S. Objects of the Church

OBJECTS OF THE CHURCH

    TEXT: (The text selected combines Ephesians 3:10 and Ephesians 3:21) To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God Unto Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and ever. Amen.

The letter to the Ephesians is a circular letter-that is, not intended for the church at Ephesus particularly but for that church and a number of others to whom copies of it were sent. It presents to us the following thoughts: That the church as set forth in this letter has a three-fold sense. It has the sense of an institution, as for example, “Upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” It has, in the second place, the sense of all of the redeemed from the first man saved to the last man saved. In this case it refers to the church in glory and is prospective except as an ideal or conception of the mind. Then it means the particular church in any given place, as the church at Ephesus. In all three of these senses Christ is the head of the church. He is the head of the church as an institution. He is the head of the church in glory. He is the head of each particular church, as the church at Waco. This letter also sets forth the objects of the church, and the objects are those to be accomplished by each particular church or else by the church as an institution. These objects are three-fold. As said by the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Corinthians, the apostles are a spectacle to the angels. Here he uses language common to the show in Rome and in the great Greek cities where a great amphitheatre accommodates the hundreds of thousands of people assembled. There are the spectators; in the arena is the spectacle. The church is said to be a spectacle to the angels.- To get the full grammatic thought of the Apostle, let us conceive of heaven and earth as a great amphitheatre. The earth is the arena; the heavens are the galleries where the angels are looking down upon the church. The second object of the church is to instruct the angels that are so looking down upon it. These angels, while great in knowledge, are not omniscient. They have an intense desire to look into all the workings of the wisdom of God. That curiosity of their, is represented as if to discern the great object of God in the appointment of that mercy seat. These angels regard the unfolding of the wisdom of God as the most worthy thing of angelic knowledge. But this unfolding is not entrusted to them. The unfolding of the much diversified wisdom of God is committed to the church, to the church as an institution and to each particular church. Each church unfolds the much diversified wisdom of God, and as it unfolds, the angels above, the interested spectators, are instructed in the development of that wisdom. The next object of the church is that in thus unfolding God’s wisdom to the angels, they declare the glory of God, and hence the last part of the text, that in the church throughout all ages shall be declared the glory of God. In this connection this letter sets forth the time in which the church is to be a spectacle to angels, the time in which the church is to occupy the position of instructor of angels, the time in which the church shall declare the glory of God and it is to the end of this age, until the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the mission of the church of Christ. Now, the latter also sets forth what is necessary on the part of the church in order for these great things to be accomplished. Every member of a particular church must have a vital connection with the Head of the church-a living connection, not a nominal connection. The objects that God had in view in the institution of a church are thwarted just to the extent that there are on the rolls of the church men and women who have no real vital connection with the Head. It is utterly impossible for one who has only a nominal connection with Jesus Christ to declare the glory of God or to unfold His wisdom. The next thing necessary is that there shall also be a vital connection between all of the parts which constitute the church. There must not only be a living connection with Jesus Christ, but there must be a living connection with each other. Therefore, any member of the church who is out of fellowship with his brethren, anyone who from any cause is incapacitated for working with the rest of the members, just by that much he thwarts the object of God in the institution of the church. We must be in touch with each other as well as in vital touch with the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head. The next thing is that the church is to be for a habitation of God through the spirit. The congregation has a house. The church (not the building) is the house of the living God. The One who dwells in this house is the holy spirit. Now any member of a church in whose individual heart there is no indwelling of the spirit is a handicap to the rest of the congregation. He is a drag upon the church. He is a burden to it. They have to carry his share in doing the work which God has given the church to do. The letter then goes on to show that in order to afford the proper spectacle to the angels, and in order that the angels may perceive in the work of the church the unfolding of the much diversiformed wisdom of God, it is necessary that the congregation shall, as a congregation, upbuild. Let us suppose that a congregation for five years of its life has been growing as a congregation in grace and in members, in brotherly love. That far, then, they have been active instructors to the onlooking angels. But there comes a halt in the upbuilding of the church. Things are at a standstill. They exhibit the same old picture lessons to the angels that they have been exhibiting for the last five years. Nothing new is presented to them. There is no changing progress that brings out any new thought of the wisdom of God. The upbuilding of a congregation, then, is absolutely essential to the accomplishment of the object of the institution of the church. But this is incidental. There is a higher object than that. The church best shows to the angels the wisdom of God by the saving power which it exercises upon outsiders. Not merely that there is growth in grace in each individual member and that the bond of unity between the members is continually strengthened, but that the church, as a saving power, is bringing in the lost. So that if within any given period of time, say one year, nobody is converted through the ministration of the church, the spectators in heaven, those angels that hover over the assemblage of God’s people, those angels, intently curious to observe the unfolding of the wisdom of the power of God, how impatient must they become when no progress is made in the unfolding! No sinner is saved. The roll stands just as it was before with no increase except by letter. They have a pastor perhaps, they have a building perhaps, they go through all regular forms of public worship. But in some way their services are of a kind that convicts no sinner of sin and saves nobody. You will see at once that by lack of the exercise of saving power the church defeats the object of God in its establishment. This upbuilding which constitutes the first means by which the church declares the glory of God may be of two kinds. One of the most interesting kinds is in special cases where one who has united with a particular church in some hour of revival power grows from a baby in Christ to a stalwart man or woman in Christ, becomes a character. People observe this remarkable development of practical, individual Christianity. They say of this man, “He is a monument of the grace of God, a monument covered with inscriptions, and any eye may read the story that the monument tells.” In all the history of the church these titles of grace, these colossal developments of individual character and power have challenged the admiration of the world. Now and then you see some layman developed by the power of Christianity within, until everybody that knows him respects him to the full extent that the human heart and mind can entertain respect. They believe in his personal integrity, they believe in his veracity, they believe in his honesty, in his practical piety, and when he passes away, it is as if the lordliest and most wide-branching tree of a forest had fallen. It leaves a vacancy in the sky. The very birds themselves are startled when they fly over an empty space that once had been for them a resting place. This upbuilding, this resting place, constitutes one of the things that the angels admire most. They look at it just as spectators would look at a statue carved by a mighty artist out of hard granite, and as they behold that work taking shape and each outline softened and the marvelous symmetry brought out under the skillful stroke of the mallet and the chisel until that statue seems to live and breathe, they glorify the artist in what he has accomplished. But this upbuilding also looks to a congregational up building. Not merely that one here and there may be so developed by the power of Christianity as to gain the respect and warm love of all who know him, but that the progress of a whole congregation as such may attract the attention of the world. Not merely that, but that this congregation as a congregation may send out the praises of God throughout the whole world by their example, the record that they make so that other churches far off may look at that church and say, “It is a banner church. It is in the lead in the great work of God. When we want to know what is best for a church, we study the example of that church and we see how unselfish, how self-sacrificingly, with what spiritual consecration they do what God would have them to do, in missions, in all other things in which the commands of God rest upon them.” In that way this church may be built up and it may teach this lesson to the angels. Now, the Apostle having set forth the idea of a church in its three-fold sense, as an institution, as a particular congregation and as an ultimate body in glory, and having shown that there must be vital connection between each member and the Head and that there must be vital connection between one part and all the rest, and that so knit together and compacted they shall constitute the house in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and that so constituted it becomes the spectacle of angels, the instructor of angels in the manifold wisdom of God and that it displays the glory of God throughout the ages, and having shown that it does this through the upbuilding, the bringing about of exceptional cases of character in individuals and in the general upbuilding of the membership, and also in saving the unconverted with which it comes in touch  having presented all these thoughts and knowing how much that particular church at Ephesus and every other particular church in the world needs some things in order to thus serve God, he offers a prayer. This prayer consists of five petitions, and the first petition is this: “I pray that you may be strengthened with power in the inner man, with power inside.” There is no power in external things to a church. If it be a power that can attract the attention, and inform the minds of onlooking angels, it must be an inward power, a power of which the soul is conscious. Jacob had power with God and with man. He is therefore called a priest. That power came to him through prayer, and therefore the Apostle Paul prays that the members of the Ephesian church might be strengthened with power in the inner man. Every individual Christian should take an inventory of his internal powers. One who is devoid of consciousness of internal power can have no confidence in addressing himself to great exploits. He is too timid to undertake them. He feels his incapacity to do such things, but if this power is felt in his heart he is not overawed by any threatening danger. He is not discouraged by any postponement of success. He is not diverted from a straightforward march to the accomplishment of his object by any sidetracking thing that is presented to seduce his mind and turn him away from his work, if he has this power. Therefore Paul prays that they may have that power. The second thing that he prays for is: That Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. The dwelling of Christ in the heart can only come through faith in Christ. It is much to be feared that to a great many people Christ is only an occasional visitor, and if He chances to spend an hour with you, you feel like you have a strange company and that you must put on company manners because a certain worthy one is spending an hour with you. But if our faith be strong enough, Christ dwells in the heart; that is His home. He has formed in the heart His image, so that if the heart were opened to the light of Heaven, the first thing that that light would shine on would be the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other image in any way daring to rival. I believe I told you once of a woman who intensely loved her husband. He had gone to the wars. It was doubtful if he would ever return. Indeed, he never did get back, but every morning she would put his picture on the mantel-piece and stand before it and gaze long at it and say, “Oh, my husband, if you were here today what would you have me to do? What conduct upon my part would please you the most?” Now, his image was in her heart. She had faith in him; he had faith in her. Now Paul prays in order to the accomplishment of the objects, the great and glorious objects of the church, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. Third, he prays that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Here are two figures: One is agricultural and the other is architectural. The sending down of the tap root insures the life of the transplanting. You may never count the transplanting a success until the tap root has gone deep down into the ground and touched the hidden source of moisture in the earth. He says, “I pray that you may be rooted in love and that you may be grounded in love.” In building a house, a house that you expect to stand, you dig deep and lay a broad and a very firm foundation. Now he says, I pray that you may have that kind of a foundation in love. It is necessary that you should have it if you are to do these things that God commands you to do. The next petition is that they may comprehend  that means to lay hold of-the dimensions of the love of God. And these dimensions are expressed in the length, breadth, height and depth of the love of God. It is very much to be feared that many of us have made but little progress in laying hold upon the dimensions of the love of God which surpasses all knowledge. We have some conception of God’s love. Every Christian must have some conception of it. But we have not studied the subject. We have not given it profound and continuous thought. We have not given it that heart study, we have not given it that experimental study, as when a man reading in the Bible about God’s love not only intellectually understands the signification of the terms and their grammatical construction, but puts his very heart against that description and feels and then in his life lives so that he will say, “Since my conversion I have been all the time increasing my acquaintance with God’s love.” It was very sweet to my soul when I first found it. I had not tried it much then. I have found as years roll on and as new experiences come and go that God’s love is higher than I thought at first. Oh, it is very much higher than any mountain, any cloud, any sky! I have found out that it is very deep  that it is deeper than any thought of mine can measure, deeper than the earth itself, deeper than the space in which the earth floats, this love of God that reached down to the very depths of hell in order to pluck me as a brand from the burning and has now lifted me up, up, higher, higher, until at last I am by that love to be made a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ and to sit with Him on the throne of His glory. And then the length of it and the breadth of it. Go straight forward until you have made the circuit of the earth and the love is there. Go right and left in either direction until you strike the shores of space itself and the love of God is there. Now he says, “Brethren, if the church is to accomplish its mission of instruction to the angels and is to show forth God’s glory, you ought to lay hold with some kind of a grasp upon the dimensions of God’s love.” Oh, how old it is! It commences before the world was made. Oh, how precious it is! It found me when I was an enemy of God, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel and it changed me from an enemy to a friend. And, oh, how, while revolutions have overtaken earthly governments, and inexorable laws have written change upon every earthly thing, time writes no wrinkle on the brow of the love of God, which as creation’s dawn beheld it, shineth now. Then he prayed that they might be filled with all the fulness of God. There was a time when that statement staggered me. I confess I did not understand it. He evidently isn’t praying for something unattainable. It is an intensely practical prayer. He means they were to get what he asks for, that a church of the Lord Jesus Christ should be filled with all the fulness of God. The thought is this, and in this way a child can understand it: God in the Holy Spirit inhabits every true church. Now the Holy Spirit does not come into a church with only a part of himself. He comes in all the fulness of God, the fulness of His wisdom, the fulness of His power, the fulness of His love. He is there that way. But when the Apostle Paul prays that we may be filled with that fulness the thought is this: That there might come into our hearts a realization of that presence of the Holy Spirit in that power. Now, in order to enable you to step up on the thought, let us make a stepping stone of the great commission. Christ says to His people: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, making disciples of all nations.” He precedes that statement with, “All power in Heaven and on earth is given unto me and lo, I am with you in the exercise of that power.” That power is there. It is there all the time with that presence. The only thing is, will the church lay hold of it? Will they appropriate it? Very dimly we see it, very feebly we touch it. Sometimes in hours of mighty spiritual power, the thought overwhelms us and we begin to realize that if two or three be gathered in the name of God, the Omnipotence is with the two or three, that no command is impossible, that anything He says do, can be done. Now, the Holy Spirit dwells in this church I doubt it not. It was intended to be a house for Him and He has been living in the house, but we have shut up a good many of the rooms from Him. We have barred Him out of a great part of His mansion. Now, when He prays that we may be filled with the fulness of God, it means that we must open up to Him all the rest of the chambers. Let Him in, not only partially, but altogether. Let Him in, not as limited, but as unlimited. Let Him in, not only as a prevalent love, but as an all prevalent love. That is the exposition of this text.