Together . . . in Partnership with Christ!

Sermon Summary:

We’re exploring the profound message of Ephesians, which offers a cosmic vision of God’s plan for the church. This letter, unique among Paul’s writings, isn’t addressing specific problems but presenting God’s grand intent for His people. We’re challenged to elevate our view of Christ and the church, recognizing that we’re part of something far greater than we often realize. The church isn’t just a local gathering; it’s where heaven and earth come together in Christ. As believers, we’re participating in God’s work of filling the whole earth with His glory. This perspective transforms how we see our role in God’s plan, reminding us that even in small gatherings, we’re part of a global movement that’s changing the world.

Watch The Service Here

Sermon Points:

• How high or how developed is your view of Christ and His Church?

• The Apostle Paul: Pastor, Preacher, Planter, Prophet, Prisoner

• AD 60 – Churches in Asia (Roman province – Acts 19:10), Lycia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Bithynia, Achaia, Macedonia, Europe, Syria, Samaria, and Judea were all small house churches where Christians lived in the shadow of the Roman Empire.

• “These churches were a mess, and Paul wrote his letters to them to try to clean up the mess. But the dominant concern in this Ephesian letter is not to deal with the human problems that inevitably develop in church—no church is exempt—but to explore God’s glory that gives the church its unique identity . . . It is as if Paul takes time out from his responsibilities for straightening out the problems of belief and behavior that have cropped up in the various churches and writes out, as clearly and completely as he can, what makes church church. And what comes clear is that church is not what we do; it is what God does, although we participate in it.”

  -Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection

• “Ephesians is about the cosmic vision of heaven and earth coming together. The church is to be filled with the Spirit in the present age as the sign to the world what God is going to do for the whole cosmos in the future. The church is to demonstrate to the world who the world’s creator really is. In fact, the Church is a small, working model of the new creation.”

  N. T. Wright

• “. . . for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

  -Isaiah 11:9

• “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

  -Habakkuk 2:14

• “Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.”

  -Psalm 72:19

• Ephesians is about the people of God who are now “in Christ.” “In Christ” – this phrase or imagery connected to this phrase appears 164 times in Paul’s writings and 36 times in Ephesians!

• “To bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

  -Ephesians 1:10

• “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  -Ephesians 3:10-11

• “. . . that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

  -Ephesians 3:19

• How high or how developed is your view of Christ and His Church?

Download a copy of the “Together” Devotional Book – HERE

Key Takeaways:

• Christians in the West often have a low view of Christ and the church
• Ephesians presents a high Christology and ecclesiology
• The church is God’s instrument to display His wisdom to the cosmos
• God’s plan is to bring unity to all things in heaven and earth under Christ
• The church is a small working model of the new creation
• Christians are part of the largest religious movement in history
• Being “in Christ” is a central theme in Ephesians and Paul’s writing

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Scripture References:

• Ephesians 1:1-14 (with focus on verses 3-14)
• Additional references to Ephesians 3:10, 3:19, and 1:10

Stories:

• The speaker’s experience teaching pastors in Bangladesh, illustrating the global reach of Christianity
• Imagining a first-century Christian from Ephesus transported to modern times to see the growth of the church
• Anecdote about watching the Olympics and suggesting adding “normal” people to events for perspective
• Personal story of attending N.T. Wright’s teaching on Ephesians in Houston

Transcript

Well, y’all know that our theme for this year is together, and we’ve been exploring all kinds of facets of what that means in 2024, and so we turned the page on the calendar. It’s August, and very creatively and innovatively, I chose the theme for August to be together, so I know that’ll impress you, but really, the whole idea of togetherness is so connected to the book of Ephesians, and so that’s one of the reasons I wanted us to focus on that theme in particular during August, and today, you have a new devotional guide that’s available for you. I hope you’ll get it, and they’re available at all of our welcome center areas, gathering areas, and you’ll remember that every week, we have a reading together in Word, and then we have suggestions from the staff about being together in deed, but what I would also like you to do during the week is to read the book of Ephesians. In the month of August, in addition to the passage every week, there’s a focal passage every week. For example, this week, the focal passage is Ephesians 1, 3 through 14, and it’s a lengthy section, but I’m going to ask you each week to just read the entire book of Ephesians, okay? It’s just six pages. It’ll take you about 30 minutes to read it, and I would encourage you to take the time to just read it. This… This summer, I mean, this month of August, every week, and I believe that will give you this panoramic view that God wants you to have through this incredible book, because Ephesians is, in many ways, unparalleled in the New Testament out of all of Paul’s writings. It is unique, and we’ll talk about that a little bit here in just a minute, and so that’s what we’re going to do in August. Do you know, I’m old enough to remember when August was started. It was still the summer. Do y’all remember that? I don’t know who changed it, but now August is the fall. August is when everything starts back, but this August has been, to me, this July and August, bringing this summer to a conclusion has been fun, because the Olympics. I love the Olympics, and these athletes, y’all, come on. I mean, seriously. How about Simone Biles? I think I have a photo of Simone. Is she not the greatest of all time? This little girl. Oh, my goodness. Just how, just watching her makes my hands sweat, you know? Just up in the air, her body’s so contorted. I mean, she’s the greatest gymnast of all time. I hope we’ve all taken that in to just see greatness. And then, how about Katie Ledecky? Can anybody swim faster than Katie Ledecky? Seriously? And then, how about Superman? Superman. This guy, Steven, what’s his last name? I got it written down here. Ned Orosik. The guy that does the, what do they call it, the pommel horse? Is that what it is? I mean, this guy, I loved watching that. Him just sitting back, chilling with his glasses on, you know? Just, that’s the only reason he was there. Two bronze medals. I mean, it’s just been a lot of fun. In fact, what I think they ought to do, in every one of these events, I think they ought to just put a normal person out there.

You know what I mean? Just so you have a little context. I think they ought to add an extra lane in swimming and just put one of us, just to show you what these people are really like. Can you imagine if one of us was doing the pommel, what is that, what it’s called? The pommel horse? Would that not help everybody a little bit? Or the vault? Or whatever? I mean, because, you know, you’re watching them and you’ll see somebody who’s in last place. You know what I mean? You’ll go, guy, I mean, you’re obviously not very good. I mean, you’re in last place. Can you imagine if you and I were out there competing against the last place? I mean, what a joke, you know? So, anyway, I think they ought to have somebody like us out there just for reference. Anyway, but I’ve loved the Olympics. I always. I always like it. I love the track and field. And so, I was watching yesterday, the guys doing the shot put. I can’t even pick it up at this point in my life, much less throw it however far they throw it, you know? And so, I’m just enamored with their incredible ability. So, I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well. I know it’s been a little dicey along the way, but this world we’re in right now, everything is dicey, it looks to me like. So, but with that said, I want us to turn our attention to Ephesians, and y’all know that I’ve spent a good bit of time this year in this book, and we’re going to talk more about it the rest of this month. I went and spent a week down in Houston and listened to N.T. Wright teach the book of Ephesians, and listened to him unpack the Greek text, and also his translation of the Greek text he gave to us, and just given us a lot of insight. It was really good. And so, I just want to share with you how the Lord’s been speaking to me in Ephesians. And so, what we’re going to do this morning is just… Just get started, okay? So, if you have your copy of the New Testament, I want you to look at Ephesians, and let’s just leave it open, because we’ll look at some other passages, but we’re just going to do the first two verses, just to introduce it today, together in partnership with Christ. That’s the message of Ephesians. We are in partnership with the Messiah. Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. It’s not Jesus’ last name.

You know, his parents weren’t Joseph and Mary Christ. Y’all know that, right? This is a title. Jesus. The Messiah. Okay? The Christ. Here’s what Paul says. Verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously, Paul uses that title numerous times just in this opening. But here’s what I want us to think about this morning. Here’s where I want us to start. I want you to think with me for just a second. How high or how developed is your view of Christ and his church? How high is your Christology and your ecclesiology? That’s your view of Christ and your view of the church. My contention is, is that Christians in the West are guilty of having a low Christology and a low ecclesiology. Okay? So, I want you to think about it with me. Because if you’re not careful, we join in the ranks of people who just poor mouth the church. You know, we see all of its imperfections, its glaring weaknesses, and we reduce it down to just this local expression. And if we’re not careful, the church, we judge it. We judge it based on our whims and our desires, our preferences. We can be so provincial, can’t we? What do you think about the church? Well, you know, the music’s too loud. You know, I just don’t care for it. You know, it’s just not my cup of tea. And you know, the times they have the services planned, it’s not convenient, you know, for our schedule. I mean, Sunday is a day for me to do this and this. I just can’t get down there, you know, at the time that they have it. And, you know, it’s just the programming. I mean, I think it’s weak. You know, I don’t think they really know what they’re doing. And the church, it’s almost like Dr. McGorman used to teach us. He said, Southwestern Seminary, we don’t want the church to be salt and light. We want it to be sugar. That’s what he used to say. You want the church to just sweeten your life. You know, be there, you know, when babies are born and baptism and weddings and holidays and funerals. And then after that, just let us mind our own business. It’s almost like the church is there to serve us. Come on, y’all. I’m trying to help you this morning, okay? That’s kind of how we in the West view the church. It’s like it’s there. It’s there to serve our whims. And, you know, if it kind of measures up, if it kind of gets to this point, I’ll go ahead and give it a shot. I’m afraid we do the same thing with Jesus. Not only do we have a low ecclesiology, I’m afraid we have a low Christology. How many times has Jesus been recast in our image? How many generations of Christians have viewed Jesus through their own lenses? And they actually call on Jesus to just rally their calls or to suit their agenda. Well, here’s what I want to tell y’all. Get ready when you read Ephesians because Ephesians will just reset everything. You read Ephesians and you can’t help but see the high Christology and the high ecclesiology, okay? And so, Ephesians serves as a corrective measure for our low thinking. So, can I invite y’all into this conversation? All right, so let’s do it. So, who wrote Ephesians? Well, we think Paul wrote it. Actually, we know Paul wrote it. Well, who was Paul? Well, Paul was an apostle. He was an apostle, obviously, but he was a pastor at this point in his life. He’s a preacher. He’s a church planter. He’s a prophet. He’s a prisoner. That’s Paul’s life. That’s where he is right now. When this letter is written, most of us believe he writes this letter from Rome. So, it’s about A.D. 60 or so. So, let’s just back up for a second and think about what all has happened to Paul. Sometime in the mid-30s, Paul is converted to Christianity. He has been a Pharisee. He has been a Christian. He has been a Christian. He has been a Christian since the Old Testament, what you and I would call the Old Testament. He would just call it the Scripture. And he is radically converted on the way to Damascus, somewhere in the mid-30s. He’ll spend some time being trained by Jesus. He’ll be discipled by Jesus. He’ll have personal encounters with Jesus. He’ll write about him later. And then somewhere around A.D. 48 or so, he starts his work as a missionary. And for 10 years, A.D. 48 to 58, Paul just goes around preaching, planting churches, pastoring people, evangelizing. Training others. And he has a street-level view of Christianity. He’s in people’s homes. He listens to them tell him stories about their marriages. He watches them struggle with what it means to be a Christian in a pagan context. And Paul travels all over Judea, Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia. As a matter of fact, Paul’s ministry is so effective. If you look at what the book of Acts says, Acts chapter 19, verse 10, Paul’s in Ephesus, which is where this letter is going to go. And Luke will say, Paul spent all this time there. And while he’s there, all the provinces, all the villages, all the communities around Ephesus heard the word of the Lord. In fact, so much so that Paul will write the church at Rome in Romans 15. And Paul will say this in Romans 15, 23. I’m done here. I need to move on now and take on a new responsibility. In other words, I’ve made it across this part of the world. And now I’m turning my attention on Europe. And being a Christian. And I’m coming to you, he tells the church at Rome. So, let’s think about where we were in A.D. 60. Okay? There were churches scattered across the ancient world. They were in Asia, which was a Roman province. I mentioned Acts 19, verse 10. Lycia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Bithynia, Achaia, Macedonia, Europe, Syria, Samaria, Judea. But guess what they were? They weren’t like this. This is not how the church looked. They were all house churches. And they were small house churches. And Christians lived in the shadow of the Roman Empire. You see, the Romans were very loathe to allow people to gather in any number. You had to have some type of official sanction in the Roman Empire. In other words, you had to be part of a guild. You know, like the Carpenter’s Guild. Or the Mason’s Guild. Then you could gather. Or you could participate in pagan worship. But you couldn’t gather like this. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t stand for it. They were nervous about it. To them, it felt like insurrection. So, these churches, keep in mind, when Paul writes this letter, and he sends it, he’s in prison in Rome. Okay? So, think about Paul’s setting. It’s not like Paul is sitting in a study somewhere in a library with all of the theological volumes all around him. Pondering the theology of the church. Being spoken to by all the great minds of the church. Singing the hymns of the church. That’s not where Paul was. Paul was in prison in Rome. And he’s trying to get the message out to these churches out in these provinces. And make sure they understand who they really are. Because he knows the challenges they’re facing. So, you’ve got these small house churches. They’re meeting in rooms behind people’s shops. They’re meeting in little apartment or tenement dwellings. Sometimes on the upper floor. Y’all remember when Paul was in Troas. And the guy fell asleep and fell out the window and died. Y’all remember that story? So, these little upstairs apartments. There’s these small gatherings. Just a handful of people at a time. You know, there are 15 churches named in the New Testament. Thirteen of them get letters. The only two churches in the New Testament that are named that don’t get letters are Jerusalem and Antioch. So, Paul was concerned about them. So, here’s what Paul did. Paul participated in what scholars call occasional epistolary literature. That’s what it’s called. What does that mean? Well, it’s literature because it was writing.

It’s epistolary because these are letters. These are letters. Letters to these churches. It’s occasional because Paul had a reason for writing every one of them. He wrote for a certain occasion. All those letters in the New Testament, that’s what they are. They’re occasional epistolary literature. Paul has a reason for writing. The church at Corinth is struggling with their unity and their theology. He writes them. Philemon, he’s trying to send Onesimus there. So, he writes him. Timothy, he’s trying to help Timothy learn what it means to be a pastor. So, he writes him. The only letter that we have of Paul’s in the entire collection of the Paul letters, the Pauline epistles, that’s not an occasional letter is Ephesians. In other words, there’s no occasion. There’s no problem in the church. There’s not something he’s trying to target. This is his general letter. It stands alone. That’s what makes it so different and so important. And so, when you read Ephesians during the month of August, keep that in mind. And remember who he sent it to. Tychicus. He’s going to tell us at the end of this letter. Tychicus will tell you what’s going on. That meant Tychicus brought it from Paul and gave it to these churches. And he read it to them. Paul will send Colossians. Now, y’all share these letters. Remember, send them over to Laodicea. Make sure y’all are all reading these letters. So, Paul has got men who are going to these provinces, sometimes women like Phoebe. She’s the one that took the letter to Rome. She’s a deacon in the church at Synchreus. She gets to the church at Rome and reads the letter to the church at Rome and presumably answers their questions. So, just take that in for just a second. You’ve got a woman reading the most important letter Paul ever wrote and explaining the theology of it. I’m not even going to comment on that. But, this is what Paul’s doing. He’s living in the trenches. And here he is in Ephesus. And he doesn’t know how much longer he has. And he’s thinking, okay, I’ve got to get this note out. And here’s what I want you to do with this letter. Take it and share it. That’s why some of the manuscripts we have of this letter don’t have, if you look back at verse 1, they don’t have in Ephesus. It’s blank. So, you can kind of take it and put your church’s name in it. So, remember they’re meeting in these little house churches. They’re gathering in these tenements. They’re meeting in these shops and rooms behind shops. And it’s just a handful of people at a time. And they get a letter from the Apostle Paul. So, let me read you what Eugene Peterson says about that. He says, these churches were a mess. Talking about all these churches. And Paul wrote his letters to them to try to clean up the mess. But the dominant concern in this Ephesian letter is not to deal with the human problems that inevitably develop in the church. No church is exempt. But to explore God’s glory that gives the church its unique identity. That’s why he wrote Ephesians. It is as if Paul takes time out from his responsibilities for straightening out the problems of belief and behavior that have cropped up in the various churches. And he writes out as clearly and completely as he can what makes church, church. And what comes clear is that church is not what we do. It’s what God does though we participate in it. That’s his take on the church. That’s his ecclesiology. Now with that said, N.T. Wright. Here’s what he told us when we were in Houston with him. He said, Ephesians is about the cosmic vision of heaven and earth coming together. The church is to be filled with the spirit in the present age as the sign to the world what God is going to do for the whole cosmos in the future. The church is to demonstrate to the world who the world’s creator really is. In fact, the church is a small working model of the new creation. That’s the church. That’s our real ecclesiology. Now Ephesians, what Paul’s doing is he’s not writing about the ideal church. That’s not what he does. He writes about God’s intent for the church. The church is a signpost pointing to the watching world what God is really doing. The world already sees creation. The world experiences creation. You can’t miss it if you wake up every morning, right? You can’t miss creation. It’s here right in front of you. Staring you in the face every single day of your life. And how did it come into being? By God’s word. Well, the church now is the new creation of God being brought into the world by the new word of God, if you will, in Jesus. There’s a new humanity. We’re God’s emissaries now on the earth. Here’s what I would tell you all about God. And I hope you’ve been paying attention when you’re reading your Bibles. God has been up to something all along. He just has. Well, what’s he been doing? Well, when you read the prophets, he tells us. Listen to Isaiah 11 verse 9. Where the prophet says this. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Notice it doesn’t say Israel. The Holy Land. It says the whole earth. The whole earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. As the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk says something similar. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The whole earth. Psalm 72. Praise be to the glorious name forever may the whole earth be filled with his glory. What is God up to? Some people think well God’s up in heaven just bringing people to heaven. No. God is in heaven and he is bringing people to heaven. But what God is doing is God is using these people as instruments of his so that his glory can fill the whole earth. So that the whole earth is the Holy Land. Come on y’all. The whole earth is to be filled with the glory of God. Not just one piece of the land. You know Numbers 14. It’s one of my favorite stories in the scripture where the spies go in and look at the land. Y’all remember that? And they come back. And two of the spies go. Let’s go. We got it. God’s got this. The other ten spies said man there are giants in the land. We look like grasshoppers. Y’all remember that? You remember what God said in Numbers 14? He said this. I’m going to do the Dennis Wiles Living Bible paraphrase. Numbers 14 verse 21. He says. You think I can’t take that land when my glory fills the whole earth. That’s what he says. The whole earth is mine. You think I can’t take that one little bitty piece of property? Is that what you’re telling me? When the whole earth belongs to me? So what is God doing? Well God is at work in this world y’all. And he’s up to something. And what God is doing is. He is spreading his glory over the whole earth. And so enter Ephesians. See Paul’s a Jewish theologian. Paul’s not a pagan. Paul’s not a Greek mystery thinker. He’s a Jew. And so he writes from that context in the first century. And he knows that’s what God is up to. He’s read his Bible. And so enter Ephesians. Here’s Paul this Jewish theologian. He’s read the prophets. And then he met the Messiah.

So Ephesians is about the people of God who are now in Christ. In the Messiah. That’s who we are. That phrase in the Messiah. In Christ. That phrase appears 164 times in Paul’s writings. 36 times in Ephesians. In six pages. 36 times. Paul talks about being in Christ. So what is he going to do in Christ? What is God up to right now? Paul says here’s what God is doing. Look at Ephesians 1 verse 10. He’s going to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Wow. Did you see that? He’s going to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Ephesians 3 verse 10. His intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. According to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. What’s he doing through the church? He’s displaying his wisdom to the rulers and the principalities and the forces of darkness all across the world and in the heavens. Ephesians 3 verse 19. Paul says that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now I want y’all to imagine that you showed up to this little meeting in this little shop. This little room behind somebody’s shop there in Ephesus. And Tychicus comes in and says I’ve got a letter from the apostle Paul. And let me tell you what he’s doing. What he’s doing through y’all. God is using you right now as a church. And his wisdom is being proclaimed to you through all the rulers and the principalities and the forces of darkness in the heavenlies. And he’s bringing all the cosmos together, heaven and earth, in you. And you look around and go there’s only eight of us. Have you been to Rome? Have you seen how, you’re talking about us? This little bitty, this little bitty group of people right here. That the wisdom of God is gonna, come on man. Seriously? Wow. Think about it y’all. That’s what God is up to. That’s what God says. So now let me ask you again. How high or how developed is your view of Christ in his church? Because that’s what he’s doing. Again, when somebody asks you about the church, what do you see? Right here in 2024, what do you see? I know what some of you would say. Man, it’s a tough time for the church. We got moral failures with pastors and leaders. Church is losing ground, man. I mean, look at the culture we’re in. Look at how everybody treats each other. Look at how they make fun of us. Look at how the world treats us. Man, the world, we’re losing our grip. Really? I mean, is that, is that really what you think? What’s happening? You know what’s really happening? Can you imagine? Let’s go back to AD 60 and let’s get one of those Christians from the little house church in Ephesus. All right? Y’all with me? And let’s take her and bring her here this morning. Okay? And let’s sit her right here in this room. And here’s what we’ll tell her. Now, I realize you were meeting with eight or ten people in that little shop, and that was your church. But I want to introduce to you what’s happened. I want to transport you. You know that today there are two and a half billion Christians? You know that? Do you know that the church is the largest religious movement? In the history of the world? Do you know that entire governments and nations have been filled with Christians over these last 2,000 years? Do you know that there was a church in Rome who finally had a leader that people started calling the Pope? And do you know that you couldn’t be the king in medieval Europe until the pastor of the church at Rome put his hand on your head? I’m talking about the pastor of the church. Until he put his hand on your head, you still weren’t acknowledged as the king. And then you bowed in front of him and you kissed his ring. Did you know that there are entire colleges, universities, hospitals, all kind of ministries that blanket this whole world in the name of Christ? Do you know you look at art and history and you can’t tell the story of Western civilization unless you talk about the Christian worldview? Do you know that today we sit her right here and we say that today you’re sitting right here. Do you know that there are thousands of Christians just like you meeting today? Just in Arlington. Much less the millions of Christians who are meeting together all over the world. Do you know the power of the Holy Spirit is present in the life of the church? Do you know that God took that little letter that you heard Tychicus read at your church way back yonder and God’s actually compiled all the letters of Paul? And would you believe we have them right now at our hands, at our fingertips and it’s actually the Word of God. We have the teachings of Jesus in our telephones. Can you see their eyes go, oh my gosh. So it’s happened. I mean the glory of the Lord has filled the whole earth. It’s actually happened. In other words, heaven and earth has come together in the church. Wow. Come on y’all. You know years ago I was speaking in Bangladesh and Kevin, one of my buddies was a missionary there and he wanted me to go do a series of teachings for a group of pastors, five pastors. Out in the remote part of Bangladesh. All former Muslims now pastoring these small churches. So we had to leave where Kevin lived, drive through the city and get out to the remote area of these villages. All Kevin had at the time, he had a mission team there so they had all the vehicles, all vehicles. Kevin had a little motorcycle barely big enough for one person. He put me and him both on it. I don’t know if y’all have noticed it but I’m a grown man. When I get on a little bitty motorcycle, Kevin’s a lot smaller than I am. We start driving through the streets. We’re in the streets of the city where he lived and the dogs chasing us. They don’t feed the dogs there. And man I’m just kicking every dog behind me. Just kicking. Kevin finally said, Dennis, you can’t stop and kick every dog. If you keep moving eventually they quit chasing you.

There’s a sermon right there.

We finally get out to those villages and I met those five pastors. Former Muslims. Had a translator because they couldn’t obviously speak English. Pastoring little bitty tiny churches out in the villages there. They had no concept in my life. Never heard of America. No idea what I was, what I did.

But we studied the book of 1 Peter. And when they gave their testimonies, here’s how they would do it. Every single one of them said, well when I became a Christian, they brought me into the center of the town and they beat me. They burned me. Every one of those guys would lift his shirt up and say, well here’s what they did to me. And I was sitting there trying to think of one thing that ever cost me. You know what I mean? Well you know one time I didn’t even get invited to this golf tournament I wanted to play in. They brought some other preacher.

But you know what was interesting? They asked me about my church. I was pastor in Alabama back then. They said, well what’s your church like? I said, well you know we gather on Sunday morning. They said, well how many people come? I said, well we have about a thousand people. My translator said that every one of them looked at each other and went, a thousand people? They said, you mean in your whole town? And I said, no just my one church. And I finally realized they don’t know. And I was there to tell them, guys you’re a part of the largest religious movement in the world. There’s two billion of us. They had no idea. They thought all it was was just a little bit of group of people meeting like they were. They thought Christianity was this tiny, small, little thing. No y’all, come on. When somebody asks you, what’s going on down at First Baptist? You don’t say this, well you know we’re meeting on Sunday and got some pretty good preaching occasionally. Especially in July.

Got some good music, Bible studies. We do a lot of ministry. No. Somebody says, well what’s going on down at First Baptist? You say, well we are where the cosmos is actually coming together, heaven and earth, and our Messiah. And actually what’s happening at our church is God has put his wisdom on display through us. And what’s happening to us and through us is that the principalities and the forces and the rulers of darkness are finding out who God is every time we meet. So how high is your view of Christ and the church? Come on y’all, I’m trying to help us. Don’t pour them out the church. It’s the bride of Christ. And one day the Lord Jesus is going to return and he’s going to bring heaven and earth all together. And there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth. And you and I are going to be in on it. We’re already in on it. It’s already started. It’s already happening. You’re a part of it right now. You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to wait to die and go to heaven. You’re already having a piece of heaven right now. Because you’re in Christ.

So this morning, here’s what I want us to do. I want us to, first of all, just take that in. And then I want us to commit ourselves to receiving God’s message about who he is, what he’s done in Christ, and who we are as the church. Okay? So I’m going to ask our ministers to take their places. We’ve got ministers here this morning that are going to come and be at these stations for the Lord’s Supper. And so here’s what we’re going to do this morning.