We are seated. Let us follow the second lesson in Ephesians chapter 1, reading verses 15 through 23. The book of Ephesians chapter 1, beginning at verse 15.
Therefore, I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to get thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayer. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, one of the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that His name, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to behead over all things to the church, which is His body. The fullness of Him who fills all in all of us pray. We thank you for the spirit of God, spirit of truth, and trust in His enlightening work, Father made us scriptures then. Be light and life as they show to us our Lord Jesus, who is our light and our life. For we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. My estimation, Dr. Ed Young is one of the leading lights in the Southern Baptist Convention. His pastor of a true mega-church as maybe only the Southern Baptist could do that. The second Baptist church in Houston, all these mammoth places. I knew him some years ago when he was pastor of first Baptist church in Columbia, South Carolina, for 70 miles away from where we then lived and served. Our paths cross, with brief, pleasant, getting acquainted. Haven't had much contact through the years except that a family or two moving from that city and from that church became Presbyterians and joined with us. The other morning we called a glimpse of him on television, preaching a message on the exchange life, giving our lives over in exchange for having his life for us. He made the little remark that it stuck in my mind I share with you. He said it is impossible to be a believer in by three dollars worth of God and hold it in its sack until we might need him. Or I had thirty thousand dollars worth of God and put it in a bowl for a God box somewhere ready in emergency if we need him. So the Christian life is the taking of his full life for our life fully given. And on these Sunday mornings we are considering being filled, having thought last Sunday morning on Petty Coste of being filled with the Spirit and the key thought there according to Ephesians 5, 18 is control as they fall. Contrast, the fullness, the filling of the Holy Spirit, he does so with drunkenness. A negative, a dissipating, a degenerating control, but a control nonetheless. In order that we might get the picture and understand indeed that being Spirit filled is being controlled, influenced, salinated by the Holy Spirit. A reminder is used in and I repeat this warning that being filled, fullness in the church, in the believer's life is attributed to all three persons of the Godhead. And we have before us in the passage we just read in Ephesians 1 verse 23, the fullness pertaining to Christ, the Son, the church, which is his body. The fullness of him who fills all in all, bear in mind that being Spirit filled never is a code word according to Scripture for some who have particular claimed miraculous gifts. But rather it is a biblical concept of influence, domination, control that applies here to the church, his body filled, controlled by Christ. We consider that for a few moments this morning. And we do so first of all by reminding ourselves that Christ has two bodies. That may sound strange to your ears, but remember that we believe in the bodily resurrection of our Lord. We believe in the bodily ascension of our Lord. The same body, crucified at Calvary, came alive the third day from the grave. It is glorified, but it is identifiably the same body. And then forty days after the resurrection, the apostles witnessed his departure from this planet. And we call that the ascension, and he ascended bodily into heaven. And not only that, but the angel said, and bodily in this manner, he will come again to the earth. The resurrection is not just the resurgence of hope in a faltering cause, it is bodily resurrection. And where is that body? No. Would you send it in the apostles creed at the Father's right hand. The resurrected glorified body of our Lord Jesus is at the Father's right hand in glory. And from since we also confessed, he will come to judge the quick and the dead. He will come from there, bodily, personally, the second coming, to judge the living and the dead. That is his physical body. But when St. Paul says here, the church which is his body, we have the second idea of Christ's body, spiritual body, or technically in theological terms, mystical body. So Christ has two bodies. His physical body in heaven glorified. His spiritual or mystical body, some of which is in heaven already, but living in the earth, physical, spiritual. You see, do you not? He has two bodies. And we are part of that spiritual body, who are born of the spirit of God, who are incorporated by the spirit's work, the spirit's baptism in the Christ. Nobody is in Christ apart from the spirit's baptizing, regenerating work, two bodies. And he fills in those fullness in those bodies. Over in Colossians 2, which book and passage parallels wonderfully Ephesians, it says this in Colossians 2.9, in him Christ, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are completed him, who is the head of all principality and power. In the incarnation, in that physical body, that people saw, that touched people when he was on the earth, that body which was crucified, that body which was raised from the dead, in that physical body, was fullness. In him, all the fullness of the Godhead, dwells bodily, still does, in his glorified state in heaven. Now I ask you this question. If he knew fullness in the incarnation,
should we not know his fullness in salvation? If in the incarnation all the fullness of the Godhead, dwell bodily. Should we not have st. Paul says here in Ephesians 1, 23, the church which is his spiritual body? No fullness. And while we understand that control is emphasized by the spirit's filling, something else in addition is emphasized in the sun's filling, completeness, control, completeness. To not say Paul says, you are complete in him. Even as he is the complete revelation of God, all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily, revealed, manifested, made plain, completely. Now for his spiritual body, the church, you have completeness. So Christ filled his church as he was full of the Godhead. And his fullness adds the dimension of completeness. I believe without doing an actual count, that the word picture of the church most commonly used in the New Testament is body. I've never been given much to counting beings, particularly. A wonderful English Bible professor years ago in seminary, who after a distinguished career at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago was in the original faculty of the fuller theological seminary started by the leadership and funding of Dr. Charles E. Fuller of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour note. Dr. Smith used to be able to tell us out of his amazing mind how many times this phrase that truth used in this book and all of the gospels and so on. I think he would say, and I'm not inclined to count it off, but in the New Testament, the word picture most often used is body. As he filled his body, as he was filled to fullness in the incarnation. So now at our salvation, he gives us fullness. The spirit, emphasizing control, the sun, emphasizing completeness, we are complete in him. What is it named for him to fill us? Perhaps we should use the thought of a little book that I believe is a classic. I know you've read, and if you haven't, you don't have to admit that you haven't. You only have to get to a Christian bookstore and buy it and read it so you can say, you know the book. My heart cries home. It's a great sermon preached years ago, right across from the main gate of the University of California, Berkeley. We're always scared of things coming out of you, Cal, Berkeley. But our life that right across the street was the first vegetarian church, great gospel center. Still it is. If you move to Berkeley, join that church. Never mind that they didn't leave the old enomination with us. And we have quarrels with the leadership, the official policies of that enomination, but you must understand there are great, faithful congregations in that group. And first, Berkeley is one of them. Dr. Robert Boyd-Monger was there for years and years. In fact, he was the pastor when I was a theological student in Southern California and spent my Thanksgiving holiday off in the Bay Area with a friend who was in the theological union of Berkeley, who was of another connection and another theological strike, but we were friends anyhow. And when we would visit, Thanksgiving holiday in the Bay Area of California, I went with him in the morning and endured two true spiritual debt. And I would say to him, I want to see you this morning, you come with me into evening. And I took him around to the first vegetarian church of Berkeley. And I remember the first time I took him in Sunday evening right across the street from that great university's main gate. And the pastor said, we're sorry there are no seats. They may be able to find you a chair in the back of one of the galleries. We went up there as they were singing, collar in the blood of the lamb. That's a good old cat meeting song. And I was glad to hear it right across the street from you, Cal Gates. He preached by heart-try soul. It's been printed repeatedly by intervarsity press and little booklet form. The sermon he preached, the classic, and in it, he envisions our hearts like a house, as you know, possibly. And asks indeed, if Christ, as Savior and Lord, is free to go anywhere, or as he but a guest, I never have wanted one of those little plaques for our house, Christ is the guest of this home. Well, I won't be undone. If you have one and you may keep it on your wall, if you'd like, it's your privilege. I want Christ as guest. I'm wanting as permanent resident, free to go anywhere. Sometimes that can be troublesome. Your guests are not free to go everywhere. You've had unexpected callers haven't you, and on the way to answer the door, unexpected company coming, you run and close certain doors, and the guests have any breeding at all. Doesn't say, why is that door closed? They already know why it closed. It's a mess behind the door,
and you hide it from them. But we who live in the house, he who lives in the house must be free to open any door, and say now let's sort these things out in here.
And let's get order here in the dining room, in the recreation room, in the study. I'll get that booklet. I read it every so often, and reflect upon it in the truth of it, my heart, Christ's home, where he is fully, completely free to live. I remember that Dr. Munger even talks about a lot closet, and his saying to the owner of the house all right now gets the key we're going to deal with what's in that closet. What is the point of our knowing this except that he wants to increase the capacity for his fullness, that he be fully resident, freely resident, to go in any area, or you don't have a locked closet, do you? A door you do not want him to open, in business and home. The church is his mystical body, and it is filled with him. It is impossible to buy a percentage enough that we think would be safe and comfortable in case in difficulty. No, there is an exchange, it is losing our lives unless the grain of wheat fall on the ground and die. He would save his life. We'll lose it, but he who loses his life will find it for eternal life. My heart, Christ's home, the spirit comes to fill us, emphasizing control. The sun comes to live and us, emphasizing completeness to myself, to you. Have I slammed certain doors shut,
bolstered others, trying to distract him, giving him the formal rooms, hiding some things from him, the church, the fullness of the sun. We must say at Trinity Church, as a body, as a part of the mystical spiritual body of Christ, before they present, change, confirm, commit, call out, work in, we must say as individual confessors, increase my capacity, Lord,
in the whole of the house. Here's my heart, all are new. Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, we receive the wonderful truth, the spirit's fullness, so that we not be under control that is degenerating and dissipating, but rather, and that which is the delight to be and to us. We thank the Father for the sun's fullness of his body, that in the incarnation he fully represented the true and frail God, so now in his mystical body, the church, the true believers,
he fills that church. May there be nothing held back, O God, from his fullness, and we would linger in the moment enough, the spirit of God, to pinpoint any door, any chamber, needing open to him. May Christ be resident in the whole of this place and of our hearts. We pray through, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.