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It's a joy to be with so many of you here in the room, and to know we're joined by all of you in Cambridge, in Leicester, and online in so many different places. I hope you feel as much a part of this as if you were physically here.
I understand that here at KingsGate you have been camping now for several weeks in one chapter of Paul's amazing, wonderful letter to the church in Ephesus. And you will have discovered that Paul's favourite metaphor for the church is that of the body.
Early on in the verses you've been considering, you read that there is one body. And in the final verse of this series, which we're looking at today, Paul writes:
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:16)
Once Jesus Christ had lived his extraordinary life and died his excruciating death, he went to his Father's side. He left us, however, with a new way to do life and with new people with whom to do it. He gave us Christianity — a radical new way in which to do life. And he gave us the church — a remarkable new people with whom to do it.
I recently read this about the church from the marvellous Rick Warren in America:
I love the church of Jesus Christ with all my heart. Besides her errors — a result of our sinfulness — it remains the most magnificent concept that has ever been created. The church, the body of Christ, the people of God, the fellowship of the Spirit. The church is a phenomenon like no other on earth.
And you and I personally are constituent parts of it. And we're talking about the whole church — the church historical and universal, in all its expressions. The Baptists and the Presbyterians, the Anglicans, the house churches, the Catholics, the black churches, the Pentecostals, New Frontiers, the Salvation Army, even the Vineyard, which we affectionately know as the Lunatic Fringe.
John Wimber insisted to us that any expression of the church — whether it was handling snakes in Arkansas or lighting candles and swinging its censers — anywhere where the name of Jesus is lifted up, was part of his body on the earth, and was to be heralded, honoured, loved and served.
We are not talking denomination. We're talking church.
Augustine insisted that a person cannot have God as his Father who does not have the church as his mother. Calvin took up the theme: "God is our Father, but the church is our mother." Luther said, "Whoever seeks Christ must find the church." Those ancient divines didn't mince their words, but they were surely on to something with their unambiguous zeal and love for the church.
Chuck Colson said, "The church is like Noah's Ark. The stench inside would be unbearable if it weren't for the storm outside" — which I love.
And my favourite, one pastor in the States, wrote most movingly of all:
There is nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and it heals the broken. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. It breaks the chain of addiction. It frees the oppressed. It offers belonging to the marginalised. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity still for healing and wholeness. The local church is the hope of the world.
And is that not exactly what the Lord has established and blessed here at KingsGate?
When I first married and joined John in our first Anglican parish, I was shocked at the number of sad and broken people who came through our doors. The vicar's wife, noting my discomfort, simply said to me, "Where else can they go?" And oh, how right she was. God changed my heart, and I fell in love with the local church.
For Paul, the whole point of Ephesians 4 is to persuade us that each of us is a unique and indispensable constituent of the church. As the old Puritans used to say, "Let us descend to the particular." What is Paul actually saying?
Verse 16 follows and expands upon verse 15, which Charles expounded last week — that we should "in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ."
The first thing we need to be reminded of is that Christ is the head of the church. Everything flows from him. All wisdom comes from him. Life is sustained by him.
Has it ever crossed your mind that if you breathe another breath in this moment, it's because God has graced you to? If he withdrew his hand, there would be no more breathing. As the physical brain controls and directs every impulse of the body, so Christ, the head of the church, controls, directs, leads, inspires and sustains his body here on earth.
Paul's passion was Jesus. And so it follows that he was passionate about his church. His passion was that the church should be united:
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit. There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
United absolutely — but also growing and mature. And the church will only grow and build itself up in love as each part does its work.
Paul loves the metaphor of the body. Peter, of course, loved the metaphor of the flock — remember Jesus on the beach after the resurrection: "Peter, feed my sheep."
Christ is the head, and the body is interconnected. The point of the whole analogy is that each person's contribution strengthens the whole. The church grows when every member plays their part.
John Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers and archbishop of Constantinople in the fourth century, grasped the significance of Paul's analogy:
When a thorn is fixed in your heel, the whole body feels it and cares for it. The back bends, the thighs contract, the head stoops, the eyes examine with the greatest care. The hands descend, the fingers draw out the thorn — and so the whole church works together.
He had it. He understood it. And I sometimes wonder whether we really get the point of how interconnected we are, how much stronger the church is because each of us is part of it.
It pleases the Lord no end to see us bearing weight together, taking responsibility together, watching out for one another, playing our part, using our gifts, serving, even preferring one another — realising that nothing we ever do, no small job, no act of kindness, however unseen and unsung, is ever lost upon the Lord.
I was so impressed arriving here this morning. On every corner, at every junction, at every doorway, there was somebody saying "Good morning." So many of you selflessly, without being at all self-conscious, were simply exuding the love of Jesus and the welcome he offers. So important.
Paul's intention was not to teach us how the human body works, but how the body of Christ works. He talked about the joints and ligaments — a picture of a body operating in love.
Your joints are one of the most important parts of you. When things go wrong, we talk about being "out of joint." Separate limbs and parts are not much use unless they fit together and operate in a coordinated way. We may have many gifts to practise, but without love working through it all, a joint is faulty. The synovial fluid that lubricates the joints is love. And Paul was on to it.
That is what Paul wanted to see in the church at Ephesus — and what we would all want to see at KingsGate: a body of members joined together and responding perfectly to its head, who is Jesus.
Christ is the head. The body is interconnected. And thirdly, everyone gets to play. All hands in.
"Everyone gets to play" was a phrase made famous by John Wimber. It's a playful description of a glorious truth: every single part of the body matters. Not one person is excluded from God's intention that through the church the manifold wisdom of God will be made known to the world.
The people out there — in the streets, coffee bars, businesses and conference rooms — they look to the church. They are disappointed when they see a church that is disunited and argumentative, and they long for a church that speaks of the beauty and wonder of Jesus.
I don't want to sit on the sidelines. I'm an action person. God didn't want an audience. He wants an army.
A growing church involves a God-appointed diversity of gifts and jobs to be done. There are no stereotypes. We're not talking uniformity.
God, please may we have unity — but spare us uniformity.
We are threads in a tapestry, pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Did you catch the King's Birthday Parade — Trooping the Colour? Several thousand soldiers marching in identical uniforms down the Mall. A gorgeous sight — but that is uniformity. What we mean by unity in the church is very different: everybody with a slightly different part to play.
Not all of us are church planters like Paul. Not all of us are eloquent teachers like Apollos. Not all of us are personal evangelists like Priscilla and Aquila. Not all of us are open-air preachers like Peter. We're all different — and that's how it's supposed to be.
John and I recently got back from a trip to Brazil, to a conference in the jungle near São Paulo, where the Vineyard churches from across South America gathered. We went up to the Amazon on the boat they use to evangelise the tiny islands in the Amazon Delta. The evangelist, a wonderful man called Canildo, is a Portuguese speaker, not a word of English, smile from ear to ear — the most natural evangelist I've ever come across. In three months he personally led 360 people to Jesus.
When he's not preaching, he's diving over the side of the boat with a snorkel, flippers and a spear gun to catch our lunch — which was piranha! I tell you this only to make a point: we're not all the same. None of us needs to do that. Flippers and a snorkel don't suit me at all. But this man is our brother — and we are all so different.
There is a trap here if we start to compare ourselves with others. In 1 Corinthians, Paul teaches that we are all different but all equal:
Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow.
Being different is essential. But it can lead to trouble:
Either is a massive mistake. Instead, the body illustration calls for an approach that is complementary. We all do this together.
Paul deals with this famously in 1 Corinthians 12:
If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? But in fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
Notice the critical phrase repeated here: "I do not belong." Paul is talking about that feeling people have that somehow they don't fit into the church. "I don't fit. I'm not needed. I don't look like you. I don't belong because of who I am, or what I've done, or simply the way I look."
Which is, if you'll forgive me, bonkers. It's plain wrong. Such feelings of inferiority are self-imposed wounds.
And notice how these body parts always compare themselves with things that are similar. The ear compares itself with the eye, not the stomach. The foot compares itself with the hand. We always compare ourselves with people a bit like us — the ones who seem just a little more prominent, a little more visible. I don't spend any time putting mascara on my earlobes; I spend it on my eyes. That's just how things are for us girls!
Sadly, this is exactly what people do in the church. A Bible teacher doesn't compare himself with a car parker — he compares himself with another Bible teacher.
We're looking for a church that doesn't try to squash everybody into a one-size-fits-all model, but one that recognises and rejoices in its differences — knowing that God has ordained it should be so. He has woven this tapestry. He has arranged this mosaic. He has arranged every part of the body just as he wants it to be.
So let me beg you, as Oliver Cromwell once said, "in the bowels of Christ" — with deep emotion and absolute certainty — to say "I do not belong," whoever you are, whatever you've done, is a huge mistake. You really do belong here.
The phrase "all in" is a personal thing too. It's the language of commitment and inclusion. It describes a believer who says, "I am all in. I've bought into this. I'm sold out for it." There's no better way to spend your time this side of heaven than serving Jesus all in.
I can honestly remember the day I was challenged to change from vaguely belonging to being an absolutely sold-out believer. It was August 1971. I remember praying, "God, I don't know where I've been for the last 24 years, but I know where I want to go from now on — and I want you to count me in." That moment is etched forever on my soul.
It meant moving:
It's not enough just to listen to what you hear from the front and go away saying, "That was wonderful" — which, in your case, most weeks it is! It's not ultimately fulfilling to go to a small group and only ask others to pray for you; it's far more fulfilling to start praying for other people. It's not enough to sign up for car parking and then whine when it rains.
The commitment Jesus is asking for — and Paul is expanding upon — is a matter of the heart.
Let me finish with this. Following a naval battle in which Lord Nelson brilliantly outmanoeuvred the French, the defeated admiral came on board Nelson's flagship to give up his sword. He began to compliment — indeed, to flatter — the victor. Nelson interrupted him:
Sir, I am not asking for your admiration. I am asking for your surrender.
I think that's what Jesus is asking of us. Of course we admire him — who wouldn't? Even the unbeliever admires him. But admiration is not enough. He's asking for our surrender.
As you grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ, and as you build yourselves up in love — each one of you, absolutely every one of you, doing your work and playing your part — because, my brothers and sisters, everyone gets to play.
And the people said, "Amen."
Father, we thank you for all that you are and all that you have done. We thank you for the extraordinary creation of the church through your Son Jesus, who lived and died that it should be established. And Lord, we thank you for this teaching, that we are your body here on earth.
I pray that these words would go deep and have a transforming power in the lives of the men and women in this place right now.
Holy Spirit of God, I invite you to come. Come on the church in this moment. Would you bless us? Would you fill us? Would you speak to every soul at a depth only you can understand? Would you gently challenge us where we've fallen short, and invite us where we're reluctant? Would you do to death the nonsense that "I don't belong"? Would you reassure every soul in this room that they belong and are indispensable to your work on the face of the earth? Come, Lord. Come, Lord.
