Greetings to you, friend. I’m Mack Lyon. The program is In Search of the Lord's Way-- the Lord’s way to become a Christian and to live with Him the rest of your life here, and in the world to come. Oh say, it is good to have you with us today!
What a joy we have to welcome you to our Bible study program In Search of the Lord's Way. Your friends, members of some churches of Christ in the area served by this station, sponsor this program here and they would love dearly to have you attend the Bible study classes with them and worship with them. And we would like that, too. We hope you’ll do that real soon. Will you? Tell them “thanks” for sponsoring this program in this area while you are there.
My friends, I’m not here to get anybody “told off” about anything. I’m simply “speaking the truth in love” as we are commanded to do in the Bible in Ephesians 4:15. To me the Bible is the word of God. I mean it couldn’t be any more authoritative if I had heard Him say it in thundering tones from a burning and shaking mountain! God never contradicts Himself. His word is truth whether everybody believes it-- or no one believes it. And truth is always consistent with the other truths. Therefore, if the Bible seems to be saying something in one passage, and something different in another passage, I can know I’m misunderstanding or misinterpreting one passage-- perhaps both of them. The Bible is never to be interpreted or understood to accommodate human opinion in any nation or age or culture. Even a casual reading of the Bible reveals that historically God’s word has been combative with the will of intelligent men. So, I knew many years ago when I began preaching the word of God, that I would necessarily find myself at times taking positions that would be disagreeable with some people. I’m still resigned to that. After all, if the Lord’s way is the same as the popular ways of men, it cannot be any better, can it now? And, even our Savior who loved us so much that He died for us was constantly criticized-- finally crucified by angry men who denied and opposed His teaching. So, if I must come under the wrath of some people, I will be in good company, won’t I now? I must “preach the word.”
Well, if you think you might want a free CD or audio cassette tape or even a printed copy of today’s message, please jot down our address. It’s In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org and our website is at www.searchtv.org. And our toll-free telephone is 1-800-321-8633. Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now as we sing.
We are reading today from the book of Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 14 through 21. “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” And now let’s go to God in prayer. Holy God, the righteous Father in heaven, we are so thankful to You that You have manifested Your will to us in the word; and that You are glorified in the church which Jesus bought with His own blood. We are thankful for this passage and all that it holds to us and we can’t examine every thought in the whole passage, but we pray Your blessings on our meditation today about glorifying You in the church. In Jesus’ name we pray You. Amen!
The word “church” doesn’t appear in the Old Testament at all. That tells us that the church is not an Old Testament institution. But it does appear one hundred-fourteen times in the King James Version of the New Testament. That says right off that: (1) The New Testament is for and about the church. Despite present-day popular opinion, the church we read about in the New Testament is an important-- even an essential element-- in God’s scheme for reconciling sinful man to Himself. And, (3) it says that the people who are saying “Christ, yes; the church, no” are simply uninformed and clearly mistaken about the church. The Bible text we read awhile ago says-- to God be “glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Then, God is glorified in the church that we read about in the New Testament forever and ever-- that would include our times and our culture, too, don’t you think? If that isn’t what God is saying to us, I’m at a loss to know what it could possibly mean.
Before we go any further, though, it’s necessary that we clarify some things. God isn’t talking about a particular denomination-- or even an amalgamation of denominations-- in this verse-- or in any other verse. He is talking about His church as in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2 “the church of God which is at Corinth...” We misunderstand Him if we think He means a denomination when He says “church.” And you will misunderstand me if and when you hear me, say “church” you think “denomination.” They are not the same, friend. They’re frequently used interchangeably in conversation today, but they are not the same. “Church” as it is used in the English versions of the New Testament is translated from the word which means “called out.” It could be used with reference to any assembly as in Acts chapter 19, verse 39 where it’s a “lawful assembly.”
But in the Scriptures it’s reserved almost exclusively to a religious group or a religious assembly. More specifically, in the New Testament it is used of the church purchased by the blood of Christ as in Acts chapter 20, verses 28. “Denomination” is not a New Testament word; therefore, we must look elsewhere for a definition of it. My Webster’s Dictionary says as it pertains to religion it is: “a religious organization uniting in a single and administrative body a number of local congregations.” We often use the word “denomination” when we speak of the value or the size of our coins; for illustration as a verb to denominate is “to divide and name.” In America we have done that with our coins, of course. We have a one cent, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, and all of that. Any one of those measurements of money could be called “a denomination” or a collection of them of the same value could be called a denomination.
God is glorified-- not apart from the church, but in the church (as in our text) first, because of what the church is. It is the “house” of God (1 Timothy 3:15). Because of the word’s frequent usage in our culture to reference a building in which a church assembles, it may be better said-- and some versions do say it, the “household of God” or “the family” of God” in others. The church, then, is people-- God’s people-- people who have been reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. Friend, God is glorified in His children. Members of the church that you read about in the New Testament are God’s children. Now, if you run with a crowd like I run with, you know how proud parents are of their children. “My son, the preacher,” or “my daughter who married and they are now missionaries,” somewhere. Well, God rejoices in the welfare and the good done by all His children, too.
Secondly, God is glorified in the church’s successful achievement of its mission in the world. I’m reading a book now, the author of which is not a member of a church of Christ, but who is obviously being read by some of our ministers. He is advocating “changes” that he thinks need to be made in the church so it will be accepted in this 21st century American culture. He does have the good judgment to know though-- and to say-- that the church’s eternal purpose is not to build “big churches-- mega churches.” That isn’t the mission he says. Its mission is to preach the word of God.” Well, he is right about that. The “Great Commission,” the marching orders given by one to whom was given “All authority in heaven and on earth” still says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And it’s recorded in Matthew 28:18-20. Let it be so!
The author of the New Testament book of Titus introduced himself in that writing as “Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostles of Jesus Christ.....in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested His Word through preaching......” (Titus 1, verses 1 to 3). Oh say friend, even before God created the heavens and the earth, knowing we, His offspring (Acts 17, verses 28-29), would sin, He planned for our reconciliation in Christ Jesus. And, from “before time began,” He says He planned the church that you and I read about in our New Testament, to be the agency by which that message of salvation and hope would be preached to every creature under heaven. Oh, that makes that church mighty important in God’s estimate! Doesn’t it, friend?
Third: God is glorified in the church that we read about in the Bible because Jesus Christ, His Son, built it! Yes! God planned it! And Christ built it! How could anyone say “Christ yes; the church no?” Jesus “asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? So they said, Some say John the Baptist, Some Elijah, and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock (meaning Peter’s confession that He was the Christ, the Son of God) I will build My church, He said, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” God planned His church from “before time began” and Christ built it. Furthermore, it is built on the foundational truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God! How can anyone who knows enough to (well, we will just quote: “accept Christ”) say “no” to-- or about-- His church? A denomination, yes! But we have already shown that the church Jesus that built is not a denomination.
Number 4: God is glorified in the New Testament church because Jesus Christ, not only built it, He bought it with His blood shed at Calvary. I know that because the Holy Spirit moved Paul, the apostle to say in his farewell to the elders, the pastors, the bishops of the church in Ephesus. “.....take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20, verses 27-28). Some ancient manuscripts say, “The church of the Lord which He purchased with His own blood.” McCord translates it, “the Lord’s called-out people, whom He bought with His blood.” Whether it’s “church of God,” or “church of the Lord” or “the Lord’s called out people, whom He bought with His own blood” you get the idea, don’t you? Pray tell me how some people who profess to be “born-again Christians,” even some television preachers, despise or express such disapproval of the church that we read about in the New Testament that they would say, “Christ, yes. But the church, no!” Now it isn’t true of people who take solace in membership in the denomination of their choice, but it is true of people who were born again as Jesus said in John 3:1 to 7, that they became children of God,-- members of His family. The Lord’s church is people, friend, people who have been redeemed (1 Peter chapter 1, verses 13-21). Redeemed is “to be bought back-- Christians have been bought back from their lives of sin, and are forgiven, washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. And we’re hearing it, and, all of that is Unimportant! “Christ, yes! The church, no!” It’s hard to believe our ears, isn’t it?
Well, fifthly: The church we read about in our New Testament is God’s holy Temple, the dwelling place of God among men. The church in Ephesus consisted mostly of Gentile people. Prejudice was strong between them and the Jews, beyond anything we have ever known in America between races. However, in his letter to those Christians, those Gentile Christians, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write, (listen, now!) “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh-- who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh that at that time you were without Christ, (now that is not meaning, means not the possession, but it’s “without” as being opposed to being “within”), being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ......Now, therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, (there’s that figure of “family” again) having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:11 through 22). Well, just as the Jews had Solomon’s magnificent temple in Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God among them; and the Ephesians had one of the seven wonders of the world in the temple of Diana in Ephesus for the dwelling place of that goddess, so God has a spiritual house built of living souls as a Temple for His dwelling place among men! Is that not important? How can a person who knows enough about God and His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible to call himself or herself a Christian say, “Christ, yes! The church, no!” Let’s pray. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for this relationship we have with You in Your family as children of Thine, redeemed by the blood of Jesus. In His name we pray and give You thanks, Amen.
Oh, there are many more biblical reasons why God is glorified in His church, but there is one more I simply must mention before I leave. It’s that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God is head of His church. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, “And He (meaning God, of course) put all things under His (referencing Jesus Christ) feet, and gave Him (meaning Christ) to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Oh, how God must be grieved and humiliated when prideful men are exalted, robed, and crowned as the “head” of His church! But, He is glorified in that He whom He raised from the dead-- He who was seated at the Father’s own right hand-- to Him He gave “all authority in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18); and He is so recognized and revered-- and given obedience in all things pertaining to the church even to this day!
Well, it’s been our purpose to view the church in the light of New Testament teaching, and by doing so, to enhance your appreciation for it. You may understand more clearly now, why I keep saying, “churches of Christ are not trying to be just another denomination; we’re not even trying to be the only right denomination-- we are not trying to be a denomination at all. We’re simply striving to be a church like you read about in your New Testament. We know, too, that no church can truthfully be called a “church of Christ” any further than it is like the one that is set forth in the New Testament. And, just as Christians sometimes come short, we as a church may sometimes come short. Pray that we can be faithful, will you?
If you would like a free CD or audio cassette tape or even a free printed copy of today’s message, simply mail your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail it is searchtv@searchtv.org or you may use our toll-free telephone number and call us. That number is 1-800-321-8633. You might want to access it and much other information on our website at www.searchtv.org. Say friend, are you a Christian? Are you a Christian? If you are not then you ought to be, and to be a member of His born again family. To be a child of His you simply repent of your sins, confess Jesus Christ, and be baptized in His name just as Peter told the people on the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, verse 38; and as many of them as did so were added to them and the Lord kept adding to His church those that were being saved. If you are not a member, you ought to be. God bless you now. See you next week. Amen! We love you!
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