I'd like you to look with me at Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. Although it's named as a singular congregation, it's obvious use, or it's obvious, Paul's obvious intention was it to be circulated and it wasn't written uniquely to the church in Ephesus. In fact, some people call the book of Exodus a mini book of Romans because it seems less obviously occasional, that is, it seems less obviously directed toward particular problems and circumstances than say Colossians or first and second Timothy or Galatians might obviously be on the surface. But we're going to see that's not exactly the way we should look at the book of Ephesians. But I want to read for you, I'll start at verse 14. I'm focusing on chapter 3 on the last two verses, the doxology that Paul concludes, this first half of this letter with, so here in Ephesians chapter 3 starting at verse 14, the word of God. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breath and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which should pass his knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, oh man, let's pray. We ask God your help and understanding, we pray that the spirit of Christ anointing, as it opened the blind man's eyes, would open our eyes to understand, and we pray that the spirit that breathed into the valley of dry bones, the breath of life, to make them living beings, we would pray that that spirit would inhabit us this morning and lead us toward obedience for we do not understand and we do not desire to obey a part from the help of your Holy Spirit. I pray you help me to know nothing but Christ and him crucified and we pray all these things in his name, man. You know what a sixth sense is, right? A sixth sense is something that's beyond taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight, I see. And the reason people talk in terms of a sixth sense is because the five senses don't account for all the things we sometimes know in a life or are sometimes the things that we're able to observe or conclude, that something's missing without this sixth sense. Well, the Reformation had five solace and the Reformation was rooted in the recovery of these five doctrines that had been held by the ancient church. So the scripture alone is the authority for faith and practice. So the Christ alone is the one mediator between God and man and through him all the blessings and knowledge of God must come. Solar Grazia, that is by grace that we've been saved, not as a result of works that any man should boast. Solar Fide, that we only appropriate that grace by faith and solely Dale Gloria, that the whole of the Christian life is to be lived to the glory of God. Well, I'm in my nightfall semester in a month, I'll be 40, so I'm starting to sort of compile statistics. I'm at that awkward age of 39 where I have neither youth nor experience to boast about. Nightfall semester, I've been ordained as in the gospel ministry for 11 years, not 50, but 11. This was my 16th year of working in Christian vocation and I believe something's missing. It's something that wasn't missing for the reformers because it wasn't in dispute at the time. But what's missing today to account for the whole picture is the doctrine of the church. Now, the Westminster Confession extends about the church that apart from which there is no ordinary means of salvation. It sounds awfully rumoured to our 20th century ears, but yet that's what the reformers believed. I want to, not only today, but in the series that I'll carry through this whole year, I want to look at the church in terms of the significance that God gives it. And I want to begin today with what I think is missing for many of us today, a sense of the importance and the centrality of the church to God's plan. And here's the thesis for this morning and for the entire series. Unless God has eternal glory through the church, He will have no glory at all. And I suppose that bears proving and I'll try to prove that from these verses today. But talk about how that is worked out, how God does have His glory in the church through the course of these several messages. We see Paul's doxology concludes with, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, to all generations forever and ever. And that's where the thesis comes from. But let's step back for a minute and look at the problem that Paul was addressing or problems in order to understand why this doctrine or the centrality of the church is invoked here. Now Paul is concerned that the church loses itself in the world. That's the problem he's writing to and in a general sense. And he brings them back to the gospel so that they're able to re-embrace or to live out that unique identity. So the problem is they're losing their identity in the world and he brings them back to their identity to their unique identity by telling them about the gospel once again. Now what I mean by a church losing itself in the world, well, I want you to know I'm the best student on campus because I'm always learning from my colleagues. But I think Dr. Mawaii expressed what a lot of people think is the purpose for the book of Ephesians. That Paul is concerned to address the syncretism and licentiousness that the church at Colossus I suffered but he wants to sort of preventatively in the other churches. This letter circularized so they don't syncretize and fall into the sinful lifestyle of the church at Colossus. They're losing their uniqueness because they're a belief in practice becoming more like the culture. And the reason we can see that here is first is going back to the prayer that evokes this doxology. What does Paul pray for that causes him to burst out in this praise? He's praying for basically three things. He says, I pray that God would grant you to be strengthened with power through the spirit and the inner man. They need strength and he prays that they'll be able to comprehend the love of God. They need understanding and thirdly that they'll know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. That they'll be renewed after the love of Christ which is expressed in the gospel. Now if you want a development or an explanation, a wonderful one of the breadth, length and height and depth of the love of God, go to the book store and get Dr. Nicole's chapel series from a few years ago where he develops these. But this is what Paul is praying for the church at Ephesus for strength, power, comprehension, knowledge. And his prayer reflects what he thinks their needs are. We see this in a couple of other places in the book of Ephesians. If you look at chapter 414, verse 14, he says, as a result, we're no longer going to be children tossed here and there by ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine. You see that's his goal is to help them not to be tossed around. Well, it's a legitimate step and they were being tossed around. That was his concern that it not happened. Likewise, you see it in verse 17. I say therefore, affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as a Gentiles do. So they're being thrown around and they're being tempted to follow the pattern of the Gentiles also in 610. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. There's the threat of not being strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. So if you pay attention, you actually see the letter to the church in Ephesus is an occasional letter. It does have a setting and a purpose. There are problems in the church that need addressed. And what Paul does in this prayer is show us there's a connection between their needs and power and there's connection between power and this doxology. That he prays that they would be strengthened and then he says to him who is able and of course the translation able obscures what Paul is really saying he is powerful to do exceedingly abundantly begun all that we ask or think according to the power that it works within us. Paul says the power you need is at work within you and it is the power of God to resist syncretism, to resist conformity to the beliefs and the behaviors of the culture around you. This doxology tells them that just because of what their needs were God was powerful because all beyond their imaginations are requests and this power was present with them. Last Friday most of you know some of you saw on TV we had the RTS tower topping and there were many of us out there. My family went out, the baby's family was out there as a family, the gamble family and Chuck Hill had a son and faculty were out there and staff and it was covered by two TV stations. It was a wonderful snippet on the Channel 9 news if you saw it. After they showed the topping and the cone of this copper cup of cupola pointing up to the sky they had Dr. Wettlock saying that this reminds us of this point toward God. Of course that is what the steeple is intended to do. It is the point heavenward. But then I talked to a colleague on Monday and he said he drove by their saturday and the cupola was sitting on the ground. He had this grand tower topping and then they took it back down after it was by the left or maybe some high school class performing some stunt. I don't know. But this is a picture of what has happened or what is threatening to happen to the church in Ephesus. The steeple is about to come down. The glory and the power of God in the church is beginning to lean or a topple. And Paul takes them back then to help them recover this. He takes them back through a process and that's the second thing we need to look at this morning. We see the power is addressing the problem and the problem is the syncretism and the belief and behavior is conforming to the culture. But Paul takes them back to the identity of the church. Now we see this if we just walk through chapters 1, 2, and 3 to see what brings us to this fulcrum, if he will, at the end of chapter 3. He begins in in verse 1 with the glory of God. In chapter 1 verse 6 we are adopted to the praise of the glory of his grace. In verse 6 we are told he lavish this grace upon us. In verses 10 and 12 we are told that he made known to us the mystery and gave us an inheritances to those who opened Christ so that those who opened Christ should be to the praise of his glory. You see the church is to be to the glory of God. He has sealed us in the Holy Spirit to the praise of his glory, verse 14. And Paul prayed for them in verse 17 of that chapter. He prayed to the father of glory so that they might know in verse 18 the riches of the glory of his inheritance. So it's quite natural for him at the end of chapter 3 in depth at doxology because he begins with glory. Glory in the church is how he begins this letter and is how he praises God in chapter 3 verses 20 and 21. But it's more than just glory because glory means a unique identity. And that's the point here that there's a unique identity of the church. What is that unique identity? Well Andrew Lincoln in his commentary calls it the visionary community. That is the community which typifies the biotipic vision of the vision of heaven. Maybe we could better call it the eschatological community. Where the church is the community which of the eschaton is the community that will endure into the ages. He says glory to all generations forever and ever. The church is the eschatological community. What's so remarkable about it? Well it has the glory. And if you know the Old Testament background of glory you know that glory is the expression of the reign of God. When God exerts his kingdom it's through his glory. It's the glory cloud among the Israelites. It's the glory descended into the temple at Jerusalem. It's the glory that the prophets see is covering the mountain of the Lord. It's the glory he back it anticipates will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So the church has a unique identity because it's the eschatological community that possesses the glory of God. But turn that around a little bit to it understand the glory is the extension of God's reign. Where the glory is the kingdom is. Where the spirit of God dwells that's where God has extended his reign. He brings judgment to sin and he raises up to life. He defends, he chastises, all the things that God does in our lives come in the context of his kingdom. Because the kingdom is where he's extended his reign and the way he extends his reign is his glory. And that's why the Westminster devines and others express it the church this way. The kingdom of Christ. The church is the kingdom of Christ. And it's kind of unusual to think about how we use the term kingdom, kingdom of God, kingdom of Christ. We think of being in the kingdom of God as being part of some ethereal entity. Some amoeba-like, nebulous sense of identity. You see Paul doesn't conceive of the kingdom that way. Paul says the kingdom is the church. That's why the Westminster devines knew it. So, what are the consequences of that? Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. But Paul takes them back to their identity as the owners of the glory as the unique possession of God but also the unique possessors of God. And then, that's where chapter 1 begins. And then chapter 2 unfolds how this happens. It's through the gospel of Jesus Christ, raising us up in a newness of life, seeding us in the heavenly places in Christ, saved not by grace through faith. And the most radical thing for people of Paul's day, that he's torn down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. He's made him into one people. He's removed antipathy between people. I had a wonderful thought the other day. I hope Dr. Moyni doesn't mind me sharing this. He said that his father's funeral, one of the wonderful things is that none of the children had business to do with his dad. That people, that people were there together, not in sorrow that they hadn't said the thing they wished they said, not that they hadn't said aside the problems of the past, but that their father had died with a state of peace between them and the father. And I thought of this, I thought, how much regret there is at a funeral of people who go to a funeral, who have bitterness, who have unsettled business, who have guilt, resentment or whatever. And then I thought of this, I didn't tell Dr. Moyni that I thought, that's going to be one of the wonders of heaven. There won't be all of the sudden people who died with grudges will have no grudges at all, there'll be no antipathy. Not just us being reconciled with God, but we'll be perfectly reconciled with one another in the kingdom. And the chance we missed on this earth, we have it in the Aschita. And that's the way to what Paul's saying in chapter 2. God has made the tooth into one. He's reconciled people together through this gospel, and that's the mystery which was, in chapter 3, we're told, was kept back until this time. The mystery that was entrusted to Paul, and now it belongs to the church. Paul described his own ministry to me the very least of all the saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things. In order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church. The church has not only a unique property of the glory of God, it has a unique message. It has made us one in and through Christ's atoning work. And that's that unique identity, it further explains. And God brings glory to Himself through reconciling people. You know, when people hang around with people as Reggie said earlier, when we hang around with people we would not or nearly hang around with, that brings glory to God. When we hang around with people we don't like that brings glory to God. Because we wouldn't hang around together except Christ has reconciled us to Himself into one another through His perfect work. And this is how God has glory in the church by determining to save for Himself a people who will be unique in the world, who manifest the grace of God, who will show what the kingdom of God is like to the world. If God has glory it must be in the church because that's where His kingdom is. And He has glory in the church when we live out the reality of our redemption in Christ. So that's the problem and that's how the identity of church is intended to resolve this. But now what does this look like when we bring it forward? Well, Paul's concern is they lack power. They need to have that power to avoid syncretism and ungodly living. And through Christ He has given the Holy Spirit who gives in that power to live. But you see the problem is the power is in the church. We find the power to avoid syncretism and ungodly living in the church. God has given the means of grace to the church and we might come to it. But the problem is like the Ephesians were not living toward the church. You've seen a picture of a fire brigade or in a movie or something, probably not in real life. But you know, when something's on fire, a barn or a building or something, people line up in a bucket brigade. And somebody streaked the water and they hand the buckets all the way down and they hand the empty buckets back. And that's how they fight the fire. We see to the extent that we're firefighters, that is, fanning the flame of God's glory, we're all too often standing in lines that don't lead to the fire. We're standing in a line where people are pouring buckets on the ground because we don't lead people to the church. Now let me make application at three levels. One is for you as Christians. I'm not amazed at too many things. But I continue to be amazed at how loose the typical seminary students relationship is to the church. Now you've come from, probably from a, there's a good chance you come from a church where you were fairly connected. But during your time in seminary, on the average, you all don't have much to do with the church, on the average. And you're lonely, you're discouraged, you've founder one reason because you disconnected yourself from the kingdom of Christ. He's given the means of grace to the church. Go find grace in the church, the preaching of the word, through corporate worship, through the sacraments. I'm amazed too that how little relationship you have with the church before you come sometimes. I know some of you are still members of churches that you grew up in and that you haven't attended for 10 or 15 years. Now if a kingdom of Christ on earth is a church, how can that be? I know you have home churches you want to stay attached to be able to come an associate member here. But go to the kingdom to find the king. I was a single person for a little while, and I worked with singles on a church staff. And the classic reply of the single person to an invitation is what? I'm having a party in my house or a bunch of us are getting together and what's the classic reply? I might be there, I might be there. Don't might be at the kingdom. Come to the kingdom on the Lord's day to find the power that is already at work, but which is being stifled and muffled because you're not associating with the kingdom. What about churches? I did a retreat a couple of while back. I was at a regional retreat center of a denomination and it happens to be a denomination that on average has departed pretty far from biblical truth, from the centrality of the gospel. Although the retreat was great, I had a great time with the people who were there. I went away depressed in a certain sense because I sat there in the lodge where we were meeting. During the whole weekend I looked at banners not of graduating classes, but each church in this region had made a banner and put it on the wall. I sat there counting from little towns to big cities how Christ had had a witness and the light had gone out. And how people at one time had a vision to build a steeple, to point to heaven, to sacrifice resources, energy time for something they believed in and how the light has gone out. And we're aware, aren't we? That God will have no glory in a church without Christ. And this is a call for us. These verses are to make Christ central to the church, to make the church about the gospel. That whatever we do, we don't send out so many static signals that it obscures the clear purpose of the church, which is the centrality of Christ of the glory of God in the gospel. But what about seminary students? Well, I've spoken to you in a personal level. I've almost speak to you as people training for ministry. And we have a mission statement reform seminary does. And what we say is our first purpose, we try to do as many things as we can, well, but our first purpose and priority is to prepare people for service in the church. So I can talk about this here. And I want to say, the reformation that we talked about so much was not about the reformation of society, first and foremost. It was a reformation about the church. The church needed reforming. Now the society got changed in a lot of dramatic ways according to the providence of workings of God. And by God's grace, it may happen that way today. But we become so preoccupied with the culture. And we become preoccupied with ministry outside the church to the point that the church, and the people of the church sits on the ground. But the glory of the church is set aside. When you choose your heroes, and glad that you choose people who reformed in their sociology, and glad that you choose heroes who are reformed in their theology proper. But please, when your heroes are ecclesiastical, Armenians, ecclesiastical docentists, ecclesiastial antinomians, set that part of their life aside. Don't make your best heroes the ones who split churches or have no need of churches, who do their own thing apart from the church. Be known as an ecclesiological Calvinist, who believes that the centrality of God's plan is in the church, and that God will have no glory if it doesn't have it in the church. I, uh, gleefully told John Mithra on Monday that the title of my sermon, Sola Ecclesia, Ecclesia, and he said, oh, did you read my article? I said, no, why? This is always a danger, you know, of going public with something. Somebody else had a better idea first. And since he's in print, it obviously goes back several months. And I want to be sure and mention that it was printed in modern reformation, it's called a sixth Sola. And for John's sake in mind, I want to say that there's absolutely no relationship between what he wrote and what I'm saying. And I think we'll both be happy with that. But in there, he's got several quotes from reformers about the church, and I just want to read you a couple of them, a radical to our ears today. Cyprian said, apart from the church, outside the church, there is no salvation. So it's simply insane. And guess what? Calvin agreed with that. Calvin said, no one has God as his father without the church as his mother. And so the Westminster Divines wrote, the visible church, which is also Catholic, or universal, and as a gospel, consists of all those throughout the world that professed the true religion and of their children, and as the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and the family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Now we have a word in English to call a child who was born out of wedlock. And really that word is often, one reason we don't like it is it reflects upon the child, and the child has no fault in this, to be born with that label. See the falls are in the parent. Now I want to ask us, as we lead people to Christ, as we disciple people in the faith, as we work in our work now serving God, and in our future ministries, are we raising children, not who don't have a father, but who don't have a mother? Are we leading people to the church? Out of the belief that God will have no glory apart from the church. While a church will have no glory apart from Christ, Christ will have no glory apart from the church. I had lunch with Timothy George this summer. That's one reflection of my good student outlook. It's famous people come here and they don't know me, but I think in the lunch because they go because it's free and I take them because I'm eager to learn from him. I had lunch with Timothy George who's a leading reformed theologian in the Southern Baptist circles. It was that week that Paige Patterson's picture was on the front of World Magazine, and it was sort of a declaration that people had a high view of Scripture had sort of won the battle in the Southern Baptist Convention. To finally elect one of the warriors in that battle as the head of the convention this year was assigned a victor. I asked him, I said, how do you feel about all that? He said, everything that's good that has happened will be of no effect unless we change our theology of the church.