February 15, 2008

The Raw Material

Ephesians 2:1-10

Did you all enjoy Dr. Stuart Briscoe’s message last week? I certainly did. One of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is that I could not have written or prepared a message that would have served any better as an introduction to the next series of messages I am going to preach. It was another of those “God things.” As he was preaching, I kept marveling at how perfectly he was setting the stage. Once again, I didn’t plan it. Dr. Briscoe didn’t plan it. But I know God did.

For the next five weeks, we are going to be looking at the church. What is it? What is it made of? What does Jesus think of it? What is our role in the church? What is the church’s role in the world? I didn’t know exactly when we would be moving into our new building, but I knew it would be around this time. So I thought it would be a good time to reexamine our true identity and recheck our bearings to make sure we are moving in the right direction together.

We find that in today’s world, many people have a very inadequate or inaccurate understanding of what the church is. If we examined the use of the word in everyday language, we would find two common misunderstandings. First, as Dr. Briscoe pointed out last week, is that the church is a building. We say things like, “I will meet you at the church.” People call on the phone and ask, “Where is the church?” I don’t need to say much about this one, since Dr. Briscoe covered it so well last week. I will simply repeat what he said: The New Testament never uses the word “church” to refer to a building.

The second common use of the word church is to describe an event. People might ask, “What time is church?” Church is confused with the church service. “Church is at 10:15 on Friday morning.” Once again, the Bible never uses the word church in this way.

So what does the Bible mean by the word church? I am not going to attempt a technical definition in this message, but I just want to stress that whenever the Bible uses the word church, it always uses it to refer to people, to us. We are the church. We may meet in a building. We may meet at 10:15 on Friday mornings. But we are the church.

There are actually two primary ways of using the term in the Bible. One is to use it to refer to what is sometimes called the “universal church.” In this usage, the church is made up of all of God’s people from all over the world and throughout history. When it is used this way in the New Testament, the word church is singular. It is often accompanied by the definite article “the”. And it is used without a geographical reference. For example in Ephesians 5:25, we are told that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.” This is the universal church made up of all God’s people.

This universal church finds visible expression in local churches; local groups of believers who organize themselves and meet together regularly for worship and mutual ministry. Such Biblical references are often plural such as when Paul writes to “the churches in Galatia.” Or they contain a specific geographical reference. For example, there are two such uses in I Corinthians 16:19: “The churches in the province of Asia (notice it is plural as well as containing a geographical reference) send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.”  Obviously not all the Christians in the world were in Asia, and certainly all the Christians in the world did not meet in Aquila’s house. Yet Paul still refers to churches and specifically a church which met in a home. So, Biblically the church can be used to refer to all of God’s people, or it can be used to refer to a specific local group of believers. But it is always the people who are referred to. The church may meet in a building. The church may meet together at 10:15 on Friday. But the church is the people. We are the church.

That is a basic, fundamental understanding which we must get clear in our minds at the beginning of this series of messages. The specific question I want to address in this message, though, is, “What kind of people make up the church? Who are they and where do they come from?” In Matthew 16:18, in the first use of the word “church” in the Bible, Jesus says, “I will build my church.” The focus of today’s message is “What kind of material is he building it out of?”

In I Peter 2:5, Peter describes the church this way: “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…” In this analogy, individual believers are compared to stones in a building. We are “living stones” which are being used to build a temple in which God lives. Which brings me back to my question: What kind of stones is he using? Where does he get his raw material?

I grew up at Kijabe, Kenya. On the road above the mission station, there was a rock quarry. It was a low tech affair, without any power tools or equipment. The stones were cut out of the quarry using hammer and chisel and pick axe, and then cut and chipped to size before being transported down the hill to be used in building one of the houses or school buildings. When Christ goes to get the stones from which he is building his church, to what quarry does he go?

For the answer to that question, let us turn to the passage we read in the Scripture reading this morning in Ephesians 2:1-10. In this passage we find that Christ is building his church out of sinners. Because this text makes clear, that is what we were.

I. What We Were: Sinners

Many people will agree to that description. They may not use the word sinners. That’s a bit archaic and judgmental. But most people will admit that they mess up from time to time. “I am not perfect. After all I’m human. Sure, I’ve made my share of mistakes.” But for many, that’s as far as it goes. They utterly fail to understand the desperate plight of the human race. Paul describes our dilemma in three ways.

First he tell us that A. We were dead. It is pretty clear in Ephesians 2:1: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live. That’s kind of paradox, isn’t it? You were dead even when you used to live. Actually the word “live” should be translated “walked around.” Have you ever heard the expression, “Dead man walking?” It is the grim description of a condemned criminal walking to his execution.  That’s a pretty graphic description of what we used to be. We were dead men walking. We were physically alive, but spiritually dead.

We were dead in our transgressions and sins. The word “transgressions” is translated in the KJV as “trespasses.” When we lived in Alaska, we used to go hiking along a road that ran past our house near the Knik River. It was kind of a spooky place to walk, because about a mile up the road, we would come to signs which read, “Trespassers will be shot on sight.” The literal meaning behind ‘trespass” means to cross a line, to go out of bounds, to violate a rule or standard. God has laid down lines for us in the form of his commandments. And we have all broken them. We are trespassers!

The second word here is “sins” which means to miss the mark. To fail to come up to the required standard. According to the Bible we have all broken God’s laws and failed to meet his standards. Not only that, but were dead in our transgression and sins. What can a dead person do for himself? Nothing! He’s dead!

If that analogy were not strong enough, Paul gives us another one. B. We were enslaved by an evil triumvirate.

Look at Paul’s words in verse 2: in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world. This is the world system which has organized itself to operate without God and in opposition to him. We “followed its ways.” Not only that but we followed the ways of “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” This is a reference to Satan or the Devil, who is the ultimate ruler of this world system. We were his subjects. He ruled over us. We followed his ways. Not only that, but we were in bondage to our own sinful nature. See verse 3: All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thought.

The Scripture is clear, is it not?  “All of us lived among them at one time…” According to the Scripture, this powerful trio holds captive every human being born into this world. And they are so powerful that we cannot escape them in our own power.

Finally Paul tells us, C. We were condemned. This is the final sorry conclusion he draws in verse 3: Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. We were subjects of God’s judgment. “It is appointed unto a man once to die, and then the judgment.”

That is how God sees the human race. That is what we are by nature. We are not basically good people who mess up now and then. We are dead in our sins. We are enslaved by our sins. We are condemned because of our sins. We are in a terrible, terrible mess!

Incredibly, this is the quarry to which Christ goes and from which he fashions the stones with which he is building his church. When you think about it, he didn’t have to. He could have built his church with angels. He could have created an entire new race of people without any sins. But he didn’t do that. He has chosen to build his church out of sinners.

But that is not quite the whole story is it? Christ is building his church out of sinners saved by grace. This is the rest of the story which we find when we take in what Paul says in the rest of this paragraph. We have been looking at What We Were. Now we want to look at What We Are.

What do you do with someone who is dead? You bury him, right? But if you are God, you have another option. You can raise him from the dead! And that is just what God has done according to verse 4: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…

The main verb in that sentence is “made us alive.” We were dead, but God made us alive. He raised us from the dead. He breathed life into us. Why did he do this? There are actually three motives described in these verses. In the interest of trying to get a smooth English translation, the order has been altered, but I want to introduce them in the order in which they occur in the original text.

Because God is rich in mercy. This is what verse 4 tells us. God, who is rich in mercy. The word “mercy” means to show pity or kindness to someone who is undeserving. When justice would condemn us, mercy pardons us. God is rich in mercy.

Because of his great love for us. This is still in verse 4: because of his great love. What a wonderful description of God’s character is emerging in these verses. He is rich in mercy. He loved us with a great, overflowing love. The Biblical term for love, or “agape” means to value someone highly and to meet the needs of the one loved, regardless of personal cost. We might ask the question, “Why did God love us?” I don’t think we will ever fully know the answer to that question. We do know that the answer lies in him, not in us or anything we have done. God doesn’t love us because we’re lovable. God loves us because “God is love.”

To display his grace to a watching universe. This is the remarkable third answer for why God saved us. We find it in verses 5-7: God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Grace is even greater than mercy. Mercy sets aside the judgment we deserve. Grace not only sets aside the judgment we deserve, but in its place gives us abundant gifts and kindness. We were dead. We deserved judgment. God not only made us alive, but he has exalted us to sit in heavenly places with Christ. And he has done this to display his grace, not only in the present age but in the ages yet to come.

To be sure we don’t miss this point, he says it again in verses 8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.

If we are to understand the church, we must begin at this point. Christ is building his church out of sinners saved by grace. This has a couple of key implications. First of all, we know that no one in the church deserves to be here. The first prerequisite to belonging to the church of Jesus Christ is to recognize that you don’t deserve to belong! Only sinners need apply! Not one of us gets in on our own merits. The church is a fellowship of sinners saved by grace.

But the second implication of this truth is that no one has behaved so badly that they are excluded. We all started out in that same quarry: dead, enslaved and condemned. No matter where you are today, or what you’ve done, no one is excluded. The church is for sinners.

But let’s finish the paragraph to get the full picture of the church. Look at verse 10: For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Christ doesn’t save us from our sins to leave us in our sins. He has something much bigger and better in mind. We are God’s workmanship. The Greek word for workmanship is “poiema”. We get our English word “poem” from this word. We are God’s poem; the product of his creative craftsmanship. He is making something new and beautiful out of us. We were dead. God made us alive. We were enslaved. God set us free. We were condemned. God forgave our sins. Now he wants to continue to transform us by his creative power to be worthy representatives of his grace. He wants to put us on display before the universe and say, “This is what they were, but now, this is what they are. They are doing the good works I prepared in eternity for them to do.”

We are God’s poem. This is true, in one sense, of each of us as individual Christians. But I believe it is especially true of the church, the corporate group. We here at ECC are God’s poem. He is making something beautiful out of us, as a testimony to his grace. And the beauty of his creation comes out as we obediently do the works he has prepared for us to do. What a calling!

Let me ask you a question. Are you in the church? By now, I hope it’s clear to you that you can be in a church building, and not be in the church. I hope by now you understand that you can be in a church service and still not be in the church. The church is a fellowship of sinners saved by grace. The first step in becoming part of the church, then, is to recognize that you’re a sinner. Remember, only sinners need apply! This goes beyond thinking of yourself as a good person who occasionally makes mistakes. That is not God’s view of you. You are dead, enslaved and condemned. Until you accept God’s view of you, you cannot enter the church. In fact, you will see no need to enter the church. Do you recognize that you are a sinner? That is the first step. The second step is to accept God’s grace by faith; believing in Christ’s death on the cross for you and asking him to be your Savior. You don’t have to clean yourself up and make yourself presentable. You’re dead. God will make you alive. You are enslaved. God will set you free. You are condemned. God will pardon you and forgive your sins. All you have to do is ask.

He was a young man from a Hindu family. He grew up in a remote area of India. A mile from his home there was a large spreading tree where the people offered sacrifices to the goddess of the village. He went to the big city to look for work. While there, he was staying in his sister’s house, waiting for word about a job he had applied for in Saudi Arabia. During the day, he was the only one in the house. Bored and looking around for something to read, he discovered a Bible. He picked it up and began to read. The more he read, the more interested he became. In a matter of days, he had read the Bible through from cover to cover. When he was finished, he realized two things. He recognized that he was a sinner. And he realized that Jesus had died for his sins. With simple faith, he put his faith in Jesus Christ as his Savior. That young man’s name was Mohan. Today he is back in his home area of Andhra Pradesh. He is one of our ECC missionaries. He has planted 13 different churches in the area, beginning in his own little village. Weekly, well over 1000 believers gather to worship Jesus Christ in these churches in an area that was once entirely Hindu. Mohan is a sinner saved by grace. So are each of those believers who gather every Sunday. Christ is building his church out of sinners saved by grace, stone by living stone. I am a member of Christ’s church because I am a sinner saved by grace. Are you?