Ephesians: The Calling of the Saints

I have a sense of quickening anticipation and of enthusiasm in approaching this passage of Scripture again. It is somewhat akin to the feeling I had when I watched a surgical operation for the first time. It was with a mingled sense of awe and uneasiness that I stood behind the surgeon in an operating room and watched him preparing to do a surgical appendectomy. I watched him draw the scalpel and lay the wound open, and saw his assistants catch the blood vessels to tie them and stop the flow of blood. I watched him open the abdomen and expose the inner organs of the body to my gaze. As I saw them throbbing and pulsating I realized this was a living body being opened before me. I cannot describe the mixed feelings of wonder and excitement, and a bit of sickness, I felt. So in this text of Scripture the Apostle Paul is exposing to us the inner workings of the body of Christ.

Recently I listened to two radio programs, both religious. One was a panel of pastors and laymen discussing the subject, "Religion in the Space Age." The members of this panel were obviously educated men, suave, cultured. They spoke, with obvious understanding of the times in which we live, about the effects of technology on daily lives, the appeal and challenge of the exploration of the frontiers of science to young people particularly, and the need in this kind of world for faith and morals. But during the entire program of half an hour there was not one mention of Jesus Christ or of the good news of God's plan to give man a new start in life by wiping out the past and beginning with a fresh page. When the program ended I found myself thoroughly angry -- angry that there could be a presentation on religion in the space age and nothing be said about the most revolutionary message the world has ever heard and which the church is to proclaim in this day.

In our studies of Ephesians 4, we have learned that the church is not to be a pressure group to influence legislatures, or some kind of religious club intended to comfort and assuage the feelings of people in trouble. The unique character of the church is that it is the body of Christ. Its calling, therefore, is to declare and demonstrate the life that inhabits it. That is the life of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the church is a body whose purpose is to demonstrate and to declare the power of Christ in today's world.

Our subject is the building and maintenance service of the church. If you are a bit surprised by that title, let me reassure you: We shall not be talking about the janitorial service. The odd title is an attempt to focus your attention on the words of Ephesians 4, Verse 11, which mark the divine program for coordinating, developing and articulating the gifts and activities of the members of the body of Christ to make it an effective instrument in human society. The church can never be any more than a rather pious, harmless group of religious people until it returns to this divine program and becomes what God intended it to be. When it does, it will become a disturbing element in society, a revolutionary ferment that will make the most powerful impact that can be made upon any community. In Verse 11, the Apostle Paul says concerning Jesus Christ,

This week the eyes of the whole world were fastened upon an event of historic significance in the meeting of the Roman Catholic Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. We were told that this was the first official meeting of these two heads of churches for four hundred years, since the time of the Reformation, when Henry VIII split off the English church from the Roman Catholic Church. It was a very newsworthy event. But when that event is measured against the letter to the Ephesians, it is seen to be a relatively insignificant thing and of no real importance in the life and power of the church.

We have been examining the church, trying to learn from the words of the great apostle why the church is here on earth. We saw that it is not here to do what other groups can do; it is here to do what no other group can possibly do. It is here to manifest the life and power of Jesus Christ in this 20th century hour. This is the ministry of Christ exactly as it was detailed by the prophet Isaiah in his 61st chapter, which our Lord quoted in the synagogue of Nazareth, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me...to bring good tidings...to bind up the brokenhearted.. to proclaim liberty..."

What a baffling and confusing world we live in today. So many conflicting ideas and concepts are thrust upon us from every direction and many of them seem directly contradictory. Authorities of equal repute tell us one thing and then another and what they say clashes violently. It is hard to know what to believe today. In the last few weeks people have said to me:

One way or another, put in their own way, Christians everywhere are asking the same question. They do not ask, "How can we be sure that when we die we will go to heaven?" Those who are newly introduced to Christian life are concerned in these areas, and quite properly so. But for the most part Christians are everywhere increasingly aware that there is far more to Christianity than a promise that when we die we will go to heaven. They are not even asking the question, "How can I know that the sins of my past are forgiven?" Again, this is an area of proper concern to those first entering the Christian faith. But the question I find Christians asking, arising from a deep concern evident almost everywhere, is this question: "If Jesus Christ can really live and love through me, then how do I let him do this? What is the process, what must I actually do, to have this happening in my life?"

The question we are facing in the present series, centering on Paul's letter to the Ephesians in Chapter 4, is, How to live a Christian life in the midst of a confused world. That was the problem in the 1st century and that is the problem in the 20th century. It is the same kind of a world, demanding the same kind of a life. Perhaps we could put it very well in the words of the title of one of Dr. Tournier's books, A Whole Person In A Broken World. That is a very expressive way of facing the question that is before us in this present series.

A number of years ago at Stanford University, Arnold Toynbee, the prominent historian, said that most people today have rejected Christianity on the basis of a caricature. What did he mean? He meant that most people have never seen the real thing. They have never seen real Christianity. What they have seen was a blurred, distorted and twisted picture of Christianity, and they turned away disappointed and indifferent to the claims of Christ. Well, what were they looking for? Perhaps more than we professing Christians may realize, men and women in the world today expect to see in Christians some likeness to Christ. If you listen carefully to the protest movements that are so vocal today, and which have captured the ear of the press and the nation, you will see that the heart of their complaint is that they do not see in Christians, and the church, that likeness to Christ which they have been led to expect. That is why they turn away so disappointed, often bitter in their antagonism.