God’s Glory in the Church
By Pastor Matt Black
24
June 2007
Lord's Day evening
Ephesians 3:21
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians 3. The title of this morning’s message is “God’s Glory in the Church”. Once you’ve found Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, won’t you stand with me this morning?
Let’s read verses 20-21, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
We are going to close this morning by looking at how God’s awesome power is worked out in the Body of Christ through the Local Church. Verse 21, “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen”.
I. God’s Purpose for the Church.
Illustration—Conditioner or Soap: Sometimes we are out of it in the morning. We all have our routines. Brush teeth. Comb hair. Put on some deodorant. I went to wash my face this morning, and we were out of soap. I did replace the soap later, but it looked like my wife had already replaced it with some kind of liquid soap. It was an orange bottle. I didn’t read the label. Half way through I knew something wasn’t right. I washed my face off, and looked at the label. I had washed my face with my wife’s conditioner. So if my face this morning has just the right shine this morning, you’ll know why!
Deodorant or Hair Spray: Or how about this—you’re looking for the deodorant. You look down and there are two aerosol cans. You pick one up without thinking. You quickly realize that you’ve styled your underarms with hairspray.
Conditioner was not meant to be soap. Hair spray was meant for hair, not for deodorant.
Sugar and Salt: Maybe you’ve done this. I’m not so good in the kitchen. We don’t drink coffee all that often. You’re looking for the sugar, and you find the white substance and fill the sugar bowl. You serve coffee to your guests. And soon you realize that there’s a difference between sugar and salt!
What’s the point? You need to use things for the right purpose or things get all messed up.
1. Application: Listen mankind was created in God’s image to glorify Him. We are to be worshippers of God. That is our purpose. Your purpose was not little tiny, temporal, miniscule earthly purposes, like getting the right job, or owning a house, or getting rich, or making yourself happy. Our purpose is to love and worship God whether we’re rich or poor, whether we are CEO or jobless, whether we are owning or renting, or in the Motel 8 trying to figure out what to do next. We are to glorify and honor and love God.
That’s what verse 21 says: “Unto him be glory in the church”.
We get all upset when something goes wrong in life. We begin to panic. Oh no, my health is bad. Oh no my job is bad! Oh no, my car doesn’t run. Oh no, so and so hurt my feelings. Negative feelings and sinful reactions come because we’ve got our purpose all wrong. We think our purpose is to glorify ourselves and to love our selves, but we’ve got it all wrong. Let me give you a domesticated example.
2. Example: Perhaps you don’t feel like taking out the trash after a long day of work. You say, my wife should know that. She asks. You sigh. She asks again. You say, I’ll try. She asks again. You say all right already. Everything is all messed up because you were blind to your purpose. You pleased yourself by complaining, hoping to get a bit more comfort instead of pleasing God.
Same scenario, different outlook: Your wife asks you to take out the trash. You say “Sure honey.” You give her a kiss, give her a big hug, take the trash out. While you are getting the trash, you ask if you can take out all the trash around the house. So you grab the trash from under the counter in the kitchen, and you go to the bathrooms and empty those trash cans too. You notice that there is a pile of recyclable things by the garage door, like milk containers and cardboard boxes, and you grab those too on your way out. You don’t flaunt what you are doing, you just quietly do it. You come back in, and your wife wants to know if you are ok. What’s wrong with you? What’s happened? Is it serious? How long do you have to live?
The difference is, at one time you have your purpose all wrong. In the other scenario, you understand your purpose. Verse 21: “Unto him be glory in the church”. You are to glorify God in all circumstances. How do I glorify God? You look at every person in your life as if they were Jesus, and serve them accordingly.
You’ve got to get your purpose right! Think about this purpose. We think our purpose is to get rich and stay happy. Wrong! That’s humanism and idolatry. I hope that is not your goal in life.
So the purpose of the church, your purpose if you are a born again, Spirit filled, blood bought child of God is to worship and honor God. You are to give the honor due to His name.
I have an interesting question. We’ve asked our selves what is the purpose of the church? What is the answer? Our goal is not to get rich and stay happy. Our goal is to glorify God.
But my question is this:
The answer: everything. You are to sacrifice all things—even yourself—your own life and livelihood in order to reflect the glory of God. Your purpose is not self-preservation. Your purpose is not survival of the fittest. In fact, you don’t need to survive. You are to put your life in peril if need be for a much higher purpose: the glory of God. You are to glorify God even if it costs you your life, your reputation, your job, your riches, your livelihood. You are to risk everything at all times for one purpose: to glorify God! Jesus said it this way in Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” He said in Matthew 10:37-39, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” What is worth everything? What is worth your very soul and your very life? The riches of this world? No way! Our life and soul and livelihood and reputation are to be put on the line at all times for the glory of God. We are to live fearlessly and faithfully under the sovereign rule of our Lord and King Jesus Christ.
Christians are people who forsake their comfort for a cross. Comfort and Cross are not two words that go together. If comfort is your purpose in living, I can tell you, you are dirtying the name of Christ by calling yourself a Christian and living for yourself. Your comfort comes from being united to Christ and doing God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). As Jesus, our food is “to do the will of the Father” (John 4:34). We don’t “live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We don’t live for our comforts like food and pleasure. We live to fulfill the Word and will of the Father.
Well, how does a person have this kind of purpose in his life? That’s a good question. You see very few people live this way. Very few people are living the life of a living sacrifice. Very few people are living totally consecrated lives.
In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
In John 4, we have Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman. She was caught up in external forms of religion, but had never had her heart changed. Her purpose was still human and earthly—basically, my religion is better than your religion.
But Jesus says in John 4:23-24, Jesus says, “the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
God is seeking out worshippers. People who will live for God alone at the peril of their own lives. Who are these people that love and worship God?
Well, we find them in our text: Verse 21: “Unto him be glory in the church”. The church is where people give honor and glory to God and live for Him at the peril of their own comfort and livelihood.
What is it that moves people from their comfort zones to the cross? I can tell you that it is not man. Romans 3:11-12, “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” In other words, to understand and seek after God is the very height of all that is good, and “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” So how does a person go from the kingdom of Satan where he is self-serving and cross the line of demarcation into the kingdom of God where he serves God at peril of his own life if need be. He sacrifices self for God. What brings the person over the line of demarcation? What brings a person into “general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23)?
II. Let’s look at the People who make up the Church. Why are we here, and what exactly is it that we are doing here today?
It is so easy to get into Christian survival mode and lose sight of what life is all about. What is our ultimate goal? Why is it that we are here any way? Why do we meet every Sunday and Wednesday? Why do we gather together?
A. An Inward Compulsion. According to the Bible, we gather together because of an inward compulsion from God. John 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. We are drawn to Jesus Christ divinely, and each of us has evidenced the presence of God within our hearts inwardly. We are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Something has overcome us, and we desire more than anything an entire consecration to Him, and for Him to get absolute glory from our lives. You may have failures and valleys in your life, but if at your very core, this is not your deepest desire, then Jesus is not your Lord. The Christian battles against sin without ceasing, but his deepest desire is that Christ would exercise full authority over his life. Those who are saved are under the law or rule of Christ.
Turn over to John 10. We see this inward compulsion here. Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”. The sheep are given the ability to hear because of the Father’s good pleasure. There were others who could not hear. Look at the verse before. There is this inward compulsion to follow Christ. It comes from the Father. It is called His drawing. We see this in John 10—My sheep hear my voice and it results in them following me.
B. The Word Church implies this inward compulsion.
What is the church? We read: “Unto him be glory in the church”.
1. The church is a “called out assembly”—ekklesia. What does this mean? Often I talk about the “line of demarcation” in your life. There is a time when you are called out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. That line is the moment God CALLED YOU OUT of the world into the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God, the Nation of priests.
Peter said it this way in 1 Peter 2:9, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light”.
This verse is a commentary on Exodus 19:6, where God promised to the children of Israel, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
We are a called out assembly…
2. The church is a called out assembly that was chosen by God long ago.
The question is, when did the calling take place? The calling takes place in time when a sinner hears the voice of the Son of God and lives. But the choice of the people who would hear happened long ago!
Look over at John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Why do they come? The cause of their coming is the giving of the Father. When did this “giving” take place?
When did God decide who would be called and who wouldn’t be called. The answer is in 2 Timothy 1:9. The Bible says that God has “saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”.
Now there were two groups of people Jesus was talking to. Those who were of His sheep, and those who were what Jesus calls “goats”.
3. There are some who have that inward compulsion and some who don’t.
What is the difference between sheep and goats?
Jesus had said in the verse just before, “ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep” (verse 26). They did not and could not believe because they were not the Lord’s sheep.
John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
John 8:43-44, “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do”.
The difference between the sheep and the goats is that some hear and some don’t hear.
The difference is God’s mercy! We hear because of God’s mercy.
C. Examples of this calling and inward compulsion.
1. Earthly Illustration: Broken lawnmower. Imagine with me you have a lawnmower that works perfectly fine… it breaks. Let’s apply this to the Fall. You have a man and woman in innocence. They fall. The nature is changed. Adam and Eve are now rebels. The Lawnmower is now a rebel. It won’t start. In this state, you can pull the lawnmower cord to start it all day and night long. Nothing will happen. Guaranteed. What needs to happen? The nature of the lawnmower has to change. There needs to be a connection.
You repair the lawnmower’s connection and it starts. Now did the lawnmower start? Yes. Did it start itself? No.
In the same way, yes all those who call on the name of the Lord exercise their own faith. It is true it is theirs. But it was received from the Lord. It is a gift from God. Repentance is a gift from God.
2. Biblical Illustrations from NT:
a. Lazarus. We were like Lazarus—dead in our tomb. God raises us to life and brings us forth to life by the power of His word. Jesus said Lazarus come forth. That’s faith. It is faith to come forth. But what effected that change in Lazarus’s dead body? Was it Lazarus’s natural ability? No, Jesus had to
b. The man with the withered hand—now Jesus said stretch forth thy hand. Now the man obeyed. He had faith. He trusted. But who effected the change?
c. Jesus—constantly said He that hath ears to hear let him hear.
3. Biblical Illustrations from the lives of OT saints.
a. Abraham. Called out of Ur. He was an idol worshipper.
b. Moses—called out of Egypt and then called to go back into Egypt to call out the whole nation.
c. Isaiah—I heard the voice of the Lord… That’s what it is!
III. Finally we see, the Praises of the Church. “unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
A. Our lives are DISPLAY GOD’S GLORY. To give God praise in the world.
Matthew 5:13, “Let your light shine that men might see your good works and glorify and praise your Father which is in heaven”. We are to display the Person of God in our lives. He is to be seen in us. We are to do His will “on earth as it is in heaven”.
How does this occur? How can a sinful human being do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven? It is all “by Christ Jesus”. It is our union with Christ. To be holy as He is holy! Only as we are united with Christ as born again, Spirit-filled new creatures in Christ can we do God’s will. We are saved at the moment we turn to Christ, but each day God works in and through us to work out that salvation, and one day we will. If we eat or drink or whatever we do, we are to do all to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
B. Our lives are to be FULL OF GOD’S PRAISES. We are to be together as the Local manifestation of the body of Christ. God has called out a people from this world to give Him praise—to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Conclusion: Now how can we give glory to God in the church right now while we are here on earth? You need to have your heart engaged in the spiritual exercise of giving glory to God with your life.
Illustration: Think of the Olympics. What if I told you I was going to compete in the Olympics this year? You wouldn’t believe me. Why? Because I am not in shape. Listen, prayer and meditation on the Word of God are disciplines of the heart that will make you holy as God is holy. If you are not in the Word and in prayer you are not going to be holy. God has a path to your life being to the praise of His glory, and it is through the means of God’s grace. God’s working on you continually so that one day on the Day of Redemption our journey will be finally over. We will be fully and finally redeemed when He comes again. And it will be unto Him that He will have glory in the church by Christ Jesus forever and ever, world without end. Amen! And Amen!
Closing Hymn: 566 When the Roll is Called up Yonder