Sermon Tone Analysis

*His Body*

*Ephesians 1:15-23*

*May 20, 2007*

 

We continue our study in Ephesians.

Last week our focus was on how God has chosen us to be holy and blameless.

It pleased God to choose us!

Isn’t that fantastic!

We, as believers, are called into the very throne room of God Almighty.

Can you picture yourself kneeling before God in glory?

What will you say to Him?

I don’t know about you, but I will be so awestruck that I won’t be able to say anything.

What will He say to you?

He might well say, “My child, I love you.

I love you so much that I was willing to sacrifice my only Son so you could be here today.

Then, if giving my Son wasn’t enough, I also gave you my Spirit so your place in heaven was sealed forever – a guarantee of your inheritance and acceptance into my family.

Come, my beloved, come and sit beside me.

I have chosen you and you believed and trusted me.

Come!

The last nine verses in Ephesians chapter one express a prayer of thanksgiving and a request for spiritual enlightenment concerning our salvation In verses 22 and 23 we are informed of the wonderful truth that Christ is head over all things in the church, which is His body.

And that is the theme of today’s message – His Body.

So turn in your Bible or to the back of your bulletin, and we’ll read Ephesians, chapter one from verse 15 through to verse 23.

 

/“For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”/

There is a link between suffering and the church as the body of Christ which I want to touch on briefly this morning, and that is that the suffering which Christ began to experience in his earthly body he continues to experience in some sense in his body called the church.

You recall how before Paul was converted he persecuted the church.

Acts 9:1 says he was breathing out threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord.

On his way to Damascus to capture and imprison Christians /"a light from heaven flashed about him."

/Acts 9:4 says, /"He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'"/

Now Saul did not believe that Jesus was alive.

He thought the whole thing was a delusion.

He was persecuting deluded Jewish fanatics that thought a dead criminal was the Son of God.

But that was not the way the Son of God saw it.

When the Son of God spoke, he said, "/Why do you persecute me?"/

So not only is this crucified criminal alive, but he is so identified with his followers that to persecute them is to persecute him.

This is the link between suffering and the body of Christ.

When Christ was on the earth He had one kind of body, a physical body like ours.

And with it he suffered and died that we might live.

Now he is raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God; but today on the earth he has another kind of body, namely, the church.

Christ was united to his physical body then, and felt the blows of his enemies.

And he is united to his spiritual body now, the church, and he feels the blows of his enemies still.

Listen to the brief anecdote sent by Cheryl and see if you can relate it to suffering: | *too* |

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway.

Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.

Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.

Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.

Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.

After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.

After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.

The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.

The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

Our King placed obstacle in our path, too, to grow us in grace and knowledge of our Savior.

These obstacles are there to make us more Christ-like.

They are for our good (Rom.

8:28).

We call them suffering.

But who gained in this anecdote – those who passed by the boulder?

No! The peasant who stopped to move the boulder was the winner.

We, too, will be winners and be stronger if we allow a little suffering to hone us.

There is a prize to be one!

Isn’t there?

Christ is still working on us isn’t He? So, how many of you really want to suffer?

Come on now, where are all those hands.

No body really wants to suffer, but it will help us to endure it once we accept the fact that we will not grow without it!

You can see this connection between Christ and his people in numerous texts.

For example, in Matthew 25 Jesus says to his people at the final judgment, /"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me . .

."/ (vv.

35-36).

And they ask, when did this happen.

And he answers, /"Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me"/ (v.

40).

The brethren of Jesus are the church – that’s us!

If you persecute the church, you persecute Jesus, and if you show love and affection to the church you show love and affection to Jesus.

The church is His body, it is the physical form of His presence on earth.

Touch the church and you touch the body of Christ.

Another striking illustration of this is 1 Corinthians 6:15-16, (I’ll give you a minute to find it)  Paul says, /"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?"/ If you are a disciple of Christ, then you are a part of the body of Christ, and the parts of your body are parts of Christ's body--so much so, Paul says, that if you commit fornication or adultery, you drag Christ himself into bed with you and make him do what you do.

I want to illustrate the reality of Christ's presence in the world in the form of his church, his body.

Today on the earth Christ has a body, the church.

It has legs to walk and arms to work and mouths to talk and feet to be blistered and backs to be beaten, and hunger to be fed and loneliness to be visited.

Paul said that his aim in life was that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his mortal flesh (2 Cor.

4:11).

In other words, his aim is that his body might make Christ's body real to the world.

Jesus said, (Mat.

10:40)./

"Whoever receives you receives me"/

Christ is present in the world in his body, the church.

And our aim is not just to fill our minds with knowledge, but to fill Cut Knife with Christ.

To become what Christ wants to be, not only for each other but for this town and for the unreached peoples of the world.

Christ has a plan for Cut Knife.

No, it’s not nicely paved streets, it’s us!

We are Christ’s plan for Cut Knife!

Now take that goal of "filling Cut Knife with Christ" and you will see the connection with today's text, Ephesians 1:22-23, "And he (God) put all things in subjection under his (Christ's) feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

Notice: "the fullness of him who fills all in all."

So this text speaks to the issue of filling Cut Knife, or any other town, or the whole world and the whole universe with Christ.

Let's make three careful observations from these two verses:

(1) First, the church is the body of Christ.

Verse 22 ends by saying, /"God gave Christ as head over all things to the church."/

Then verse 23 refers to the "church" when it says, /"Which is his body."/

The church is Christ's body.

Not the building called the church.