All right. What is Paul saying? He's saying to the church at Ephesus. I taught you when I was there three years.
[00:27:56] What makes the church thrive now? Let me remind you. It begins to thrive by receiving grace from God and giving grace back to people.
[00:28:08] The church thrives when we are being guided by the One who understands life better than anyone, because he descended and he ascended. The church thrives when it has leaders who are doing what they're supposed to do.
[00:28:26] The apostles, the preachers, the. The shares of the gospel, the quality organizing and teaching. The church thrives and he says when the church is thriving, then all the saints will be equipped for the work of the ministry. Everyone who is a Christian should serve Jesus Christ in some way. Have you heard that before?
[00:28:57] Everyone who is a Christian should serve Jesus Christ in some way.
[00:29:02] You have a divinely given gift that you can do something that nurtures a better life in other people. God gave that gift to you and he gave it to you so that you could use it in the church and the church could help everybody get better.
[00:29:23] Do you hear this?
[00:29:25] In some churches there's this idea that the clergy does everything and the lady doesn't do anything.
[00:29:31] That's not what the Bible teaches. From the very, from the very time of the church in Ephesus, Paul was saying every member has to have a ministry.
[00:29:46] Every member has a spiritual gift.
[00:29:49] Every member is capable of doing things that enrich and bless people around them.
[00:29:58] We all serve.
[00:30:00] Ah.
[00:30:03] Now would you let me say this?
[00:30:05] Ah.
[00:30:07] It's hard to do church the way Paul teaches us to do church with RV Christians.
[00:30:22] I'm going to tell you what an RV Christian is.
[00:30:25] They pull the RV into this church. They stay here six months.
[00:30:32] They don't like something, they get in the rv, they go to the next church. They stay there six months, they get in the rv, they go to the next church. And they're always going from church to church. The church can't work that way because the church is supposed to be a place where we use our gifts.
[00:30:52] And when we use our gifts, we develop better relationships with each other. We trust each other more and we have better influence on each other for good. Do you hear this?
[00:31:03] Ah.
[00:31:07] The church is supposed to be united both in love of Christ and in purpose.
[00:31:14] And you can't be united with people that, that, that come and go church.
[00:31:28] I think we need to have some coffee served in here.
[00:31:32] All right.
[00:31:38] Verse 13.
[00:31:40] Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
[00:31:52] The church is meant to grow into full maturity.
[00:32:01] I want you to use your imagination.
[00:32:04] I want you to look at your hand and imagine that your little finger hasn't grown at all since you were in third grade.
[00:32:16] The rest of your hand is normal, but your little finger looks like it did in third grade.
[00:32:25] You would not be able to use your hand the way it's meant to be used, right?
[00:32:31] It wouldn't function right because the little finger didn't grow up.
[00:32:36] We can make this more drastic. I want you to imagine you have your whole hand looks like it did in third grade.
[00:32:46] Ah.
[00:32:47] Ah.
[00:32:48] You will be handicapped because something didn't grow into maturity. Right?
[00:32:55] Well, that's exactly what Paul is saying. The church, if it's going to function and make a difference in the world, if the church is going to be what God wants us to be, we have to grow into our full potential.
[00:33:10] Some of you are little fingers when you should be grown up fingers.
[00:33:15] Some of you got stuck somewhere in your spiritual life and you really, you're not anywhere near your potential. Paul is saying to all of us, Listen, he's saying to all of us, it matters in living the Christian life if we're going to be influential in the world, that we help each other grow into our full potential, that we have a commitment to grow into our full potential.
[00:33:41] And that as we grow, we help others around us grow and the church thrives. And the world sees God in a way differently than they would have.
[00:33:51] He wants us to grow not only in unity, but he wants us to grow in faith.
[00:33:58] I believe as we become more mature Christians, God should be able to trust us with harder things.
[00:34:06] Right, Parents? Do you remember the first time you trusted your kids to drive the car without you in it?
[00:34:19] Parents.
[00:34:23] Yikes, right?
[00:34:25] Yikes.
[00:34:28] All right.
[00:34:31] Ah.
[00:34:32] But they grew up and they got driving practice and you saw them handle the car well and they became more mature.
[00:34:43] Now I don't worry about my kids driving at all.
[00:34:47] They grew into their potential, right?
[00:34:53] That's what's supposed to happen in the Christian world. God should be able to bring us along so that he can trust us to do more and more challenging things with him.
[00:35:06] But for that to happen, we have to grow in our faith.
[00:35:12] I don't believe this church has done the hardest things we're going to do in serving Jesus Christ.
[00:35:19] I, Sharon and I went to the new campus and they're out there digging holes and, and I watched a bulldozer for a while and I said a prayer and I said, dear God, I pray that this campus will spin off other campuses just like Maine has.
[00:35:42] I pray that there'll be more churches in the world because this campus has faith in God and does hard things.
[00:35:54] Who knows what the limit is? Church with people who will grow in their faith and God can trust them to do challenging things.
[00:36:05] He said, we need to grow in the knowledge of the Son of God. You ought to think better about Christ today than you did two years ago.
[00:36:14] What are you learning about Christ?
[00:36:16] What do you know about Christ right now that you didn't know two years ago.
[00:36:21] Ah. And I want to talk about learning not just in the ability to think about Christ, but we also learn to experience things.
[00:36:31] Ah.
[00:36:33] I believe that the soul is a natural receptor for the reality of God.
[00:36:41] And I believe you can grow in your ability to sense the presence of God.
[00:36:46] You can grow in your natural capacity to sense the presence of God. And Paul is saying, when Christians get healthy, when the church does what it's supposed to do, we have this new sense of the presence of God more and more in our life.
[00:37:05] Church I'm living the life of Christ because I am more and more sensitive and more and more aware that he's not millions of miles away in some mysterious heaven. In fact, I'm living in his presence day by day.
[00:37:23] Church so then we grow into the fullness of Christ.
[00:37:32] What does that mean?
[00:37:34] Christ becomes more present in our thoughts, feelings and choices.
[00:37:41] In my daily life, Christ becomes more present in my thoughts.
[00:37:47] I think about him more often.
[00:37:51] Christ becomes more present in my feelings. I let Christian set the agenda instead of my selfish heart.
[00:38:03] I want to treat people the way Christ wants to be treated, not the way my ego wants to treat them.
[00:38:08] And then we make better choices because Christ is influencing our choices.
[00:38:13] So here's what Paul is saying today.
[00:38:17] Life in Christ, when it's lived right, is a powerful life and it has a profound effect on the world around us.
[00:38:27] To live life in Christ properly requires grace. Grace that we get and grace that we give.
[00:38:35] To live life in Christ properly, it requires preaching, it requires sharing the gospel, it requires shepherding, it requires teaching.
[00:38:50] Ah. To live life in Christ, we need each other because in the unity we become something better than we would have been by ourselves.
[00:39:03] And when we're living life in Christ the way it's meant to be, we have a greater awareness of Christ in our thoughts, our feelings and our actions. Our dear Heavenly Father, I call upon your name.
[00:39:18] I turn to you in hope.
[00:39:21] I believe that what Paul is saying here is, has been proven true in history.
[00:39:29] And I believe that you are at work in our church.
[00:39:34] And it is your. It is your serious purpose for help to help us all grow into our full potential of Christ and then for this church to be an evidence for the reality of the goodness of Jesus Christ in a very broken world. And I ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
