Don't Get Distracted

Rob Capaldi (www.capaldi.life)
Series: Ephesians

David Stockton: 

He is apostolic. He has traveled the continents sharing the word of God, trying to spread God’s word and strengthen churches. He’s here to share his gift and his calling with us—his story. He’s been in Ecuador. He’s been in Canada. He’s been in the U.S. and now he’s currently living in Italy, trying to build the church there. I’m so excited to tell his stories. I told him he can’t speak in Spanish, he can’t speak in Italian. He has to speak in English. He could do any of those. He could probably speak Canadian, too, but nobody wants to hear that. What’s up, Roy? Here you go, Rob. Let ‘em have it.

Rob Capaldi:

Thank you, David, for that amazing introduction. I feel like I could just do a mic drop after that and just walk away. See, now, that’s why I wanted a handheld. You can’t mic drop an earpiece. That’s not right.

Thank you so much. I will do like Paul has done in some of the books of the Bible:

Italy brings its greetings to you.

That is definitely true for us today.

Now, for those who do not know me, which is most of you, I am a second-generation missionary. When I was six years old, my parents decided to sell everything, put some of their stuff in a container and move to Ecuador. I obviously didn’t have much say in this because I was six years old. We lived there for a while, church was growing and everything was going great. 

But a little less than three years ago, with my family—I’ve been married fourteen years now, to my beautiful wife that is with me this morning, Karina. My oldest son is Robby, he’s twelve, and Angelina, she’s going to be seven, and my last daughter, Alia, she is four years old—we decided to move as missionaries, as David said, to Italy. I’ll be telling you a little about that story as we advance.

Something interesting happened to me when we were leaving Ecuador to go to Italy. There is this really popular Bible verse that people use when they are going to go somewhere else. You’ve probably heard it before. This verse is Acts 1:8. It’s one you know: 

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere: in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Have you heard that before? Yeah. You’ve heard that, right? So, obviously, we were using that verse when we were leaving Ecuador. “We’ve got to go to the ends of the earth. This is our Jerusalem. We’ve got to go to the ends of the earth. So that’s where we’re going. We’re going to the other side of the world to the ends of the earth.” For us that is Italy.

We get to Italy and the church that received us there, were actually on this missions topic as well. And guess what? They put that verse up and they’re talking about that. And they’re saying, “We need to have a vision to send people to the ends of the earth.” 

And I’m thinking, “Wait a minute. The ends of the … this is the ends of the earth! I just came from Jerusalem. This is the ends of the earth!”

And then it dawned on me. I just realized something. Now, I’m assuming none of you are flat earth believers. But I realized, “Oh my gosh. There is no ‘ends of the earth.’ The earth is round! So, if there is no ‘ends of the earth’—I’m coming to the ends of the earth—you’re gong to the ends of the earth and we’re crossing. Wouldn’t it just be cheaper and easier if everyone just stayed put?”

It’s funny though, because, you see, we all know when Jesus finished his ministry he left. He left the earth. And at that moment, I think that’s one of the coolest moments in the Bible, the disciples are there and they are watching Jesus leave. He’s gone on a cloud. He’s leaving and they’re just watching him. After a little while, he’s actually gone. But you know what the disciples are doing? They’re still just looking up into the sky. Then, all of a sudden, this angel appears among them and he says, “Uh, guys. What are you doing? Why are you looking up in the clouds? It’s time to pick up shop. Let’s go. It’s up to you now.”

If this angel was Italian, he would have said, “Hey, guys, salt in the salt shaker does nothing to the pasta. You’ve got to spread out that salt. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to go all around.”

That is God’s heart for us. No, we do not have to stay put. Yes, we have to go all around the world telling everybody about God’s love and everything that he has for us. That has to sound in every tongue, in every ethnicity, in every kind of person. It’s amazing when you hear it from different people around the world in the same place. We’ve really got to grasp that God is not just our God, here let’s say in Phoenix, but he is God of the whole world. So when we have people together speaking in Italian, in Portuguese, in Spanish, and they’re all talking about the same God. That is really power.

[A few sentences in Italian and then Spanish]

Okay, I’ll talk English. I’m sorry, David. Plus, I’m starting to sound a little like the candidates in the Presidential debates. We won’t get into politics this morning.

The point is, Jesus’ Body, he left, right? But his Body is still here. The Church, we are the living, breathing Body of Christ, amen? And Jesus still is serving everyone. He wants to do that through us. And now it is up to us to go all around the world. I am a witness, as David said. I’ve been around. Thank God. That is such a blessing. I’ve been to Spain. I’ve been to Switzerland. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve been to Canada. I’ve been all around. And you know what? God is everywhere! 

Don’t believe the news. Don’t believe whatever you hear about Christianity. Let me tell you something. And I can tell you because I’ve been there. God is doing things all around the world. 

If you could leave here this morning with just one thing, please let it be this: Do not get distracted. Do not get distracted from Christ’s love. Bear in mind, English is my first language, but it is actually the language that I use the least. It is a little rusty. So if I say anything stupid, please do not get distracted. 

I would like to bring our attention to Ephesians now. Ephesians 3. Paul, in Ephesians, is giving us this amazing vision of what the church looks like in the future. He’s teaching the Church how it needs to act, and also the individual, how it needs to act in this broken world. But in Ephesians are also these amazing golden nuggets that Paul does. And he does something amazing. He pauses for a second from his teachings, and he says he gets on his knees and he prays for the church in Ephesians. This is what he says in Ephesians 3:14. I’m reading from the New Living Translation. Listen to this. You might be able to receive this as a prayer, because this was Paul’s prayer for the Church, and we are part of this.

14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 

Let me repeat that:

Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 

18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Amen. What makes us complete? What makes us complete in him? It’s experiencing God’s love. And may we never, ever get distracted from that one thing: God’s love through Christ. Christ’s love in us. That’s what makes our roots grow deep and keeps us strong.

Before I got married, when we were about to get married, we went with my mother and father in-law to do some errands. Karina and I were in the back seat. My future mother in-law was driving, my father in-law was in the passenger seat. We were downtown and there was a lot of traffic. We were running some errands. So he jumps out to run some errands and my mother in-law was going to drive around the block to pick him up after he could do something quick.

So we’re in the back and she’s driving. Then, all of a sudden, as she was driving, somebody screams out, “Hey, be careful! Fire! Fire!” Like underneath the car. So she stops the car and jumps out. I also jump out because, you know, I have to show that I’m a responsible person, right? I hope that’s what she thought and that I wasn’t jumping out to save my life. So I jump out and I’m looking under the car and I don’t see anything. I’m like, “There’s nothing here.”

Then this guy comes around and taps me on the shoulder and says, “No, no. It’s in the back. Come and see!” And he touches my shoulder, he pushes me down a little and he says, “Look, look, look!”

So I’m looking at the exhaust pipe. I’m looking around. I don’t see anything. My mother in-law and I were both in the back of the car just looking like that and the guy says, “No, No. Look down. See? See? See?”

And after we’re looking a while, this girl comes up to us and says, “Hey, guys.” And I’m still looking, you know. “They just stole your purse.”

And I’m thinking, “What an idiot!” And so I get up and I’m like, “This can’t be. They just stole my future mother in-law’s purse. I’ve got to do something!”

So I start running. Right? I’m running and running and running. And then, as I’m running, I’m thinking, “What an idiot! Who are you running after? I don’t know what this person looks like. I don’t know where they went. I don’t even know what the purse looks like. I didn’t pay attention.”

And so I stopped and I turned around. I’m bummed out and walking back. And as I’m walking back, because I ran about a block and this is the longest block to walk back. As I’m walking back, I’m thinking to myself, “Wait a second. I saw the thief. I didn’t just see the thief, at least one of them, he touched me! The guy that was tapping on my shoulder, showing me where to look, pushing me down, he wasn’t trying to help me. He was distracting me. He was distracting me, making me look down so that I wouldn’t realize what was actually going on. That guy was in on it. That guy was the thief.”

That sometimes happens to us. We get distracted from what is really going on. We get distracted from what God really wants for our lives and for what God really wants for your life. Let’s not get distracted. You know what? Sometimes we think those distractions are going to be bad things, evil things. No, no, no. This guy was trying to help me, right? That’s why I was listening to him. He was trying to help me. Right? That’s why I was listening to him, because he was trying to help me. But it wasn’t true. So sometimes it can be apparently good things in our lives, but if they distract us from the love Christ has for us, then it’s not necessarily a good thing.

This reminded me of something in Matthew 13. I’m just going to mention it, you don’t have to go there. There’s a parable that Jesus was teaching. You’ve definitely heard it before. The parable about the farmer planting seeds. The farmer casts out all these seeds everywhere. All these seeds fall on all these different types of soil. 

That’s a teaching in itself. That really shows us the Father’s heart. He’s going to throw seed everywhere. That sounds like a terrible farmer, actually. A good farmer would just throw seed where it’s going to grow. This farmer just throws it everywhere. It doesn’t matter if it lands on stone, if it lands on wherever it lands. But that’s God’s heart. He gives everyone an opportunity. And you might think, “Man, I’m not really good soil. But you know what? He’s throwing seeds at you because he wants you to grow.”

So these seeds fall on different kinds of soil. The first soil wasn’t soil at all. It was just stone. The sun came out and the seed didn’t have anywhere to grow. It burns right up. The second one has a little bit of soil. It starts to grow, but can’t put its roots anywhere. Dries right up, as well.

And then there’s the third soil. This is the one I want to talk about. This third soil terrifies me. At the same time that I’ve traveled everywhere, I’ve seen this third soil around the world, as well, and it terrifies me. There’s a reason why it terrifies me. I’m going to read directly from Matthew 13:22 (NLT): 

22 The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced.

Why does this terrify me so much? Because this seed that grows, it doesn’t die. No. The soil is good. It starts growing, but it does not die. It grows among thorns and the thorns let it grow, but it kind of grows bad. It’s not growing properly, so no fruit is produced. You may think, “Thorns, those are like bad people in my life. That’s what those thorns must represent.”

But that’s not the truth. Thorns are just distractions. Thorns are things you worry about. Or thorns are things you really want, like wealth and riches or to be prosperous or whatever. Just distractions. 

You know what happens when you have too many distractions in your life? You forget about the essential thing, which is Christ’s love for you and being in that love. When we lose that, our roots cannot grow deep to where they should be, and we will not produce fruit. We do not want that in our lives. We want to be good soil without these distractions.

What happens then? We can produce thirty, sixty, a hundred times that. It doesn’t matter if you’re thirty, sixty or a hundred. The important thing is that everything that is growing and is healthy will keep on growing and will produce fruit.

I thought I wasn’t a person that would get distracted from these kind of things. In 2016, my life was actually going pretty well. It was going really well, actually. I was super happy with my life. I had my own business. It took a long time to get that thing running, like years. But it was finally up and running. My family was growing. I had a beautiful family. The church—I was ordained pastor a few years prior. The ministry was growing. My ministry was growing. Man, I was loving it. It was going great.

So we decided to purchase a piece of property. So we bought this piece of property and we paid it off. It’s easy to buy things. It’s the paying off part that’s hard to do. So we paid off the property. So we decided to build. Oh yeah. This is like our all-time dream. We’re going to build our own house. That’s like a thing in Ecuador to buy land and build your home. That was our vision. That’s what we want to do. We were living temporarily—which was actually like ten years—in my father in-law’s house. They did not live there, so that was a good thing. That’s when a blessing starts to become a curse, right? When you’re overdoing it. So we were building our own house. This was going to be amazing.

So we start this amazing project. We were on Pinterest, checking out what the rooms were going to be like. We were putting this project together to give to the architect. So the week we had to do all that, it was a Monday morning, I was having breakfast with my wife. We were going over the last details so I could hand this over to the architect. And as we’re going over the details, having breakfast, talking, this idea just flashes through my mind. It gives me goosebumps. The idea was, “Is this the will of God?”

I’m thinking, “Well, come on. I mean, it’s the logical thing to do. We’re advancing in life. We’re supposed to be doing this.” And I’m thinking, and I ask my wife, “Honey, did we pray about this? Because this is a long term project.”

And she’s like, “No, I don’t think we have.”

I’m like, “Man, I don’t feel good right now. Let’s just pray about this.”

So I say a real simple prayer. I say, “Lord, I’m really sorry we haven’t put this into your plans first, but if this is what you want us to do, bless this. If it’s not, just let us know so we can do something else. Just let us know kind of soon, okay? Amen.”
It was as simple as that. Five minutes later—I am not joking—five minutes later I receive a phone call. It was my dad on the phone. And he says, “Son, I was just praying and meditating right now and this thought came to my mind. I’m just going to land it on you. Do whatever you think—but this might be a great time for you to go somewhere else as a missionary.”

“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it.”

So I hang up and I look at my wife. She’s like, “What’s going on?”

And I’m like, “How about instead of building our dream house, we sell everything and go somewhere else as missionaries?”

See, I warned her before we got married that I was going to do that someday. So she had to say, “Yes.” But she was surprised because she thought it was after we’d retire, or something like that. 

That is exactly what we did. We sold everything. We took six months to really get the confirmation. It wasn’t just from that phone call. So don’t go do anything crazy if you receive one phone call. It took us six months to decide where we were going and all that, and then six months to sell everything and prepare everything. So exactly that same date that we received that phone call and prayed about it, we arrived in Italy one year later.

You know, the thing is that I realize in my life that sometimes we just go into autopilot, you know? It was obvious. I was supposed to advance in life. I was supposed to build a house. That’s true. They are all good things. But they are also distractions. You never know what the Lord wants to put in your path. You’ve got to just give it a second and let him talk to you. Maybe the life he has for you is slightly different than the one you are imagining for yourself.

You might be saying, “Rob, I hear you, but come on. Where do I start this kind of a life that just really trusts in God, that really loves Christ, that understands…? I just don’t know where to start so I just keep going back into autopilot.” If you don’t know what to do, don’t let that distract you from Christ’s love, either. 

When we went to Italy, we actually didn’t know what we were supposed to do. We had no idea. I knew I was supposed to leave and that was about it. It was not like I had this five year plan of where am I going to be in five years? We didn’t not know what we were going to do. But the Lord put this verse in my heart that really got me through hard times. Genesis 12:1

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.

All right. That sounds pretty basic, right? But wait a minute. Listen to that verse. There’s something kind of secret there. This is when you realize Abraham truly was the father of the faith. He had to leave his father’s home to a land that God was going to show him. So, he actually had to leave to somewhere and he did not know where he was supposed to go. You know what that is? Those are steps of faith?

In your life, take steps of faith. They don’t have to start with huge steps of faith. Take small steps of faith. But start putting your faith in action. Because when you need to put your faith in action, you start churching Christ’s love for your life. When your faith is not in action, you don’t really need God’s love. You can do church life. You can do Christian life without Christ’s love. That’s the crazy thing. But you know what that is? That’s a plant growing with thorns around him. That isn’t producing fruit. You’re doing the thing. You’re living the life, but it’s not to its fullest. God does not want that life for you. He wants you to grow to that full plant, tree, whatever, that has tons of fruit. And we need Christ to do that.

You can start with small things, basic things. Ephesians tells us all about it. Start with your own life. Start living good. Get your act together. Start being a testimony for different people, just by the way you live. You don’t have to be a mega evangelist to do that. Just get your act together. Start with that. It takes faith. And it takes love in Christ to really be able to do that. Or serve in any way possible. There’s always something to do at church. Believe me, there’s always something to do in God’s kingdom. It doesn’t matter if it’s sweeping the floor. One door opens the next. You’ve got to start somewhere. Sometimes we only want to start if it’s something big. No, no, no. Start with something small. One thing will lead to the next.  

This wise person told me something that really helped me throughout my life. He said, “If you only want to go in one direction, follow your vision. That’s it. There’s only one direction for your vision. But if you’re willing to serve someone else’s vision, the whole world will open up to you.”

That’s a profound statement. But you know what? That is true. Sometimes in periods, seasons of our lives, we need to be open to follow someone else’s vision. But one door will open up to the next and the Lord will use us. 

Support God’s kingdom. Support a missionary, how about that? I can give you a few names, if you want. At the end of the service, my email and website will be there. Snap a picture, send me an email, say I want to be on your newsletter. We’ll be happy to do that. That’s not the purpose why I’m here. I want to talk about Christ’s love and don’t get distracted from that.

Don’t get distracted even when you’re in a desert. That’s going to come around one time or another. The Israelites were really surprised when that desert came around. They thought, “Promised Land,” but there was a dessert first. Things are going to happen in your life, but don’t let that distract you from Christ’s life. 

Our time in Italy was rough at the beginning. I have never been at the hospital so many times. It wasn’t even for myself. It was for my children, for all these different things, so many things I can’t get into it. But it’s amazing how many problems you can get into when you’re loving Christ. It’s a strange thing. But you know what? He warned us about it. And in that desert, that’s not the time to complain, That’s the time to trust in God.

I woke up the other day with something in my heart that I just wanted to say: You are not your desert. Do not make that your identity. The identity of the Israelites was the “People of  God.” It was not “Desert People.” And that’s the same for us. You are not your financial problems. You are not your confusions. You are not your troubles and your problems. That is not you. You are God’s son and daughter. That is your identity. Always go back to that identity. Because we are not our deserts.

Don’t get distracted from Christ’s love even when the Promised Land, that life that God has for you, looks a little bit different from what you imagined it to be. Those Israelites were surprised when they saw the Promised Land. You know why? Because they thought it was going to be flowing with milk and honey. And that’s true. It was. But there was also another surprise there. A little problem. Spies came back and they said, “Guess what? In this Promised Land, there’s giants!” 

There are going to be giants in our Promised Land. It might look a little bit different. When we went to Italy, oh man, I thought this red rug was going to come out from the airplane when we walked down and everybody would coming running up, “Tell me about Jesus!” And when we got there, it was like, “What are you doing here?”

It looks a little different sometimes than what we imagine. And that’s okay. 

Christ’s love. We should never get distracted from it. And that’s one of the reasons we do communion. And we and start passing that through. The reason we do communion is to remember the most important things in our lives. That is Christ’s sacrifice for us. Remember the love that he has because it is that love, Christ’s love for us, that is what is going to make our roots grow deep and keep us strong. That’s what it is. 

As we pass out the elements, just let God start to talk to your heart for a second. What thorns do you have in your life? What thorns do you need to remove? What distractions do you need to remove? Are you on autopilot, my friend? I think God has a more adventurous life for you than just to worry about bills at the end of the month. Those are all part of our life. That’s okay. But I believe God has so much more for each and every one of us. 

As we pass the bread and wine, we remember about what Christ has done for us. I want to say one last thing about these distractions. Don’t get distracted from Christ’s love, even when you mess up. You know, sometimes a relationship with God seems like this mountain. It’s a huge mountain. We’re building up, climbing up this mountain and, sometimes we feel great. “I’m on top of the mountain. This is awesome!” And then we mess up. 

And we go and do it again. It takes us a while. We’re like, “Great! I’m back in this relationship. Yes!” And then we mess up. 

And then next time, we kind of look at the mountain and say, “Meh. Maybe in a few years.”

Can I tell you something? That mountain doesn’t exist. Ephesians 3:12:

12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.

You know, God’s mercy is new every day. You’ve heard about that? You know what that means in our lives? It’s like when we mess up and we say, “God, I’m sorry I messed up.” And then the next day we mess up again. And we go back and say, “God, I’m sorry I messed up again.” And God says, “Again? What do you mean again?”

You see, God’s mercy is new every day. It’s like the first time every time. That’s too big of a love to comprehend. That’s what Paul’s trying to explain. It’s just too big of a love to comprehend. And you are righteous people. You know what righteous people do? Proverbs 24:16:

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.

If you’ve fell, you’ve messed up in your life in any way, get back up. The ground is not a  place for you. It’s also just a distraction. It’s the thief trying to get you to look at the ground instead of looking up to see what’s really happening. And you know what’s always happening? Christ’s love for you. And that is why we get back up.

And speaking about getting back up, let us all stand, please. 

Father, we want to remember right now, Lord, all the goodness that you have for us. Most importantly, the love that you have for us, Father. 

For I pass onto you what I have received from the Lord himself, on the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” I thank you, Father. I thank you, Jesus, for your body. You were the last sacrifice. Thank you for that love that you’ve had for us. In the name of Jesus. Let us eat the bread.

In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is a new covenant between God and his people, in agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as oft as you drink it. For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.

We thank you, Lord, for this new covenant. A better covenant, m Father. Not by law, but by your grace, filled with your  love. May we remember this every time we drink this cup. That it is your love that we seek. It is your love that keeps us strong, and may we remember that in the darkest times of our life, and also in the happiest, Lord. May we never be distracted and always come back to your feet, Father, and receive that love. Let’s drink the wine.

---

©️2019 Living Streams Church

7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Scripture is taken from Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Church as the Bride

David Stockton
Series: Ephesians

Good morning. College football has started! But I’m an Oregon fan. It was a rough night for me. 

But it’s good to be with you guys this morning. We’ve got baptism this morning—both services. About ten people getting baptized today, which is super exciting and fun. And we’re going to be working through Ephesians again. Ephesians 5. 

Life Groups. Life Groups. Life Groups. Maybe it’s weird phrase: Life Groups. But it is small groups of people trying to get together outside of the Sunday morning context to check in on each other, pray for each other. The four things we’re dreaming and praying for you is that you’ll get raw authenticity and the healing that comes with that. You’ll get relentless encouragement from each other because we definitely need that. You’ll get Biblical counsel in those small groups. And you’ll get some genuine friendship. Not the online kind but the face-to-face kind. Online is cool. You can do that, too. But face-to-face is important, as well. 

We actually have over 200 people that have signed up since last Sunday. Yeah. There’s a lot of “whoo-ing” going on around here. We think it’s really important. We are not trying to build a Sunday morning show. That’s the last thing we’re trying to build around here—where people come for an hour, watch a show and then go. We are not in that business. We’re trying to build a church. And it is so important that the church has more than Sunday morning to stand on. 

I don’t care if you find life groups in another church. You’ve got to find ways to get together with people in smaller settings, where you can be known and you can impart the wisdom God is speaking to you and you can be supported. 

Did I mention Life Groups? It’s very easy. You go online, livingstreams.org and we’ve got a whole list of them. They’ve got times, locations, what’s happening there. We’re asking everyone in our church—everyone—if this is your first Sunday—hey—you’re in. You came. It’s your fault.—to at least sign up for six weeks, starting September 15. We have leaders, we have groups, we have everything ready. We even gave the leaders their first snacks for the first night. We’re serious about this thing. And we’re serious about snacks, too.

Just give it at least six weeks. The leaders are going to be there and they’re ready to run past six weeks, but we just really want you guys to give it a shot and see what the Lord can do. We don’t want to miss anything that God has in store for us.

All right. We’re going to be in Ephesians. We’re looking at Paul’s vision of the church. He didn’t have a vision for Living Streams Church. Living Streams is just an organization that has men and women who are leading it. And the Church that Jesus Christ gave birth to by his blood and the vision that Paul had is the Church organism. It is the thing that lives on beyond Living Streams. It is the thing that was there before Living Streams or whatever other church you might be a part of. 

And we’ve built these organizations, these churches that are hopefully going to help that organism prosper and thrive within it. But YOU are the Church if you are called by Jesus’ name. You are the Church. And the Church is the single most dominant force for good that the world has ever seen. Any era. Any age. Any place. No one can deny the power of what the Church, the true Church has done.

At the same time, no one can deny that there have been real good seasons and real bad seasons for the organization aspect of the Church. There have been horrible seasons when we look at the organization of the Church. But Jesus is not the head of the organizations. We do our best to make sure he is in control of this place, but at the end of the day, it’s got to go through people like me. And it’s going to come out a little squirrly. But he is and always will be the head of the Church, which is his Body here on earth. And everyone of you has a part to play. 

So Paul is trying to impart to us this vision, this grand vision, this vision that, when he got it, he did not want it. But when he got it, he changed every single thing in his life. He threw away everything he had ever known and become—position, power, money, self-righteousness, pride. He threw it all away and said, “I just want to live into this vision.” And he spent the rest of his life traveling the world to tell Gentiles (people who are not Jews) about this vision that God has for them.

In Ephesians he tries to piece it all together in this letter that he was writing. And it’s so ridiculous. If you were to get this letter back in Paul’s day, you would think the guy is insane. You would think he’s absolutely crazy. Because, what he is putting forth in this vision, and what was in reality at that time of the Church are so far apart. If you get nothing else in our time in the book of Ephesians, I just want you to get this. That Paul was declaring something that had no chance of becoming a reality. The Church at that time was scattered, was living in caves and dens, was persecuted and dominated. It was a laughing stock. It was pitiful. And yet Paul could see something that Marty Caldwell gets to see all the time as he travels around. That other people—we have someone speaking next week who’s been around the world seeing the Church in action in all different continents. He’s going to share a little bit of the strength and beauty these days.

If Paul could see the Church today, he would do an old man backflip. Which is kind of like rolling over, I think, or falling down, maybe. What the Church has become, there is no way Paul could actually have believed that it would be what it is today. She is so beautiful. But Paul could see a vision. We talk about Martin Luther King, Jr., as he speaks to that crowd right before he was killed and he said, “I have no worries. For I have been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the other side. I’ve seen the Promised Land. I know we’re going to get there.”

And that’s basically what Paul is saying in his day and age. He’s saying, “I’ve seen the vision. Jesus has given me the vision. And now I’m living into the vision. And I’m going to see us grow from this tiny, little, infant baby that is not even having a chance to live, forsaken in every way—it’s going to become the most powerful thing the world has ever seen.

It’s awesome what we are reading right now. And I’m hoping it will get in us. I’ve had a couple of visions in my life. When I first gave my life to Jesus, I was about eighteen years old. When I first gave my life to Jesus. I had received Jesus prior to that, but there was a big difference when I turned seventeen and eighteen, right in there, where I think Jesus was saying, “Okay. Now I’m going to ask something from you.” 

And I went for it. Immediately (Mike, you can attest to this) I just, for some reason starting thinking about Ireland all the time. I had actually gotten to go to Ireland with my family right after I graduated, so I just thought that’s all that it was. And yet, this idea of going to Ireland and starting a camp, like a summer camp, and then also starting a church and having a school there kind of all on the same property. This vision just started coming. 

Again, I had been to Ireland. My grandmother was Irish. I do have Irish citizenship—I have dual citizenship through her. So, I started thinking, “Maybe there’s something here.” And I just had a compelling vision of going to Ireland and getting rid of all the snakes. Not really. That was somebody else’s vision. But going to Ireland, trying to see the Lord do something. So I graduated college and I talked to some friends who were crazy enough to say, “Let’s do it.”

We came up with a plan. We were all going to go for three months. We bought a three month ticket. That was the entirety of the plan. And we were going to just see what the Lord would do.  And I’m here in Arizona now. Right? Working here, you know. 

But we did go there. We got to see the Lord do really great things. It was very strengthening for our faith. Within three days we had jobs and a place to live. And our names were being sent to all these different ministry clubs in Northern Ireland. We got to go two or three times a week. We’d get on a bus and say, “Can you take us to this place and do ministry?” And at the end of it, though, we were like, “Well, we should go home.” It was a great time. It was building my faith, but then we came back. 

Then I had another vision. I was sitting right down here one time by Mark Buckley as he was about to preach. And we were singing the song, “For the sake of the world, burn like a fire in me.” And I can’t tell you how clear it was. I saw a vision of a bunch of Belizeans. My wife and I had lived in Belize a little before, so it wasn’t that far off. But I saw a room full of Belizeans and they were singing, “For the sake of Belize, burn like a fire in me.” And it was real clear. And it was a vision.

I remember talking to Mark about it and the elders, and saying, “You know, my wife and I are thinking maybe we should go to Belize again.” And Mark said, “Okay. Okay. Let’s figure this out.” And, sure enough, we ended up going to Belize for a little more than a year with our family. And step by step, we started a Friday Night Fire, is what they wanted to call it. Except, in Belize, it’s called “Friday Night Fi-yah.”

We started a little worship night. And my wife and I were doing music, which is not that impressive. We started using that song to close every one of the Friday nights that we had. We changed the word, I don’t know if we’re allowed to, but it was in Belize where you can get away with anything. We changed the words and I thought, “Wow, this amazing.” Little by little, the room started to fill up. And people were singing that song. And the Lord, just to make it so clear that I didn’t miss it, there was one night when it was totally jam-packed. This was probably about one hundred or so Belizeans. It was a small room so it was jam-packed. 

We were singing that song and it was a great night. We were really leaning in to the Lord. And, all of a sudden the power went out completely. When the power goes out in Belize, it was dark. It was so dark you couldn’t see anything inside this room. And it was very hot. Yet, the power goes out, our mics, everything is gone, and everyone just kept singing. And we’re just at the part where we sing, “For the sake of Belize, burn like a fire in me.” And I just stepped back from the mic for just a second and just went, “Oh, my goodness!” It was like the Lord was saying, “No, no, no. We’re making a point of this.  Exclamation point. Boom!”

There are these visions that the Lord gives us. Paul was so compelled by this vision of what he was going to see. I don’t know if he ever got to a point where he felt that he got to see it. I think he probably saw little pieces of it. But again, Ephesians is this grand vision that he’s trying to lay out for all of us.

He starts out giving a vision of the Church as a family—that we’ve been adopted into God’s heart. So the Church is one of the ways we can see this vision. One of the ways Paul saw it as it’s like the family of God. We’ve got the name of God on our jerseys, on the back. We walk around and are learning how to live according to his family rules and culture.

And then he goes on to talk about how the Church is the dwelling place of God. That somehow his Spirit is in all of us and, as we go about the world, God’s presence goes into all the world, and it’s a picture of what God can do.  When people come and get to know us, it’s like coming over to God’s house and hanging out for a while. 

Then we talked last week about how the Church is a body. That we’re this body. We’re trying to grow into this full stature, this amazing, powerful force that God has in mind for us to be. And we start at one point and try to grow into it so that we can be strong enough to withstand the winds of every deceitful scheme that comes our way. That we won’t be tossed to and fro by the waves. And that’s the dream that we have. 

Today we’re going to talk about the Church as a bride. So all the girls are like, “Oh, yeah, that’s cool.” And all the guys are like, “College football, man. College football.”

So Ephesians Chapter 5. You’ve got to deal with it. It’s in the Bible so get ready. Get your wedding dresses out.  

5:1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

So there you have fragrance, right? We’re already getting girly. But Jesus loved us and he gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering. And then he says:

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 

Or, for God’s bride. Right? Skip down to verse 21: 

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

And then Paul says this as a little bit of a hesitation caveat:

 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

So all this stuff about submission, all this stuff about two becoming one, he’s saying, “Now, I need you to pay attention here. I’m not trying to be weird. But somehow this is a mystery. All of this stuff that I’m talking about is actually about Christ and his Church—his bride—the people who follow him

 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Paul opens up this whole can of worms. He’s basically saying, “Now another way I want you to picture the Church is as the Bride of Christ.”

It is the people he has chosen. The people he has give his life for and will forevermore. The people that he is actually trying to love so well that they actually form into all the beauty that they can form into. He’s talking about how Christ and His Body are to become one in lovingkindness and mutual respect.

Again, John 17 is a prayer that, if Jesus didn’t pray it, I would never really teach it. is prayer is that those who believe in him would become one with him, just like he and the Father are one. It’s not saying that we’re going to become gods. But somehow we’re going to be included into the trinitarian love and oneness as we follow him.

It’s a profound mystery. And I’m not going to talk about it anymore because I no idea what else to say about it. One day I’m just going to die and—bam—in it. I can just call it a profound mystery,

We’re talking about this love. We’re talking about the romance. We’re talking about how God in Christ romanced us. Reckless love. However you want to talk about it. He wooed us. Romeo and Juliet. All of the stuff you want to say here. 

It’s fun for me to talk to guys when we go on men’s retreats or Belize retreat. To get to know them, I love to just ask the question, “Do you have a girlfriend?” (if they’re not married.) And it’s so funny because, immediately, I feel like—bam—you are in. Unless they’re like, “No. Don’t talk to me about that. I don’t know you.” 

But if they start to answer that question at all, they can’t help it. Their heart is coming right out of their mouth. You get to see their heart right away, whether it’s good, bad or whatever. Because that’s a big part of where their life is flowing out of. It’s that part of their heart that longs for that companionship.

And then I love to ask guys on our men’s retreat—we were in Belize and last time I asked the guys, “All right. What we’re going to do tonight as a kind of debrief, I want everyone to tell us how you got engaged.” 

You could see all the guys were like, “What do you mean?” And then they’d start telling it. And they would be struggling, trying to make it not a big deal. But then as they would start telling the story they would start gushing a bit. It’s like, “Oh, you’re sappy! Yeah, you are a romantic guy! Look at you! Ha ha! We got you! Busted.”

But as they would tell the story, it comes out. And it’s so precious and beautiful. Even the guys who are like so tough, when they start telling about getting engaged, it’s just an awesome, awesome thing.

For me, I fell in love with this girl named Brit. And she and I were dating and hanging out. (This is my wife, by the way.) Yet, at the same time, I knew she also loved another. It was the kids in South Africa. She loved them a lot. She knew that she needed to go to them. So we started dating and we were hanging out and I was like, “Yeah, we love each other. But I know you love these little kids in Africa.”

So, we knew she had to go. And so she went. A big thing was, she was going to see. She loved the Lord above it all and she wanted to go where God was leading her. So she went for a few months to Africa. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would she love me more than Africa? Would God put our paths back together at some point? It was a real moment of truth. 

I remember talking to her while she was there. At one point it was pretty clear that what she was saying was that she loved me more than Africa. That was a big deal for my life. I was like, “I’ve got all of Africa beat! Yeah!” I was thrilled.

So knowing that, I ended up getting on a plane and flying to London where she was going to be flying back. I surprised her by being in London. She didn’t know I was going to be there. And I surprised her by looking like this (photo of David with long hair and beard). She was going and I said, “I’m not going to cut my hair while you’re gone.” I didn’t think about this part. So she was like, “Oh, hey! Oh, heyyyy!”

And I surprised her one more. I got on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said, “Yes.” It’s been almost fifteen years. It’s been a pretty cool deal.

I’m saying all of this because Jesus loves you in this way, if you can receive it. He loves you and wants so badly for you to love him. Not only for his own good. Somehow, mystery of mysteries, if you love Jesus, his heart is full. If you don’t, his heart is broken. God of the universe, Creator of everything, has somehow made his heart dependent on your love. 

If you choose to love him, you will be loved well. There are some verses in Ephesians that bring this out. I want to go through these and I want you to maybe grab a couple of things out of these. Maybe write them down. Maybe just hide them in your heart.

There are some phrases that are key as we go through. Ephesians 2: I’m going to read this out of the Message translation. I like the way the Message says it: 

1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. 

You weren’t anything that special.

You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. 

That’s powerful imagery.

We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. We loved a lot of other things. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. 

He walked right up to our filthiness, our rebellion, and our anger, and he hugged us. He pulled us close to him and stole it all away.

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. 

That is what Jesus is longing to do. To bring you closer to him. To shower you with lovingkindness both in this world and in the next. And just so you know, there won’t be pain in the next. Here you get both.  

Next is Ephesians 2:11-13 in the NIV. 

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” 

(Those who are feeling like the upper class and you were called the lower class by them.)

(which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

All the way into his arms. Pressed against his own chest. Covered by his love. Never needing to fear or worry again. Perfect redeeming love is wrapped around you in Christ Jesus. 

I defined it a little bit like this, the way that God treats us as his bride: Lovingly, romantically, faithfully, kindly. What happens is our vulnerability is met with his passionate, wholehearted, generous covering. He finds us naked and ashamed, and he covers us with his righteousness and love. His love really does redeem. 

Ephesians 5:1-3.

1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity…

 Why is the Bible so serious about sexuality? Why is the world disparaging and rebelling against the Scriptures right now because it’s too harsh or hard? Well, because the writers of the Bible are trying to help us understand that there are really two images that God has given us outside of Christ incarnate that teach us about him better than anything else. 

Genesis 1 makes it very clear that God created male and female in his image. So if we get male and female right, then the world gets to see God. If we screw up or twist up male and female, we lose one of our most powerful demonstrations of who God is in full. God is not male. Never has been. Never will be. God is not female. He is somehow the fullness of both of those when we get it right. That’s why there’s a big attack right now. But it’s not the first time. We got through this attack generation after generation, where the devil tries to destroy our image of God found in maleness and femaleness.

We do need to sit back and weather the storm with love and kindness. But we also need to make sure people understand God put the fence there for a reason. If you move the fence, you’re going to find the lions, the tigers, the bears ready to devour you. Which we see over and over again. That’s why the world and society has never really been able to move on to this total free love thing. Because, ultimately, the consequences show up and we go back. This isn’t a new thing. This is just the latest wrong version of “woke,” that we’re going to have to wake up from with consequences all around us. The Bible is the only thing woke. 

Not only that, but he also says that the second thing that is the best image of God is marriage. Marriage is the second best image of God. I’m talking about Christ and the Church. You want to learn about Christ and the Church, go look at someone’s marriage. That’s how you’re going to learn about the love of God. The faithfulness, the stick-to-it-ativeness, the patience, the kindness. That’s the way God loves you, except that he’s perfect and totally trustworthy. 

So why would the enemy want to destroy marriage? Why would he want to get rid of that or call it crazy or too hard? Because he doesn’t want people to see the image of Christ and his Church. Because they might fall in love with him and experience his love. 

The last thing I want to read as we close is Ephesians 5:21-33. The same passage, but I want to read it in the Message translation. I want to highlight a couple of things. I ask again that you try to grasp a couple of things for your own heart right now. 

21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.

22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, 

Be extravagant like Jesus was. 

…exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.

And we’ll just finish with that. I love some of those phrases. That this is the love that Christ has for us. It’s the love that we’re supposed to show toward our spouses, toward our kids, toward our friends, toward our enemies, toward our neighbors. This kind of love that is marked by giving, not getting. The kind of love that makes the person that we’re loving more whole. It doesn’t point out their deficiencies, but it actually begins to fill those things, cover those things until they have a chance to grow in those things. And their words evoke their beauty. 

I want to love my wife like that. And I’m so bad at it. I want to love my kids like that. And I know I fall short. I want to love you guys like that. It’s a beautiful love that Jesus has for us. It’s a life-changing, redeeming love. It’s a love that feels like vulnerability met with passionate, wholehearted, generous covering. 

As I was worshiping downstairs with the team, there was a moment where I saw this picture of some people who are feeling pretty vulnerable, pretty gross, pretty bad themselves, pretty unsure, pretty weak—whatever it might be. And Jesus comes and actually covers you with his robes of righteousness, of love. He wraps this covering around you. And then, when you look in the mirror, you’re like, “Wow. I didn’t know I could like this.” But the story wasn’t over, because, at one point, that robe was removed, and no longer was there something disgusting underneath. Now it was like you had your own form of beauty. You had your own form of strength. It was Christ in you, that hope of glory. So the covering doesn’t just cover up your sickness and make you feel better for a moment. That covering actually redeems everything underneath the covering, stirs up, evokes the beauty that he made for you to be. His innocent love causes that kind of change.

It’s hard to abide in Christ. It’s hard to keep absorbing that love from time to time. But that’s the only way that we’re going to be able to love like him. We can’t do it in our strength. Never can. Never will. But Jesus knows that. So if we will set aside time to go sit in his presence and allow him to robe us once again—if we can put on Jesus Christ, be robed in his righteousness, we will absorb that love. It will reform us and fill us so that we can then go and clothe others in this world. That’s a beautiful vision of Christ and his Church. Christ and his Bride. You are the Bride of Christ.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we do thank you so much that you love us, that you gave yourself for us in ways beyond what we can imagine. I pray, Lord, that once again we would allow you to cover us so that you can cleanse us and transform us and fill us, so that we can go into this world and we can cover others with that same love. Thank you. 

______________________________

©️2019 Living Streams Church

7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture noted as taken from The Message: Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group

Stick it Out

David Stockton
Series: Ephesians

Good morning. [Life Groups Announcement - 8:15]

Sermon:
Ephesians 4

We’ve been talking about the vision of the Church that we find in the book of Ephesians, which was written by a guy named Paul. He was so compelled by this vision that he was no longer an angry person, that he gave up everything he had, as a Pharisee, as a person of status and position, and he traveled the world to try and let other people know about this vision that God had for his people. Both Jew and Gentile.

Obviously Jesus was the founder of the Church, but he imparted to Paul to take the vision to the Gentile world, which is the non-Jew world. So, basically every church that is non-Jew that follows Christ is somehow a product of the Apostle Paul. And there are a few of them out there—and they’ve lasted for some time. They really have become the single most dominant force for good the world has ever seen. Any age, any place, any time. Because the vision is real and the vision is empowered by the Spirit of God. It’s the greatest vision there. We talked about that last week. 

Ephesians basically says the Church—when it gets it right—will bring unity to all things. The Church is what carries God’s full presence into all places and all ages. The Church is what shows off God’s manifold wisdom. The Church is what builds people up so they are strong and courageous, instead of tossed to and fro by the deceitful, cunning schemes that we face in this world. That’s God’s vision for the Church. That’s God’s vision for you and me. Not Living Streams. Living Streams is just an organization. It’s not the real Church. It’s just a box that the Church lives in. And if it’s getting in the way of the real Church, let it die a thousand deaths. What we’re wanting to build is the Church of Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing that matters. And she is beautiful and she is everywhere in this world.

In Ephesians 1, Paul gave us more specifics of what the Church is supposed to be. This is a little review for you:

The Church was God’s purpose from the beginning of time. When God made Adam and Eve, he had the Church in mind. It’s what we learn in Ephesians 1. 

God’s Church is supposed to be a family. God has adopted everyone into his family. We have sonship, daughter-ship, because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. We’re supposed to operate like we’re a family. That means you’re supposed to drive your cousin crazy sometimes. You’re supposed to get so mad at your brothers and sisters, but you’re not supposed to leave. You’re supposed to stick it out, because we’re family.

He also says that the Church is what is glorious in God’s eyes. It’s what gives him the most joy in all the world—the Church.

And last, Church is what brings praise to his glorious grace. That flawed, imperfect people like us can make up this Church are a testimony to God’s grace. The fact that we get anything right at any time shows the world that God can do a lot with not-so-good people. Amen to that. It’s a beautiful thing, this Church. 

Ephesians 2, which Mark preached on last week, tells us a little bit about how the Church is God’s artistic masterpiece. He says that we were dead in our trespasses ad sins, but God brought us into his family and he’s forming us. He’s shaping us, almost like a tool that he can use to create good in this world. Or forming and shaping us like a work of art being cultivated out of a lump of clay. We are his workmanship. We’re his project. We’re his masterpiece that he’s forming and creating.

He goes on a little later in Chapter 2, talking about how the Church is being formed as God’s dwelling place. Each of us is like a brick and God sticks us in the building where we fit. When we all come together, we actually become this dwelling place where the glory, beauty and power of God fills it. Again, if you look over the history of the world, ever since this Church took form and shape, it really has been powerful and beautiful. You can’t go anywhere in this world and not find some little, old lady who love Jesus feeding hungry people. It’s unbelievable what this thing is—this Church.

When Paul was writing the book of Ephesians, it was maybe thirty or forty years after Jesus died. The Church was small, puny, insignificant. Persecuted. It didn’t have a chance to survive another ten years. And Paul was saying, “But, wait a second. I can see it.” You can almost think of Martin Luther King Jr on that night before he was shot, when he said, “I have no worries. I have no fear, because I’ve seen the other side. I’ve been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

Paul is saying, “I know when I look around, and I go into this town and say, ‘Jesus,’ and they put me in prison. And I see the floundering, frail leaders that are trying to stand up and become this Church.” That’s all he saw was weakness and impotence. And yet this vision was so real and captivating, that he wrote it to the Ephesians and said, “Hold on, my friends. Stick with the program. It’s going to be beautiful.” 

If only he could see it now. Maybe he can, I don’t know. It’s hard to know what’s going on up there.

Now we come to Ephesians 4. He gives us a new description of the Church that we are, that we have, that we’re trying to grow into becoming all the time. It’s in the form of a body. Chapter 4:

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 

Catch the vision. Live into the vision. Stay focused on the vision.

2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit,

The way he describes the church is as one body—many people all forming one body filled with one Spirit. One body. One Spirit. That’s what we’re to be.

just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says:

“When he ascended on high,
    he took many captives
    and gave gifts to his people.”

9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 

Now catch this. This is a vision that is worth living for or dying for.

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

That’s a beautiful vision. I have five kids that I’m raising right now. Year after year, I watch them grow. They get a little stronger, a little bigger, a little fine-tuned. Their skills get a little better. They still trip and fall all the time. Last night while we were on the golf course, watching the sunset, they say, “You want to race?” And every time they say that, I start to get a little nervous because I’ve never lost. But then, their feet are bigger and their strides are a little longer. And they look a little stronger. And they run a lot more than me. They’re running all the time. So I look at them, and I go, “Yes. I will race you.”

There’s a part of me that thinks it’s going to be neat one day when they beat me. But most of me says, “Never let that day come.” And so they still want a head start and all of that. 

I was sitting on the ground when she said, “All right, on your mark, get set, go!” She took off running and I got up off the ground and I took off running. I smoked her. Smoked her bad. I made it somewhat close, because I didn’t want her to never try again. But it was awesome. And she didn’t know that in my mind I was thinking, “This might be the day.” But it wasn’t the day and so I smiled at her like, “I never thought anything else.”

And then, another one said, “What about me?” I thought, “Two in one day?” I smoked him too, so I’m feeling pretty good today. No hamstring pulls or anything. It was a good day for me.

But they’re growing, they’re developing, they’re maturing. And they’re still not there. They’re still not full strength. They’re still not full coordination. And then, this morning I woke up and there was all out war going on in my backyard, because they are all immature, and angry and upset, throwing things at each other. I just think, “Man, when are you going to grow up? Because I never fight anybody anymore.” When am I going to grow up?

But we’re still growing. And Paul is speaking to the Church in an amazing, fatherly way. He sees it as clumsy. It’s not put together. It’s not even whole. There are no arms, no legs. When he looks at the Church in his day, he couldn’t have seen anything that impressive. But the Lord was moving enough to keep him going.

Now when we look at the Church worldwide we see a body. We see it healthy and strong. Our Belizean friends, when they came up here for ten days and interact with the Living Streams family, they were so amazed and inspired about how much strength, love, kindness and generosity you guys portrayed. And you’re just one small part of the family here in Phoenix. And they went back so inspired, longing for God to build a family like that in Belize. 

But when I look at the Church as a whole, I don’t know how coordinated we are. We have some parts going this way, some parts going this way. Some parts are still undeveloped and immature. Some parts are really strong. We’ve got work to do. As a  Church family, we’ve got to figure out and grow into what God has called us to be. That’s why we’re doing things like Life Groups every year. We want to grow. We want to mature. We want to attain the full measure of what Christ has for us. 

The reason it’s so important for us to catch this vision is not just because it’s beautiful and life-giving, but there are also other visions in our world that are clamoring for our attention, our cultural moment, our zeitgeist. The spirit of our time. 

We live in a time where the external guides of science, government and religion are not trusted at all anymore. They’ve failed us. But, really, we put them in a place where only God can be. And so we’ve created this world where we want to deconstruct everything. We want to move all the boundary stones. Any time there’s a fence we think the fence is bad and evil and mean. 

Today, the ones that rule are the deconstructionists. What they’ve left us is reverting back to our internal guides of individualistic thoughts, emotions and desires. It’s a new form of renaissance and it feels really cool. And maybe we get better coffee because of it, but we’re still left with the plague of loneliness, all the deep questions are not getting any answers.

We have more information at our fingertips than any generation ever before. And we don’t have any better answers. Families breaking up like crazy, leaving people with all kinds of emotional debt and baggage, to sort out in all kinds of unhealthy ways. The way Coldplay puts it, Christ Martin of Coldplay—I just think this is so interesting. He said: 

I was just guessing at numbers and figures, 
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as may heart

It’s an honest frustration. It’s honest saying, “Ugh. I’m sick of all of that.” And that’s not a bad thing. But to look to your own, individualistic heart, you’re not going to find any healthy answers, either. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, selfish and prideful. The only real answers come from One wholes outside our external things—or our internal things—and that’s Jesus Christ. He knows the way. He’s the Shepherd. He’s the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And he’s not just up there saying, “Ha, ha. You don’t know the way.” But he came and laid down his life to show us the way ad lead us out of this. And it cost him a very big price. He’s the only teacher, the only leader, the only one to ever claim to be the way to life and then conquer death. He is worthy to be followed. He is worthy to be praised. 

I want to read this to you. This is another guy describing the spirit of our time.

Post-Christianity is ultimately the project of the West to move beyond Christianity, whilst feasting upon its fruit. Thus it constantly offers us options and off ramps, in which we seemingly have what we enjoy about faith, but without the sacrifices and commitments. It does not demand that we become apostates rather that we reshape our faith to suit the contours of the day, and in the process offers us the promise of tangible freedoms and pleasures for doing so. 

It does not challenge our faith head on in a kind of apologetics debate. Rather it uses soft power, offering a continual background hum of options and incentives which eat away at our commitments. We are offered the mirage that we can have community without commitment, faith without discipleship, and the kingdom without the King. To steal and misquote Eliot’s line, our faith doesn’t disappear with a bang but with a whimper. —Mark Sayers

We need to watch out or that is going to describe all of us. It’s subtle. It’s deceitful. It’s cunning. And if we don’t grow into full strength with each other and individually, we’re just going to be blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine that presents itself. And so we have a call to build up, to take up our position in the Body. To be what God has called us to be. 

And here he says there are some apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists that are called to equip us. And I think what Paul is recognizing in the church that he’s talking about, as he’s gone around, every person falls into one of these categories, probably. That you’re supposed to be apostolic in your church family. You’re supposed to be evangelistic in your church family. You’re supposed to be pastoral. You’re supposed to be a teacher. You’re supposed to be a prophet. You’re supposed to take up your position. 

Like in a building, you have wood, you have brick, you have whatever. If you’re that, you should step up and say, “Hey, I’ll be that in my local expression of the Church.” Or if God sends you out, wherever he sends you. We’ve got to take up our position. We each need to do our part. 

That’s what it says at the end here: 

16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

You have a part to play. God did not save you so you could just sit there and soak up his salvation. He saved you because he has got a job for you. And when you do the job, all of a sudden stuff starts lighting up inside of you that you never thought could.

To close, I want to give us this charge. As we’re seeking to grow into this vision, I think it’s really important to remember that this is going to be hard.  The more people you invite into your life, or the people you invite closer into your life, they are going to annoy you. Because they are nowhere near as cool as you. They’re nowhere near as smart as you. They like gross things. They don’t like the things that are good to you. 

What Paul says here in the beginning, before he says “here’s the vision,” he says, “Remember these things. Be patient with one another. Be completely humble and gentle. Bear with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

We’ve got to learn to fight for each other. We can’t quit. We can’t step out. We can’t say, “Oh, it’s hard.” Or, “Maybe there’s a better place.” If we keep doing that, we’re never going to land and we’re never going to grow.

If a tree keeps deciding, “Oh, it’s a little windy over here. I’m going to uproot and take myself over here,” the tree would never grow, Because its roots would never get deep. It would never go through the seasons it’s supposed to go through to bear the most fruit. 

I’ve had a lot of friends do that. They bounce from church to church. They get hurt by one thing and they move on to the next. They just bounce around, and they end relationships. I’m not saying you need to stick around and take abuse. There is a time to move on, but the relationships that God has called you to foster and keep are for your good, even if they’re hard.

I love the way Joseph Helman puts it in a book. He says:

Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. People who remain connected with their brothers and sisters in the local church almost invariably grow in self-understanding, and they mature in their ability to relate in healthy ways to God and their fellow human beings. This is especially the case for those courageous Christians who stick it out through the often messy process of interpersonal discord and conflict resolution. Long-term interpersonal relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay also grow. 

The real crux of the message today is to just lean into some of those relationships that you know God has for you but are really hard for you. You might say today, “That’s my marriage.” There you go, Start there. “That’s my kids.” Start there. “That’s my church family.” 

Some of you might be sitting here and you’re not supposed to be here. You quit on the church family that you are supposed to be a part of, and you came here because you didn’t want to deal with that. Though we like you here, you should go back and at least finish what the Lord has for you—if you left early. And talk to someone before you make that decision. Process it out a little bit. 

Some of you are here saying, “This is hard. This is miserable. I’m not finding what I want. I’m going to leave.” And God would say to you, “Stick it out. Keep leaning in.”

Growing up is hard work. Maturing. Ugh. It’s miserable. But the fruits of it are so beautiful. It’s what this desperate world needs more than anything. If we can get this right, the world has a chance. If we can get this right, the world can live, grow, build, taste of the kingdom of heaven right here and now. We’ve got to get this right. We’ve got to fight for this—fight for each other.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your word that doesn’t let us be us, but continues to prod us and push us to be what you have in mind in for us. Lord, though it is hard work, it takes time, there are no quick fixes—we do say ‘yes’ to you today. We pray that you would speak to us and we would have the courage to obey.

We’re going to take a moment right now and, with our heads bowed in an attitude of prayer, let the Lord speak to you about some of those things. Maybe you offer up to the Lord some questions and see what comes to mind. The Lord loves to speak to his children. He knows the way to life, no matter what kind of death you’ve got yourself in right now. 

Jesus, I pray that we would step forward with you, step into where you’re leading us. I pray that Life Groups would be a rich thing that happens in our church, whether they are already happening or not, whether people here find them in another community, whatever it might be, Lord, we just pray that would find what you have for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

______________________________

©️2019 Living Streams Church

7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Mysteries and Majesty of God

Mark Buckley
Series: Ephesians

Good morning, Living Streams. Good to see you today. David is up at Lost Canyon with over 100 of our men with 450 other guys from around the Valley. They’re having a great time. He’ll be back preaching next week. We’re doing a sermon series on Ephesians. If you want to open your Bible to Ephesians, that would be great.

I want to say thank you to those of you who have been praying for Kristina and myself. My wife, Kristina, is a candidate for a heart transplant. She’s twelve sessions into a thirty-six session cardio rehab prep, so that the surgery itself is something she will survive, Lord willing. It is a big battle. But at the same time, with so many people praying for us, we’re experiencing a lot of grace. We’re enjoying life. So it’s one of those mixtures. It’s the best of times and also dark clouds on the horizon. So, thank you again for praying for her.

The title of this message is The Mysteries of God in Ephesians. When I was a kid, I went to church every week. I went to confession and communion and catechism classes. When I was a teenager, I asked in a catechism class one time something about God. It was a profound question on my heart. The teacher said, “Well, that’s a mystery.” Sort of like, if it’s a mystery then you’re out of it. You don’t have an answer. We’ll never know.

I began to think in my mind, “Well, if it’s a mystery to you and it’s a mystery to me, what am I doing here? I’m going to go somewhere where I can get some answers.” And I began a search that took me through all kinds of Eastern religions and occult practices and, ultimately back to Jesus. Ultimately, I saw in people who really loved Jesus, who believed that he’s alive, a life of vitality, something in the Spirit that drew me. I was drawn to him because of healing and miracles and a need that I felt in my own life to really connect to God—even thought the message itself seemed too simple. And the people seemed pretty simple. They didn’t seem like my people. For a while, that was a big struggle for me. 

So, today we’re going to talk about mysteries of God from the book of Ephesians. We’re going to talk about three things: The Mystery of God’s Will. The Mystery of Christ uniting Jews and Gentiles, and The Mystery of Christ and the Church.

First: The Mystery of God’s Will. Ephesians 1:9

9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 

Let’s pray together.

Father God, I ask that you, who are the revealer of mysteries, that you would speak to our hearts this morning; that you would touch us where we need to be touched; that you would show us life is not an accident. It’s not chance. We’re here for a divine purpose. And that you would reveal those divine purposes to each one of us. In Jesus’ name. 

So, Paul says, hitting the big mystery on the head, he’s like, “God has revealed to us the master of his will.” The first spiritual truth anybody understands is life is not an accident. It’s not just luck. It’s not just chance. 

I listen to a podcast that I love called How I Built This, by Guy Raz. He interviews the founders of Instagram, Airbnb, SnapChat and all these different companies. And he’s talking to them about how they got from zero—when they first started, when they first had an idea—to the fulfillment of this vision, in many cases which is far beyond what they had originally anticipated. And, at the end of the interview, he always asks them the same question, every person he interviews. He says, “How much of your success do you attribute to luck, and how much is just hard work?” And they all have various answers.

If, per chance, I ever was interviewed by somebody like that, I would not say it was luck. I would say there is a lot of hard work to get from where we are to the fulfillment of the dreams and visions in our heart. But there’s a lot of something else called the grace of God. And the grace of God is an impartation that allows us to fulfill a destiny far beyond our capacity, if it was just up to us and our hard work or chance. 

So Paul says the mystery of his will has been revealed to us. And here’s what it is in verse 10:

10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

This is the will of God. To bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Now, if Genghis Khan had known that, he might have killed far fewer people in his attempt to conquer the world. If Alexander the Great had known that, he might not have died as a young man. If Hitler had known that, he would never have invaded Poland, Russia, Austria, Czechoslovakia. Because the destiny of the Germans wasn’t to rule the world and to bring a better order according to their understanding of how life should function. 

If the ruler of Isis had known that, he wouldn’t have had to flee Syria and Iraq and leave devastation in his wake. The destiny of the world is not to be united under an Islamic caliphate. 

America needs to know that. Our destiny is not to be all Republicans or all Democrats. Even though some of us push. I had dinner with a friend the other night. We got in a big political fight because, every now and then friends like to do that. Get rid of what’s in their heart—a little frustration. Nevertheless, we’re not destined to all be Catholics, or all be Baptists, or all be at Living Streams. We are destined to all bow our knee to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who was sent by the Father to not only bring salvation, but to rule and to reign and to establish a kingdom that will last forever. 

The second mystery: The Mystery of Christ uniting Jews and Gentiles. Ephesians 3:

2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.

He says, “I wrote about this mystery that came through revelation.” And it’s in chapter 2 and we’ll go back there in a minute.  

4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Now, somebody might ask the question, when we talk about the mystery of Jews and Gentiles being united, the mystery of Christ and the Church and Israel. Somebody might say, “What’s the big deal? Why is that important? Who even cares?”

Well, let me say this. You will care a lot if you take the time to read the Old Testament and you see the covenant promises that God made to his people to bless them. Not just them as individuals, but to bless them for generations and generations, when they keep his promises. They have promises. They have prophecies. They have the law and the patriarchs. Everything that was first given to Abraham and then to his son Isaac, and then to Jacob and the twelve sons of Jacob who became the nation Israel. All those promises become our through Christ. We become inheritors of something through a mysterious union that allows Jews and Gentiles to become one. We’ll talk about that in just a minute.

The other day I was looking at Kristina. She was sitting at the kitchen table and there was a big, thousand-piece puzzle that she was putting together. And I walked by. It looked a little strange to me. I said, “How’s it going with the puzzle?” And she said, “Well, I like to do it upside down without looking at the picture on the box.” And I thought, “Yeah, that’s my wife. It’s really strange.” She said, “It’s good for my brain.” It would drive my brain crazy trying to do a thousand-piece puzzle, but to do it upside down without looking at the picture, that’s tough.

I’m trying to give you a picture today of what God wants to do. As much as anything, if you have a picture of his will and his purpose, then even though different events don’t always make sense, you can save the understanding of how that fits into your life for a time when there’s another piece that produces clarity, if you know what I mean. Are you following me? Because we all have certain events that don’t seem to fit. And some of those are very painful events. Some of those seem like scars. By faith we have to resist the temptation to be angry and to say, “That person has messed up my life.” Because nobody has the power to mess up your life. The only thing that will mess up your life is if you will let that pain fester through unforgiveness, resentment and bitterness. That will cause you some trouble. 

Now we’re going to go back into Ephesians and see how we become united with the Jews to fulfill God’s purpose. Ephesians 2 (RSV):

1 And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. 

He’s talking about the demonic realm, and how, at one time we cooperated with the demonic realm. We were just going for whatever felt good, whatever was going to make us happy and gratify us at the time. 

3 Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 

The secret sauce that transforms us is called grace. It’s a divine energy that we didn’t earn, we don’t deserve, but we get to receive. Jesus received it from the Father. He lived a sinless life, and in his sinless life there was a grace that he was able to transmute—or to impart—to his disciples. And when he imparted that grace to them, they were able to heal sick people, cast out demons, and do amazing things that they were never able to do before. And he said, “After I’m gone, you guys are going to be even better off. Because I’m going to the Father and the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you.” 

This grace saves us. It makes us whole. I know that I’m not worthy in terms of being a good person for God to answer my prayers. I’m just sort of an average guy. Most people, if you do an intelligence test, they’re all just a little bit above average. Right? Nobody says, “I’m actually a little big below average, a little bit meaner, a little nastier than the norm.” But I know that I don’t drive real nice. I know there’s no impulse in me that says, when I’m at the grocery store, “Oh, let somebody else go ahead of me in line because they only have a few things.” No. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got people to see and things to do. You know what I mean? I need grace. 

And it says: We’ve been….

6 …raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— 

We have received this impartation of grace that lifts us up. Instead of being people that are bombarded because of the participation we’ve had in the demonic realm that leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of thoughts and impulses that leave people empty and defiled—now we have this grace. And grace, for the first time in my life when I was twenty years old, when I said, “God, I want to give my life to Jesus. I’m a little afraid to say the prayer, because I was afraid all my life that you’d make me wear a black suit and stay celibate and liven Iowa or something like that.” Every time I say that, somebody comes forward from Iowa, deeply offended. Nothing personal. It was my own fear. I’m sure it’s a lovely place. 

However, we have one sense of what our destiny is and then God gives us grace. We discover when we have grace, that we can overcome. That we can actually be the person that we really would like to be in our hearts. Now, do we do it all the time? No, not all the time and in every situation. But we have the power to do what’s right because we’ve been lifted up out of the mire—the Slough of Despondency that David was talking about last week. And we are seated now in the heavenly realms with Christ. That is a realm that has actually come to the earth. That’s another whole mystery. But Jesus brought the kingdom to earth. We live in a fallen world, but we live in the kingdom of God in the midst of a fallen world. 

That’s why my wife and I, in the midst of the fact that her heart is failing—she’s going to need a new heart—we can actually still enjoy life because we would be dishonest if we said we weren’t experiencing blessing right now. We are being blessed right now. If you’re living your life like you are waiting until the weekend to have fun, you are waiting until your vacation to relax, you are waiting until you retire to travel, if you are waiting and waiting and waiting, you’ll be waiting until it’s too late. You’re either going to experience God’s kingdom now, or you’re missing out. 

So, the second part, in terms of being united with the Jews, he deals with Ephesians 2:11

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, 

The Jews were the circumcision. The Gentiles were the uncircumcision.

which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, 

The dividing wall of hostility. Why was there hostility between the Jews and at the Gentiles. It’s because God told the Jews to stay away from their corrupt practices. He didn’t mean for them to judge and despise the Gentiles. But you know, if you’re like me, that if you quit eating meat, or tried it for a while, you have a tendency to despise meat eaters. If you sit in first class, then you sort of look down on people in coach, you know? If you live in a nice house, then you’re not as impressed with somebody who lives in a lesser house, or whatever. That’s human nature. 

So the Jews who were very religious in keeping all of the law of God sort of despised the people who were eating anything, partying all the time. They despised the unhealthy lifestyle of the Gentiles. And when somebody despises you, you despise them back. When somebody judges you, you judge them back. It’s a natural self-defense mechanism. 

So there was a hostility. And now, Jesus comes. The Son of God is manifest. And before him, all men are sinners. All of us have a big need. And he sheds his blood. He dies on the cross for the Jew and the Gentile. We all need forgiveness of sins. The religious people couldn’t really connect with God, and the irreligious people couldn’t really connect with God. We’re all equal before God as sinners. We all can receive forgiveness. And when we do, the hostility goes away. We become brothers. 

17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

That’s a lot of words. Here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying you have a place in the family of God. You are a member of the family. You are now a chosen person. And when you believe that, there’s something that changes in your life. 

My daughter Kelly, has a foster child. This little girl has been bounced from her dad to her mom. There’s drug addictions. There’s irresponsible behavior. She has appointments with family members who never bother to show up and take her. She has been a heart-broken person. But when my daughter invited her into her family, this little girl hit the jackpot, when it comes to foster care. Because she is loved and she is prayed for. Before she goes to bed, she wants me to pray for her when she’s at our house. And she gets all kinds of good food. And when we go to a restaurant, we don’t say, “The family eats one thing and you eat something else.” It’s like, “Go ahead and order whatever you want. When you are in this family, you are welcome. You are welcome here. Whatever blessing God puts on us extends to you, too.” 

That’s how we do life. That’s how God does life with his children. When he says you are a member of the family of God, he says, “I’m not holding anything back from my kids. I am giving them everything they need for life, everything they need to overcome. All the grace that will transform them and make them fruitful, and allow them to fulfill their destiny. That is the gift that I have for all my children.”

It’s not just for the Jews. The Gentiles are not excluded. They become one in Christ. Through the blood that was shed, we can all draw near. It says we can all approach the Father with freedom and confidence. The Church is a family. That’s what our theme is.

Our last mystery, I just want to touch on. We’re going to skip all the way to the third point. The Mystery of Christ in the Church. Ephesians 5. In Ephesians 5 he’s talking a lot about husbands and wives. And how husbands relate to their wives, how they should love their wives as they love their own body. When your body aches, you stop. You don’t just power through the pain. You make sure you get a massage or physical therapy or you rest, or whatever. Husbands love your wife like your own body. 

And wives, submit to your husbands. That’s a fearful command unless you realize that your submission to your husband is similar to our submission to Christ. Christ is the one who covers us. When you’re doing what he wants you to do, there’s a special blessing that is imparted to you.

He goes into this whole teaching on marriage. Then he says something that seems really strange at the end of verse 31. 

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 

The two become one flesh through the sexual union and the union of marriage. 

This is a great mystery. And I mean in reference to Christ and the church. 

He talks about mysteries. Now he says this is a great mystery. In some translations, this is a profound mystery. What’s the mystery? The mystery is that, just as a husband and wife become one, Christ and the Church become one. So, let’s back it up. What does it mean for a husband and a wife to become one? 

Kristina and I have been married forty-six years as of a week ago Monday. We’re one. But I’m not Kristina and she’s not Mark. We’re distinct in that. We have distinct personalities. We have different tastes when it comes to certain things. But when it comes to our standing before God, when it comes to our equality before God, when it comes to God’s love for us, we’re one. When we pray together in unity, we have power. When we have disagreements, if I’m too harsh, if she’s too whatever, and we’re battling each other, it hinders our prayers. That’s why Peter said in 1 Peter 3, “Husbands live with your wives in an understanding way so your prayers aren’t hindered.”

What he’s saying is there’s something really powerful that God wants to do when you’re in unity that doesn’t happen when you’re in disunity. So you’ve got to figure each other out. And husbands, it’s especially incumbent on you to figure out your wife. And I’ll give you a little clue that God gave you a gift and that gift is in the package of a female version of yourself, that you’re often out of touch with. She sees life different. She wants to drive through the city different. She wants to spend money a little bit different. But in all those ways, if you can understand where she’s coming from, you’re going to be enriched. You’re going to have a better chance of being in unity. And when you’re enjoying your unity, then things are good. Things are as good as it’s going to get in a lot of ways.

So now he’s saying, “I’m not just talking about husbands and wives.” That’s what he says at the end of this. “I’m not just talking about learning to figure out how you do life in a unique way; and the way you do life”—who manages the money, who does the cooking, who does the shopping, who cleans this and who fixes that. The way you do it should be unique to the gifts and skill set of your family, of your husband and your wife. He says, “I’m not just talking about that. I’m talking about Christ and the Church are one.”

I’ve had the privilege over this last year of preaching in California, Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, in this Valley from Sun City to the San Tan Valley. I’ve had the opportunity to worship with congregations of people who were in retirement communities and also worship at ASU with Hope Church, where they have rap worship. I’m not a big rap fan, but their rap worship is awesome. I’m not a big old hymns fan. But you go to Glencroft Retirement Community and we’re enjoying one of their worship services. And I’m telling you the Holy Spirit moves in the midst of some really old, beautiful hymns. You know why? Because those people worship with all of their hearts.

What am I getting at? What I’m getting at is this. Whether you’re in a retirement community or a college campus, when you’re whole heartedly committed to Christ, then the church becomes one with Christ. The presence of God is there. And when the presence of God is there, the blessing of God is there. And when the blessing of God is there, people’s lives are transformed. It’s pretty cool.

Now, if you know me, you know I believe in speaking in tongues and prophecy and healing. I believe it’s all for today. But every now and then I’ll preach in a church where they don’t necessarily believe in some of those things. Or they definitely, even if they were to accept it, they don’t emphasize it any way, shape or form. But here’s what I’ve discovered. The people that are really committed to Christ, the people that are really involved in the church, have become one with Christ and over the years, they reach a place of maturity that makes them indistinguishable from anybody in this congregation. You know why? Because the life that transforms us, the grace that transforms us comes from Jesus himself.

In the midst of the Church, when the Church is one with Christ, is Christ himself. Not just at Living Streams or at Life Point or at Streams in the West Valley, but at New City, and Church for the Nations, and the Catholic parishes around. In spite of the fact that we actually have a few things and a few people that do life a little weird and don’t always believe the same way. And they have a few people that believe some things, and sometimes even leaders that do things they should have never done and they pay a price for that. And so do we. Because there aren’t any perfect congregations. It’s all a mixture of people that start in spiritual infancy and, hopefully, grow into a place of spiritual maturity as we are connected together.

Because it says here in Ephesians that, if we are built together, that he makes us into a dwelling in which he inhabits by his Spirit. We become stones—Peter says it—stones that form a building that Christ fills. So the real life-giving element in every church is Christ himself. And when we gather in his name, we’re together in his presence. 

So when somebody says, “Oh, I just can’t find a church.” That’s a little bit like when I hear somebody say (which you never hear), “I can’t find a restaurant that I like to eat at in this city. I can’t find one.” Really? It’s just food, you know. It’s just food in a restaurant. Church is just people. But a church is people gathered to meet Jesus.

As we close this service this morning, we want to meet with Jesus, right? We want to have some of the mysteries of our lives solved. We want to have the puzzle pieces of life fit together. Daniel, who interpreted the dreams of King Nebuchadnezzar, when he did so, he said, “God is the revealer of mysteries. God himself.” 

Let’s pray together.

Father God, you are the one who reveals mysteries. You are the one who unites us with your people. You have brought us into your family. You have called us to love one another. We want to bear fruit together, to make known your marvelous grace on the earth, to reveal your plans and purposes. In Jesus’ name.

---

©️2019 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®,
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Church as God's Greatest Creation

David Stockton
Series: Ephesians

We’re going to be starting a new book today: Ephesians Chapter 1 is where we’re going to be. I’m going to give you guys a little bit of insight into what we’ve been working on this whole year. We’ve been trying to sneak attack you guys a little bit.

Our leadership team went away last August. We were really seeking the Lord for the year 2019, which is the year we are in. We really felt that one of the things that kept coming up was the idea of “Family Strong.” We wanted to see how we can strengthen families. As we defined it more and more, we ultimately landed on, we wanted to see the households that you and I foster, that you and I create, that they would become more spiritually strong. So that’s something that we’ve done this whole year. We want family strong.

Up until this day right now, we’ve been focusing more on the biological family. We did Origins of Innocence where we kind of talked about generational type stuff, we did prayer and fasting at the beginning of the year. Home Full of Hope was our goal for fasting and prayer. We did things like Other Hours and all of those sermon series, Freedom Immersion. We’ve done all of those things. We did classes. Because, ultimately,  we were trying to get whatever kind of good resources we could into our households, hoping that they would become places where the good things of God could grow more easily.

What we’re shifting into now for the rest of this year is the same, exact concept—same banner, “Family Strong,” but we’re going to try to get a vision for what is church as family. When we read the Bible and we see Jesus’ life, he talks about the church, the people of God being family. Even, at one point, he said, “Who are my brothers? Who is my mother?” When his actual mother and brother were outside looking for him. And he answered that question by saying, “The people who follow God are my brothers. They are my mothers;” in so doing, in some way, kind of elevating the relationship that we have with the people of God, even above our own biological family. The Bible is very clear about making sure we don’t neglect our biological family. Some of you are like, “Man, my biological family, I’ve been neglecting for years. They’re crazy.” But that’s not exactly what we’re talking about.

We’re really trying to see the people of God, the Church family, not just here at Living Streams, but all around Phoenix, all around the world, every tribe, every tongue—it’s really a fantastic, amazing thing to get a vision for. And that’s what we’re going to be trying to do over these next few months. Not only get the vision for it, but let that vision kind of direct our lives into all that God has for us in the Church as family.

We also are going through some time as a nation and as a people, where things are a bit heavy. I wrote this in a weekly email, but I want to bring it up today, as well. 

When our eyes have been blinded by the searing pain of deadly shootings, the heavy burden of poverty’s constant ramifications, and the crippling curse that sin has brought upon humanity, we need a vision. We need a vision in days like this. We need a vision or else we’ll find ourselves succumbing to the sorrow of the Slough of Despond.

Now, that phrase comes from The Pilgrim’s Progress, which is a book describing the life of someone who’s trying to find his way into the life of Christ. As he’s going on his journey, he comes upon this bog of some sort, this swamp. And it’s called the Slough of Despond. Even when you say that, “The Slough of Despond,” that describes perfectly what I go through at times in my life. 

What that is helping us to identify with, the Bible is very clear that we, as a people, are living in a cursed world. I know we hate to hear that. It’s so frustrating and there are other truths that are just as real. But that is a fact that the Bible does not beat around the bush about. So there is a heaviness. I’ve been experiencing it recently. And it’s triggered by things in the news and all of that at times. Sometimes it’s triggered by my own soul. Or loved ones that I know are going through hard times. 

But the Slough of Despond is basically a description of what it’s like to live and be really aware of the curse that came into our world because of sin. Because Adam and Eve decided that they had a better idea than what God was leading them to do. They caught a vision that was not the vision of God and they leaned into that. And ever since then, we’ve been struggling under the weight of the curse of sin. Even when we try to do right things in our marriage, in our family, in our church, in whatever…so often we can end up hurting somebody or ourselves. And it’s a troubling place.

What do we need when we have a spirit of heaviness? We need a vision of God. The Bible says, “Put on the garments of praise for a spirit of heaviness.” And the concept there is, when you have that spirit of heaviness, you need to lift your eyes. You need to first see God and then get a vision from God for what he’s planning on doing in the world and in our days. 

So, I’ve been there recently. And some things that have come to mind: Revelation 21. I want to speak this over you, just in case you might have a spirit of heaviness today. 

1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven [the cursed heaven] and the first earth [the cursed earth] had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 

And the sea represents the division of the people. 

2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

That’s the vision of God. That is the end of those who follow in his way. They’ll be put together like a beautiful city, like a bride. And he will wipe away every tear and every stain that the curse of death has brought upon humanity. The old order of things will be gone and remembered no more. 

I have a guy that I go to often when I’m looking for hope. His name is Jon Foreman, and he writes songs. He writes, basically in response to this, 

Until the sea of glass we meet
When at last comported and complete
Where tide and tear and pain subside 
And laughter drinks them dry
I’ll keep waiting, anticipating.

The song that he writes all of that in is called “Restless.” 

Then I had another friend—he’s not very famous—but he wrote a song that I love and I think about all of the time, again, in light of this same vision. 

We will soon be with him forevermore
Where we can walk with him on that crystal shore
And talk with all the saints of old
And bow before the might throne of God

This is a vision that is not just revelation. It’s not just a vision in the end. But this vision actually begins in Genesis, as well. This concept, God has has this vision that, “They will be my people and I will be their God.” At first, the vision was for this family, that, “They and their family will understand that, they are my people and I am their God.” And that family turned into a nation called Israel, which means “Governed by God.” And that nation turned became someone that God intended, “They will be my people and I will be their God.” And that nation kind of crumbled and faltered. Then Jesus came and gave birth to something else, called The Church.

But the vision is the same throughout. “They will be my people and I will be their God.” And it has never wavered. It has never been in jeopardy. The vision of God has always been there and always will be there. And one day it will be completely fulfilled. Right now, the Bible teaches us that we see in part. “We see through a glass dimly,” is what the King James says. It’s like we’re looking through a glass and it’s all foggy. We can’t quite see what’s on the other side. But one day we will see face to face. That day when our faith becomes sight. Oh, what a day of rejoicing it will be.

And when we come to the book of Ephesians, what we’re getting is a guy whose name is Paul, writing to us because he is getting, like a prophet, a vision of what the church is supposed to be here and now. We know what the vision in the end is. But what is the vision right now? What is God doing in this thing called the Church? We did not replace Israel. We were grafted in. And God has plans for the Jews, no doubt about it, to be grafted in again as a people that belong to him. 

The Church is much bigger than us at Living Streams. It’s much bigger than us in America. It’s much bigger than us in this twenty-first Century. It spans all ages. All nationalities.—On that road trip to Texas last week, we went to Roswell.—It might even span the aliens! I don’t know. My wife is kind of into it. She was like, “Man, there’s some convincing stuff in that little museum.” I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Whatever. Totally different discussion.

All right. Let’s get a vision for the Church. Some of you come to the Church and you have these ideas of what the Church is, what the Church isn’t. Some of you have been totally beat up by the Church. Whatever it might be. Let’s get God’s vision that he put in the heart of Paul the Apostle on what the Church his supposed to be.

Ephesians 1: 

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 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. 

Now, that’s a bold statement right there. And when you think of Paul, who’s writing this, a couple of things we need to keep in mind. First of all, Paul is not writing in the Twenty-First Century, where Christianity has become the dominant religion; where Christianity has been able to spread its wings and touch almost every part of this planet; where you can’t go anywhere in the world now and not find some little, old lady serving people in the name of Christ. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world. 

Paul’s writing when the church was, maybe, ten thousand people. Just a very, very small movement. And yet, he’s getting a vision of what the church is supposed to be. So keep that in mind.

The second thing to keep in mind is that Paul used to be called Saul. And Saul was a jerk. He was a big time jerk. Actually, he’s introduced to us in the book of Acts as someone who was breathing out murderous threats. That was Saul. He was so upset, so in turmoil, and so frustrated that he was actually persecuting a people group. He hated the Christians, the people who were following the way, the people who were saying that they know Christ is risen from the dead and has empowered them to walk in a new way. He hated them and actually put them in prison. He tried to remove all of their authority and power. He tried to keep them on the run and persecute them into nothing; and even oversaw the death of some of them. 

We don’t know why Paul was so angry. We know he was a Pharisee. We know he was legalistic. We know he was trying really hard to be good and do right—which is really one of the most frustrating things there is, because he was doing it all in his own strength. 

And then, one day, breathing out murderous threats, breathing in the toxic stuff of life and breathing out murderous threats, he has an encounter with Jesus. And they talk some things over. And the next time we see Paul, he is someone who is still breathing in all the same smog of life, all the same cures of humanity. None of those things changed around him, but, for some reason, now when he breathes out, it’s not murderous threats, but it’s words of life and love and grace and peace. He starts all of his letters that way, basically: “Grace and peace to you. I no longer say to you murderous threats. I now say to you grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

What a change. What an amazing thing that Paul, who is someone was persecuted, someone who has lost everything for the sake of the gospel, someone who is living in the most bizarre places as he’s sharing the grace and peace of Christ around the world, someone who’s been beaten almost to death, someone who’s been whipped forty times, someone who’s lived with nothing at all. He writes to the Ephesian church and says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. What an amazing thing to be able to speak that out, to write that firmly.

My question to us and to myself is, “Do I feel like I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms?” My answer, honestly, is, I think I’ve felt it at times. There are definitely moments when I can say, “Lord, I think I really do have it all.” Sometimes it’s been in good moments and sometimes it’s been in real, real hard moments. 

Paul is wanting us to understand that God has not withheld anything from his people. It’s not that, one day you need to gain something so that you can be more Christian or experience more of God. You have it all in Christ Jesus. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. We sang about it today.

So it goes on:

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 

So in this little chunk—bam. Paul is the king of the run-on sentences. I love it. It gives me freedom to do run-on sentences. He starts gushing. He’s just gushing as he’s got this vision of what God is saying to him. He’s understood what God is doing in the Church. There are four things that I want us to notice here. I put it in a little different language. We’ll catch it in Paul’s language too. 

In this, he says, first of all, the Church is God’s purpose from the beginning of time. Right there. He says, “He chose us in him before the creation of the world.” Well, that sounds a little interesting, because, really, the Church didn’t really form until after Christ, and that was two thousand years ago. But that was just the newest phase of what God has been doing since the beginning of time. Again, the vision has always been there. They will be my people and I will be their God and I will wipe away every tear. That’s the vision. That’s what God’s been doing from the beginning. 

Somehow in that holy Trinity, that triune being of God the Father, God the Son, God the  Spirit that is in community within itself, created mankind, you and I, to enjoy that same community. Jesus prayed it. If Jesus didn’t pray it, I would not feel comfortable teaching it. But he prayed in John 17, “Father, I pray that they would be one with us, even as you and I are one.” 

That’s heavy. That’s deep. That’s a vision beyond what we could ever come up with on our own.  But it was God’s will from the beginning of time. So, when he made Adam and Eve, he had Revelation 21 and the Church and the Bride all in mind. When he made a covenant with Abraham, ultimately, he had the Church in mind. When he gave the law to Moses and said, “Let’s form this into a nation that’s going to be powerful and a witness to all the other nations, he had the Church in mind. When he whispered those things to the prophets, he had the Church in mind. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, it says that “He endured the shame for the joy set before him.” The Church was on his mind on the cross. And when he rose from the dead and he imparted to the apostles, he said, “Go be my witnesses,” the Church was on his mind. She’s a beauty. She’s a wonder.

Not only that, but the second thing, the Church as family. Here, the way  Paul says it is, “In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship” [or daughter-ship. You could throw that in there, for sure.]  In love he predestined us. His whole plan was that we would be part of a family. You could picture the table in heaven and there’s a place set for you, with your name on it. 

Actually, the way the Revelation teaches us is even cooler. It says that you are going to be given a stone that has a name on it that is only known between you and Jesus. The name that’s going to be written at your seat, when you read that name, your heart is going to do a backflip. “How could he know me so well?” Because he’s your Father. In love he predestined you for adoption. He’s been watching you your whole life. He has such good plans for you to be a part of his family and to experience all that is there. 

The next thing: Church is what is glorious in God’s eyes. The way Paul says it, 

in accordance with his pleasure and will

All this was done in accordance with God’s pleasure. God’s not up there going, “Oh, man! It’s so much work trying to get these people all together. Wash them clean, give them vision. A bunch of squirrely people.” 

No, it’s his pleasure. He is so thrilled at the work that is being done in the Church and through the Church. It’s his pleasure. It’s his joy. It’s kind of like that hobby that he has that just is like, “I can’t wait to go do some more of that.” It’s kind of like that video game on my phone right now that I can’t wait to play all the time. He loves the work that he does with the Church. Which is amazing to me, because I work with you people. I work with myself. And it’s not always a pleasure. There’s pleasure in it, but it’s real and it’s hard. But for God, it’s all pleasure. It’s pure joy to make this family, to ready this bride. He loves it. “According to his pleasure…and will.” It’s not just God’s will because it’s good. It’s his pleasure and will. 

And then, the last thing is that the Church is what brings praise to God’s glorious grace. The way Paul says it, 

6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

The Church is the message to the whole world of God’s grace. Bono said, “Grace, it’s the name of a girl and it’s the thought that can change the world.” And it is a mystery. Because we, as people, don’t easily understand grace. We understand rules. We understand cause and effect. We understand consequences for actions. We don’t understand grace. And so the work that God is doing in the Church, when we get it right, it’s this amazing, marvelous light that shines and shouts to the whole world of grace. Of grace. That God’s righteousness is more powerful than your unrighteousness every single time. It can’t win. No matter who much unrighteousness you do, you can’t outdo the righteousness of God. It’s his grace that is more powerful than anything else in the world. It’s a marvel and it’s a miracle, and it’s hard to grasp. But it’s the thing that the Church is called to make so clear and plain to the world.

Verse 11:

11 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, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. [there it is again] 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

In this little chunk that we did right there, we have the gospel in a nutshell. I just want to unpack a few words here for us, as we do this. He says here, “You have been chosen by God. You have been predestined by God.” That means he has a vision for your life and he knows how to get you there, “You have been included into his family. You have been marked—sealed in some way. Your name written in the book. And you have been guaranteed an inheritance.”

When we say “yes” to Christ, when we turn our direction from the vision that we’ve come up with, the vision the our parents gave us, the vision that America gives us—whatever vision it might be—the vision that Drake’s given us—whatever it might be—God’s plan, God’s plan, right? And we turn from those visions to the vision of God, found in Christ Jesus, in that moment, that’s it! In that moment, we move from death to life. We move from tension to grace. And we realize that, all along, we’ve been chosen by God. We’ve been predestined by God. We’ve been included into his family. We’ve been marked somehow by him as one of his one. It’s like we’ve got Stockton on the back of our shirt now. We’ve got Jesus on the back of our shirt now. You’ve been marked. You take on his name. And you’re immediately guaranteed an inheritance, the kind of inheritance we talked about at the beginning of this message.

Those of you who have made that shift and surrendered to the vision of God over your life, that’s you. Those who have not, that is not you. This is found in Christ Jesus. But today would be a great day to be like Paul, to be like me, to be like so many of the others in this room and to go ahead and take a step in that direction, and begin to walk with Jesus. It’s only you keeping you from Jesus. 

Today you really can get his vision for your life. And most of us are here because we’re so compelled by his vision for life that we don’t want to go anywhere else. And, yes, we still have pulls in other directions, but we continue to come back and say, “Ultimately, Jesus, your vision is the most beautiful.” But that’s a thing that can happen today. We’ll have opportunity for that later.

That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Let’s go on to verse 17 through 23:

17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his [Jesus] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

This is the grand vision of God for the church, that we would be the body of Christ, moving at his leadership, his headship, and filling everything in every way. You can picture a frozen world as the light comes up and begins to thaw everything. That’s our job. That’s God’s vision. That we would fill everything in every way. We would bring the light and warmth of Christ to every person in every place forevermore. 

I know the Church, for you, might not be a glorious thing. It’s a little tricky because there’s the Church organization, and there’s the Church organism. The Church organization is what we’re basically doing right now, in a lot of ways. We’re in a building. We have some pastors and leaders trying to show us the way to go. We have a Starting Point luncheon happening soon. And the organization is a man-made thing, sad to say. Living Streams is man-made. Mark and Kristina started it in 1984 in their living room. And Mark and Kristina are amazing in a billion a ways. But they’s also not amazing in some other ways. So we have to live with the beauty and we have to live with the stink.

That’s what I’ve told the staff a couple of times. “Hey, I’m leading the church. You’re going to know what I smell like. You’re going to have to live with some stink.” Because that’s reality. We have a board of elders. We try to do our best. We try to be the best organization of the Church we can be. Create the best environment for the organism to prosper. But at the end of the day, let Living Streams fade and be gone, if at all it’s not helping the organism. Because that is what Christ died for. He didn’t die for Living Streams in this building and the plans we have. He died for this bride, which is a people called by his name, fit together, carrying out his work in the world. 

I’ll tell you, the Church organism is the single most dominant force for good the world has ever seen in any age, in any place. No doubt about it. No one in their right mind could argue that. Yet, the organization has had some very ugly times in world history, and maybe even in your life. I’m sorry for that. But Jesus isn’t the head of the organization. He’s the head of the organism. Hopefully he’s the head of the people in the organizations. They don’t always get it right. 

The Church organism is beautiful and marvelous. As we’ll learn as we go through the rest of Ephesians, it is so precious and vital in God’s sight. We get to be a part of it, both now and forever. Forever. This incredible vision.

Let’s take some time and pray. Now, in light of these things, I’m going to ask four questions of your soul. If you want to bow your heads and just close your eyes, you can. If you’re not comfortable, that’s fine, as well. We’re trying to create a moment where we can have a conversation with God. I’m going to ask the questions, and you and God talk about the answers. 

These questions come from that last passage we just read, where Paul prayed some things for the people of the Church in Ephesus. 

1. How are you doing in wisdom and revelation? Do you have a vision from God that stirs your heart, and when you tell it to the people around you, it stirs their hearts as well? Or are you lacking in wisdom and revelation right now?

Jesus, I pray that you would give this people, your people, your vision. You would give them revelation that would capture their hearts and compel them to walk in your ways. 

2. How are you doing on hope, knowing the hope to which God has called you? You can talk to the Lord about that. A spirit of heaviness or a spirit of hope. A home full of hope, or a home full of heartache.

Jesus, I pray that you would give these people hope, the hope that comes through Christ. Give it to me, too, Lord. 

3. How are you doing at enjoying the richness found in God’s holy people? How’s your community? Do you have the blessing of being able to impart and receive with other brothers and sisters who know Jesus and are chasing Jesus? Or is your community lacking that?

Jesus, I ask like Paul did, that you would help us to experience all the riches that are found in walking with your people. 

4. How are you doing at experiencing the power of God? Are the chains falling off? Are you able to see what you breathe in that’s hard and heavy turn into something that feels like blessing as you breathe out? 

Jesus, I pray that, as Paul prayed for the Ephesus church, that you would bring your power into this place, you would empower us to be witnesses for you. Lord, that you would bring power into these marriages so that they could be unified in that peace, and power into these families so that they could be heading in the same direction, experiencing the fullness of what you have for them.  That your power would come to the single people as they try and walk with you and fight off loneliness and temptation. Your power would come to those who don’t know you, Lord. That they would surrender to you and find your Spirit filling them and giving them a vision. Power for those who are caught up in addiction, that they’d be able to be free. Thank you, Lord.  We pray all of this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

---

©️2019 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®,
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.