I have never fought in a war. I was too young to fight in the Second World War, although both my parents did, or to do National Service, although I do have friends who have served in each of the forces and seen combat in Northern Ireland, in the Falklands and in Afghanistan. But most of us have never fought in a war.
Actually, that’s not correct. Because the Bible tells us that each and every one of us has been in the middle of a war for our whole lives. The Bible tells us that there is a war which has been going on since the beginning of time and will continue until time ends. This war is unseen – but just as real and just as deadly as all the human conflicts we could name. There’s a war on between good and evil, between God on the one hand and the devil and all the powers of evil on the other hand.
Ephesians 6 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Here is the battle which is raging behind the scenes of human history and behind the scenes of our own lives, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
The good news is that Jesus has already won the decisive battle. Through his death on the cross and the triumph of his wonderful resurrection Jesus has defeated the devil and all the powers of evil once and for all. We saw in Ephesians 2 how all people start off dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. God in his amazing grace has set Christians free from that grip of the devil. But the devil still has control of the rest of the world. Although the eventual outcome of the war has already been decided, until Jesus returns in glory we are still caught up in the mopping up operations. Although they have already been defeated, the spiritual forces of evil, the devil and his demons are still fighting to drag Christians down. So the Bible calls us all to put on the armour of God.
Ephesians 6 13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, then …
This is all that God calls us to do. To stand. To stand our ground. Not to let the devil drag us down. Not to let the devil drag us away from God. To hold firm to our faith. To hang on to the victory which Jesus has won for us. And to keep on standing.
To help Christians to stand firm, God has given us armour to wear. This is a picture from the Roman army of the kind of armour they used to wear. And Paul spiritualises these pieces of armour and says here are six things all Christians need if we are going to stand firm for God in the spiritual battle we are caught up in. Six things which will keep us safe from the attacks of the devil and his minions and which will enable us to live victorious Christian lives.

Ephesians 6 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist,
In a way, truth is not only a piece of our Christian armour but it has also become part of the battleground. The devil is a liar and a deceiver. He deceived Adam and Eve and the devil has been deceiving people ever since. Truth is a great defence and a powerful weapon in our battle against the all lies the devil tells. So it is not surprising that the devil has attacked truth and people’s understanding of what truth is, especially in recent years.
We live in a multi-cultural multifaith world where people no longer all believe the same things. This pluralism has produced a supermarket of beliefs which gives people the impression that it doesn’t matter what you believe – the impression is that all those different ideas are true. That is the lie the devil wants people to believe. But different ideas about God are NOT all true.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
The one true God, Creator of heaven and earth, has revealed Himself through his one and only Son Jesus Christ. Other gods are false. We only find the truth in Jesus!
There is also the false idea that truth is not universal for everybody but that truth is personal and private and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We are expected to be tolerant of other people’s opinions. And it is politically incorrect to tell people that you are right and they are wrong.
We are now living in a world of “post-truth”. Objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals. Not “I think, therefore I am,” but “I feel, therefore I am.” Truth is under attack more than ever before. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”We all need to stand up for the truth. We all need to put on the belt of truth which will protect us from the lies the devil is telling.

with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
The Old Testament tells us that God Himself puts on a breastplate of righteousness.
Isaiah 59 17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head;
In the Old Testament, righteousness refers to the righteous actions of the God who is always holy and just. Isaiah 11 contains a prophecy about the Messiah which we often read at Christmas.
Isaiah 11 3 he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. … 5 Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash round his waist.
God judges the world with righteousness and justice. The Hebrew word for righteousness comes from the word for straightness, in other words actions which conform to the standards which God has revealed in His commandments. English uses the word “upright” in a similar sense. Absolutely everything that God does is always righteous and pure and upright and just and fair. God always does the right thing.
This is the background to the breastplate of righteousness in the armour of God. It means right living – doing the right thing. In our battles with the devil and all the powers of evil, Christians should also put on righteousness as our breastplate. We show we are in a right relationship with God by our righteous actions, by living upright and blameless lives. Ephesians says very similar things elsewhere.
Ephesians 4 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
So Christians should take of the old shabby clothes associated with their old sinful lives and put on the new suit which God gives us – the new self, characterized by righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 5 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord.
As children of light goodness and righteousness should characterize all our actions. The devil likes nothing more than deceiving Christians into committing sin. And there are many more ways of disobeying God beyond breaking the Ten Commandments. In Ephesians we have seen several different warning lists of sins to avoid. Righteousness in all our actions should accompany speaking the truth and rejecting all dishonesty
In his commentary on Ephesians, my old professor Max Turner sums up these first two pieces of the armour of God like this. “The church’s basic equipment in the spiritual battle is integrity and righteous living, and they are effective because these qualities bear the stamp of Jesus and the new creation he brings.”
Integrity and righteous living – because that is what Jesus is like. That’s a very high standard to live up to! The belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. Put on the armour of God.

15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
For somebody to believe in Jesus, God has to open their eyes so that they can turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan, the devil. Proclaiming the gospel is spiritual warfare – it is always going to be a real spiritual battle.
2 Corinthians 4 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
The reason people don’t believe in Jesus is that the devil, the god of this age, has blinded their eyes so they cannot recognise Jesus for who He is, the Son of God and the Image of God. Talking about Jesus is a spiritual battle. This gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s way of bringing His peace to human beings who are lost without Him. It is the only way that lost human beings can find true peace and wholeness. So we need to be a church who bellieve what we preach and who preach what we believe. For this we need gospel shoes.
Ephesians 6 15 with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
The Good News Bible talks about putting on as your shoes the readiness to announce the Good News of peace.
But in this case the New Revised Standard Version says it best 15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
If you’re climbing mountains you need a good pair of climbing boots. If you are running a race you need a good pair of running shoes. To be ready to share the good news of Jesus, you need to put on whatever helps you be ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
The church exists to preach the gospel. Emil Brunner said, “The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.” God calls every one of us to be prepared to talk about Jesus. We are all Ambassadors for Christ, messengers for the King.
In the winter, playing field sports like soccer or rugby or my own sport lacrosse you get muddy. Perhaps the most important piece of kit is a good pair of boots with studs to keep you from falling over. But studs on football boots are not a new invention. For Roman soldiers, the most important thing about their battle shoes was that they wouldn’t slip when the enemy charged. So they also had nails in the soles of their boots to keep them on their feet in the heat of battle. And that is the picture here. 15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
Christians need our Gospel Shoes to help us to stand our ground and to stop us from slipping and falling over in the middle of sharing the gospel. The best equipment to help us talk about Jesus is to know what the Good News is, inside out, and to have experienced the life-changing gospel of peace in your own life. Knowing the gospel and living the gospel will keep your feet steady. When we are confident that we won’t slip or trip ourselves up when we are talking about Jesus then we will be more wise and bold and effective in sharing the gospel with other people.
As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
The apostle Peter warns us all in 1 Peter 5 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith.
At every moment we should be on our guard because the devil and the powers of evil are plotting and planning to entice us away from God. We must defend ourselves using the armour God gives us. We all need know how to use the shield which is our faith. Life is full of temptations – the flaming arrows the devil fires at us. Temptations to do wrong. Temptations not to do the right things we should be doing. Temptations to say bad things. Temptations not to speak out for truth and justice. Temptations to stay silent about Jesus. Temptations to doubt God. Whenever we are tempted to give in to sin or selfishness or pride, whenever we are tempted to deny our faith, or to pass by on the other side, that’s when we need the shield of faith.
Faith simply means relying on God. Depending on God. Putting our trust in God. Many people go through life trying to cope by relying on things within themselves. Education, Skills, Experience, Talents, Training. Determination. Hard work. None of these things count for anything in the life of faith. Nor do other things around us which everybody takes for granted and and rely on in times of trouble: things like Money and Possessions and Healthcare. None of these things are any use in the life of faith. When it comes to following Jesus, things we might rely on within ourselves or in the world around us are even less use than a chocolate teapot! We need just one thing – we need faith in God.
Faith means relying on God rather than in anything else. George Washington once wrote that we all need: “a due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all wise and powerful being on whom alone our success depends.”
Faith means depending on God, stepping out and trusting God to act. Luther called faith “a DARING confidence in God’s grace.” Faith means going out on a limb and relying on God to help us. It means putting ourselves in situations where if God does NOT act, we fall flat on our faces, or worse!
GK Chesterton wrote, “A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr but to be a fool.” Even if nobody else hears God’s voice, if we believe then we hear, and we trust, and we obey. It may make us look foolish to everybody else. But we still rely on God!
Faith means clinging on to God’s promises, even when they seem impossible.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) said “Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will!”
It was that great theologian Cliff Richard who said, “The more we depend on God, the more dependable we find he is.”
Faith means basing your life on things you can’t see. Our materialistic world is full of people who base their lives on possessions or money and things in the here and now which they can touch and feel. Hebrews 11 verse 1 tells us faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
The eternal realities can often seem remote and uncertain. In fact they are MORE certain than anything we can see or touch, because this world is passing away but God and His truth will endure forever!
A.W. Tozer – “What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is coming when we shall have nothing but God. Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will be swept away, and we shall have only God.”
What about OUR faith? What do we rely on? Do WE really base our lives on things we can’t see? On the truths of Scripture and the promises of God? Are we really laying up treasures in heaven rather than on earth because heaven is more real than earth is! Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to base our lives on things we can’t see!
Faith also means obeying God however much that costs. This is where the rubber hits the road. Faith isn’t just about what we believe in our minds. Faith is about how those beliefs change how we live from day to day. Putting our money where their mouth is. Standing up and being counted for God. TS Eliot wrote, “The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyse his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.” THAT is the shield of faith which will help us to resist all the attacks of the devil.

17 Take the helmet of salvation
1 Peter 1:8-9 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
But where is our inexpressible and glorious joy? Sometimes our joy is lacking because we are in a spiritual battle. Sometimes the devil tries to confuse us and accuse us and deceive us and mislead us about the wonderful salvation we have received. And at that point, we need to put on the helmet of salvation.
Ephesians 1:3 tells us that God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Every single blessing we possibly could imagine is already ours! Chosen to be holy and blameless – which one day we will be. Adopted as God’s children! Redeemed – with all our sins forgiven! Then in Ephesians 2 Paul tells us that God 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
We were dead – now we are alive. We share the resurrection life of Jesus Christ and we are seated in heaven with Him. In the spiritual battle we all face, we occupy the high ground. All we need to do is stand our ground in the face of the devil’s attacks and remind ourselves of what it means to be saved. To put on the helmet of salvation.
Let’s remember that salvation is a process. Like people in a lifeboat escaping from a sinking ship. They have been saved from drowning. At the same time they are being saved from the raging seas as the lifeboat is sailing away. And beyond that they ultimately will be saved when they get to dry land. They were saved. They are being saved and they will be saved. Salvation is a process.
So there is a PAST TENSE of having been saved. Ephesians 1 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
We have been saved! And we have received God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, the seal of our salvation and a guarantee and a first instalment of heaven/ The Holy Spirit assures us that our salvation is certain. Even if we fail, or give in to temptation. Once saved always saved! God’s love will never let us go. As Spurgeon said, “It is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but His hold of you.” Corrie Ten Boom once said, “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever … Then God places a sign out there that says No Fishing!” Put on the helmet of salvation. Our salvation is guaranteed.
But as well as having a past sense to our salvation, there is also a future tense. We will be saved. Here is the FUTURE TENSE to our salvation – all the incredible blessings we will experience in glory forever. But just for now, at the moment, our salvation is not yet complete. If we want to experience more of the inexpressible and glorious joy of our salvation, we need to spend more time looking forward to our living hope and about the inheritance which is waiting for us which can never perish, spoil or fade. Our salvation will only be complete when Jesus returns and we are united with Him forever.
The 17th century English pastor Richard Baxter wrote: “Why are not our hearts continually set on heaven? Why dwell we not there in constant contemplation?…Bend thy soul to study eternity, busy thyself about the life to come, habituate thyself to such contemplations, and let not those thoughts be seldom and cursory, but bathe thyself in heaven’s delights.”
Paul wrote this in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
In the hardest times and the darkest times in the heat of battle this hope of our future salvation can be the helmet we need. The best is yet to come.
We have been saved. We will be saved. And right now there is a PRESENT TENSE of experiencing and living out our salvation here and now, day by day, moment by moment. Our salvation needs to be continually received. As Philippians 2:12 says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.
We have to work out our salvation – to work through our salvation. We need to put on the helmet of salvation and press on here and now to receive more and more of all the wonderful blessings God has in store for us. The price is paid! Come let us enter in to all that Jesus died to make our own.
and (take) the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
God has given us his Word, the Bible. The sword is the only weapon in the armour of God which is both for defence and for attack. But the devil is not afraid of a Bible that has dust on it.
We need to READ the Bible.
The Bible is meant to be our daily bread, not just cake for special occasions. Different Bible verses give us at least 10 important spiritual activities if the Bible is really going to transform our lives.
We must read it (1 Tim. 4:13); eat it — that is, take it into our very being (Job 23:12; Jer. 15:16); bathe in it for spiritual cleansing (John 15:3); look into it as a mirror to see our true self (James 1:23-25); meditate on it (Psalm 1:2; 1 Tim. /4:15); memorize it (Deut. 11:18; Psalm 119:11); study it (2 Tim. 2:15; Heb. 5:12-14); talk about it (Josh. 1:8); teach it to others (Deut. 11:19; Col 3:16) ; and sow its seeds of truth in the field of the world (Matt. 13:3-9; Luke 8:11).
We need to UNDERSTAND the Bible
2 Timothy 3:15 from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
We need to LIVE BY the Bible
“The Bible is the only thing that can combat the devil. Quote the Scriptures and the devil will run. . . use the Scriptures like a sword and you’ll drive temptation away.” Billy Graham
“Sin will keep you from this Book or this Book will keep you from sin”. — Dwight L. Moody
James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says!
So there are the six pieces of the armour of God. Of course, even a whole suit of armour by itself is useless. We need to put the armour on!
Message: Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon.
There’s a war on!
Ephesians 6 13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm!

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Paul had been telling the Ephesians about God’s amazing cosmic masterplan of salvation. How God in his amazing grace has rescued us from judgment and from the grip of evil. How God the Holy Spirit lives in every believer as the seal of our salvation giving us a guarantee and a foretaste of heaven bringing the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead into our lives. Now Christians form God’s new community, God’s new Temple, the church.
In response to all the blessings God has lavished upon us, Christians have obligations. God expects us to turn our backs on our old sinful way of life and live a new life, like throwing off old shabby filthy clothes and putting on a brand new spotless suit. As children of light we should live lives filled with love. Now Paul goes on to explain what this new life should look like in our everyday lives in a series of what some have called “household rules”. He lays down a vital principle which applies in all kinds of relationships as he then goes on to talk about marriage.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Before we spell out what submitting means, we need to be clear that this is an equal and reciprocal relationship. Submit to one another. The requirement applies to both husband and wife in the same way and to the same extent. Submit to one another. In those times submitting would be the attitude expected of every member of the household towards the head of the household. It was completely unheard of to expect everybody to submit to one other. But this is what Paul expects Christians to do out of reverence for Christ, in order to please God.
“Submit to one another” can equally be translated as “obey one another.” The Message Translation reads “be courteously reverent to one another.” Submission simply means giving way. Changing your mind. Letting the other person have their way. Letting them win – because if you do, your marriage is strengthened and you both win! Submission does NOT mean being a doormat. It does NOT mean subjugation. Submission simply means making each other happy because that will build a stronger family.
What isn’t obvious in any translation is that all of verses 18-24 all make up just one sentence. So everything Paul goes on to say about wives and husbands is just explaining and expanding on the central theme of what it means to submit to one another.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
At that time this idea of a wife submitting to her husband was totally universal in every culture. What Paul is saying is that for Christians the pattern for submission or obedience in marriage comes from the example of the church’s relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. God only tells us to do the things which are good and beneficial for us. We all joyfully submit to God’s will in our lives because doing so brings God’s blessings. In the same way wives submit to their husbands. And God expects this just as much from husbands as from wives. If not more.
The equivalent and reciprocal obligation placed on husbands is this.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

The standard set for a husband’s love for his wife is incredible high. It is no less than the sacrificial love of Christ who gave up his own life for the church. God’s plan of salvation shows us the extent of his love for us, and gives us the pattern for love in marriage, again just as much for wives as for husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
So husbands and wives should love each other with God’s kind of love. Love which is not about receiving but about giving. The kind of love described in the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 which is so often read at weddings.
1 Corinthians 13 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
So husbands should love their wives, and equally wives should love their husbands, with God’s kind of love. It is only common sense, for our own good.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church – 30 for we are members of his body.
It is not only common sense but also right and good that husbands and wives love each other and submit to one another in the family. But here is this further reason why this is important. Because marriage is God’s visual aid to the world of his love for us all.
31 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Paul quotes Genesis chapter 2 to remind us that God invented marriage. And God’s pattern for marriage is permanent and lifelong commitment between one man and one woman. Complete faithfulness within marriage and complete chastity outside it. I have to remind us of this because God’s pattern for marriage is under increasing attack. Attacks from the appalling examples of politicians and personalities, attacks from the media, and from TV soap operas which dramatize the unusual until is ceases to be recognised as unusual and becomes accepted as normal. I know very well that in this broken world marriages (like many other things in life) do not always work out as we would wish. But God’s ideal remains the same – permanent, lifelong commitment. Because God’s purpose is that marriage is his visual aid for the love Christ has for the church. A love which never lets us go and never fails. Jesus is the husband – and his bride is the church. For that reason,
33 … each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Submitting to one another. Loving and respecting and honouring. But how should this all work out in the nitty-gritty of everyday life? A few remarks.
Marriage is about sharing life together. There needs to be a balance between spending enough quality time together and living in each other’s pockets too much. There also needs to be a balance between doing what the husband would choose to do and to meet his needs, and doing what the wife would choose to do and to meet her needs, and doing what the rest of the family would choose to do and meeting their needs. Sharing fairly the responsibilities and duties and the chores. There also inevitably needs to be a balance between doing mundane things and doing exciting things. Matrimony should not mean monotony.
Marriage is about Communicating – talking about anything and everything, large and small. Remember that deeply sad song by Cliff Richard “It’s so funny how we don’t talk any more”. There is a lively debate on the internet right now about whether it is acceptable for parents to take the family to a restaurant and then leave their little children playing on their iPads instead of actually talking to them. What you talk about can be less important than the fact that you care enough just to say something. Many couples can enjoy each other’s presence without needing to say anything, but long cold stony silences can damage a marriage as much as too many rows. It should go without saying that communication between husband and wife should be based on complete honesty, openness and trust. Marriage should be the one place where we can be completely ourselves without fear of rejection.
Marriage is about building each other up. In marriage a couple should be stronger together than they would be apart. Husband and wife should encourage each other and make each other feel good about themselves, rather than put each other down all the time. Compliments are always more appropriate than criticism. A couple should stand together against the world, not take sides with outsiders against their partner.
Marriage is about sharing each other’s burdens. A vital part of marriage is supporting each other through life, not just in big crises but starting in the everyday pressures of job and family. This means talking through things and also practical help where necessary. One partner cannot sit back and watch the other being weighed down. You share all the loads together as a family.
Marriage is about dealing with disagreements. In marriage it is so important to learn to deal with grievances and not just ignore them. Too often partners resort to substitute procedures like nagging, or arguing over trivia, or deliberate petty annoyances, instead of getting down to talking about the real problem. It is important to learn how to disagree agreeably. True love does not insist on getting its own way. Family life is not built on total agreement about everything. The strength of any marriage lies in being able to resolve differences positively in love, by learning to communicate, negotiating, sorting things out, thinking of your partner before yourself, and adapting to their needs, moods and attitudes. The bottom line is a total commitment to each other. Not backing out or running out. Love never gives up!
Marriage is about coping with life TOGETHER. A strong marriage helps a couple cope in the stressful times which hit us all: moving home, changing job, problems at work, problems with neighbours, new baby, illness, accident, bereavement. If disagreements or crises are putting a strain on a marriage it is vitally important that the couple are prepared to look beyond themselves for help. There are secular counselling agencies but for Christians the logical first place to look for help would be within the church and a completely confidential chat with your Minister.
You may ask WHERE DOES GOD FIT IN? It’s often said that “a couple who pray together, stay together.” But we must beware of over-spiritualising marriage. Prayer helps. But God also expects us to work hard at our marriages. To share our lives and work hard at communicating openly and honestly. To share each other’s burdens and build each other up as well as enjoying each other. To deal with disagreements and not just sweep them under the carpet. To cope with pressures and face crises together, and to be prepared to seek help if ever we need it.
That is God’s ideal for marriage. I wrote a leaflet to help couples grow together called “Building a Marriage”. I have posted that online on Facebook and on my Thoughts blog.
So Christ’s sacrificial love for the church is the example and the standard for love in marriage. May God help us to live up to his expectations. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Take of your old nature. Put on your new nature. We thought last week about how as Christians our lives should be different from what they were like before we were Christians. Our old way of life is like a filthy shabby set of old clothes which we should take off and throw away. We should put on our new life which is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We should follow the example of Jesus and live as God’s beloved children. Remember who you are!
And Paul continues this theme in Ephesians 5. He gives more examples of the old sins we must leave behind – immorality and greed, obscene talk and deception. He introduces a new picture, of darkness and light.
Ephesians 5 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord.
We should live in the light. We should not be foolish but instead we should be wise, Ephesians tells us. But how can we change our lives so dramatically? We all know how difficult it is to stop doing wrong and only do the right thing all the time. The truth of course is that by ourselves we cannot change. But we don’t have to struggle alone. As Christians we have God the Holy Spirit living inside us. The Holy Spirit is God’s seal on our lives guaranteeing our inheritance and our first instalment of heaven. And the Holy Spirit brings the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead into our lives. God is able to do in us more than we can ever ask or even imagine, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The secret of living a new life and becoming more like Jesus is simple.
“Be filled with the Spirit.” “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18)
In several places the New Testament uses the phrases “being filled with the Spirit” and “receiving the Holy Spirit” to describe an inspiring empowering experience of the Holy Spirit. This is picture language, of course. The Spirit is not a liquid and we are not containers which can hold different amounts of Spirit. In “being filled with the Spirit”, we don’t receive more of the Spirit. It might be better to say that He receives more of us. As we open our lives to God in obedience and faith, so He chooses to transform us and use us the more.

Each of us would admit that there are times in our Christian lives when we are more obedient and more trusting, when we are walking more closely with our Lord. At those times we reflect better the glory of Christ and we are more open to God’s Holy Spirit working in our lives. Many Christians would also say that they have experienced a variety of experiences from the Holy Spirit (not just once but many times) and these have deepened their relationship with God or empowered them for witness and service, or marked the beginning of them experiencing a particular spiritual gift, often praying in tongues. “Being filled with the Holy Spirit” describes these uplifting occasions.
In Ephesians 5:18 Paul commands all Christians “Keep on being filled with the Spirit”.
The command is in the present imperative – keep on being filled with the Spirit, not just once but time and time again. Many of us are a long way from being “filled with the Spirit” for most of the time. As D.L.Moody said, “I am filled, but I leak!” We drift from God and we need to repent and be lifted back to Him. There is not one experience following conversion which will lift us up on to a higher plateau of Christian living from which we can never fall. Time and time again we need to return to God in repentance, to draw closer and closer to Him.
There are also times when we need special grace and power from God to meet specific situations. The Biblical command is to “keep on being filled with the Spirit”. It implies a continuous appropriation of the Spirit’s power to become more and more like Christ. Not just one “second blessing” but many further blessings.
Bob Gordon compares our Christian life to a canal boat journey up a mountainside, through a series of locks. “Many of us know God to one degree or another but we are not unlike a canal boat sitting in an empty lock. It is not that there is no water there but we are just not full. We have enough experience to keep us afloat in the Christian life, but not enough to take us ahead.” We need, he says, “a conscious awareness that we have come as far as we can as we are. There needs to be a closing of the doors behind us …… and an opening up to a fresh infilling of the water of the Holy Spirit.” Such infillings, not once but many times, should lead to more Christ-like living, greater love in relationships, bolder witnessing, greater praise and worship and thanksgiving, and more effective service.
So – How can I be filled with the Spirit?
Any experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit is a gift of God’s grace, neither earned nor deserved. Sometimes people are filled with the Spirit suddenly and unexpectedly. But more usually the Holy Spirit comes upon Christians while they are actively seeking God and desiring His moving in their lives.

Paul says, “Eagerly desire spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 14:1). We need to want the Holy Spirit to work in us. We must desire God the Giver and not just His gifts.
We also always need to be praying. Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Jesus said in Luke 11: 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
We need to ask, and seek, and knock. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, and we can be certain that God will pour His Holy Spirit into our lives.
We all need our spiritual batteries recharging sometimes. Every one of us needs to experience more of the dynamo and the dynamite of the Spirit in our lives. We all need to be filled afresh with the Spirit of God, time and time again. But do we really want to be?
A.W. Tozer (1897–1963) wrote this. “Before we can be filled with the Spirit, the desire to be filled must be all-consuming. It must be for the time the biggest thing in the life, so acute, so intrusive as to crowd out everything else. The degree of fullness in any life accords perfectly with the intensity of true desire. We have as much of God as we actually want.”
Paul encouraged Timothy like this. fan into flame the gift of God, ….. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:6-7).
We all need to fan the flame of the Spirit in our lives. To know more of the power and love and holiness the Spirit brings. There’s an old expression: to “put yourself in the way of blessing.” It means to make a decision to be in places where God can bless you! Somebody has said that the rain of God’s blessing starts to fall we each have an umbrella – and we each have a choice. We can hold the umbrella over our heads so the rain of God’s blessing doesn’t land on us. Or we can hold the umbrella upside down to catch as much of the blessing as possible! Which way up is your umbrella?
In the film Castaway, Tom Hanks plays a kind of modern Robinson Crusoe, stranded alone on a desert island in the middle of the ocean. Fairly early on he makes himself a boat out of trees and tries desperately to paddle out to sea. But the island is surrounded by a coral reef and however hard he tries to row, the waves over the reef push him back, until in the end the boat turns over and he is badly injured on the coral. Many attempts to row out to sea end in disaster. But then one day a piece of wreckage comes to shore and the castaway sees how he can use it. He changes the design of his boat. He rows out to the reef again but instead of trying to row against the waves he hoists the wreckage as a sail. The wind catches the sail and blows the boat past the waves out to sea and eventual rescue. At the end of the film the castaway is telling his story to a friend. “I was trapped on the island,” he says, “until one day God gave me a sail.”
Many Christians spend all their lives rowing hard trying to go somewhere new with God. But all the time the waves of life push them back. Sometimes they even fall overboard and the coral hurts! But God has given us a sail – or a number of sails. What we need to do is hoist the sails and let the wind of the Spirit carry us where God wants us to go. The sail of obedience. Conscientiously doing what God has already told us he wants us to do. The sail of faith. Trusting God to work in our lives, stepping out in faith and inviting God to surprise us. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus – but to trust and obey.” The sail of worship. Offering God the first and the best in our worship to Him and inviting Him to break in and surprise us. And finally the sail of prayer. Not a shopping list of asking prayers but time spent earnestly seeking God’s face in listening prayer. If we want God to surprise us, we need to spend time seeking Him in prayer.
If we want to grow in our Christian lives, if we want to live our new lives to the full and become more like Jesus, we each need to keep on being filled with the Spirit. The God of surprises is longing to surprise us. We need to stop rowing frantically to battle the waves. Instead we just need to hoist the sails. “He longs to do much more than our faith has yet allowed. To thrill us and surprise us with His sovereign power.” “Ask, seek, knock. How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

We started our expedition 6 am. Trains took us to Dover and a very rough sea crossing. By evening we were in Paris and then we spent a sleepless night standing in the corridor of a French “sleeper” train which didn’t have any seats. At 6 pm we arrived in the French Alps and so began a 3 week Trek in Moutiers in France to Aosta in Italy up and down several mountains including 13,323 feet up Gran Paradiso which is the highest mountain in Italy. We walked more than 200 miles with rucksacks weighing half a hundredweight full of tents, stoves, food and clothes. When the sun shone the temperature was in the 80s. When the sun wasn’t shining it was raining. At night and at altitudes above 2000 feet it was snowing. We had none of the conveniences you might expect at modern campsites because there weren’t campsites. We just stopped overnight where we could find a piece of level ground near an icy mountain stream. It was the most memorable holiday of my life even though it happened more than 40 years ago.
Three weeks later we arrived home and our families didn’t recognise us. Stepping into a warm bath to wash away three weeks of mud and grime was one of the happiest moments of my life! Hot water and soap! Feeling clean at last! And of course then when I got dressed, I didn’t just climb back into all the clothes I had been wearing for three weeks. That would have been stupid! To get really clean but then put on those filthy damp clothes again. Of course, I put on clean fresh dry clothes. Because you just don’t return to civilisation but then carry on wearing the same clothes you wore hiking across the Alps. That wouldn’t be at all appropriate. It’s just not done!
But, Paul says to the Ephesians, that is a picture of exactly what Christians are doing if we live our lives after we become Christians in the same sinful ways as we did before we were saved!
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
For Paul, becoming a Christian and beginning the Christian life is just like throwing off an old set of filthy tatty rags and putting on a brand new spotless suit.
We have taken off our old self – we throw away our old life and our old sinful human nature when we come to Christ as Saviour and Lord. We throw off our old deceitful desires. We let God make us anew in our thinking and our attitudes. And we need to put on the new self – as Christ cleanses us all our sins are forgiven and we receive a brand new life to live, a new nature, a new self.
That new self, Paul says, is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness
24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. (NLT)
Throwing off the old – putting on the new. But how do we do that? We begin by turning our back on what our lives used to be like.
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
Here Paul is saying that one aspect of human sin is ignorance. Since Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, human beings have not known God. Their thinking is futile. They are hopelessly confused, empty headed, mindless. This ignorance separates people from God. As a result they descend into all kinds of sins of immorality and greed.
When people are saved, they need to learn how to live a new life. The route out of ignorance is teaching. It’s as if we have to go back to school and learn all over again how to live. Christ is the teacher and Christ is the school and the truth that is in Jesus is the lesson we must learn.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

We need to learn to put off our old self and put on our new self. So we have a list of aspects of life we need to take off and throw away.
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body.

We need to be completely honest with each other. Truth is vital. And we need to get rid of anger.

26 ‘In your anger do not sin’: do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.

We should never be stealing or dishonest in any way.

28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

And the things we say matter as much as the things we do.

29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

When we are saved God puts His Holy Spirit inside us, the seal of our salvation and the deposit and guarantee, the first installment of heaven. The Holy Spirit releases the power which raised Jesus from the dead into our own lives. Sin in any form saddens the Holy Spirit.

30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

So like a suit of old tatty clothes we must throw off all kinds of sin.

31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

That is the old life we need to put off. And Paul goes on describe the new life we should put on: the new nature which is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We are called to become like God himself. And of course, God is love so we should demonstrate God’s kind of love in our lives.

32 Be kind and compassionate to one another,

An essential part of loving other people is forgiving them.

forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

In every aspect of our new life, God is our example.

5 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love,

Our new life of love is all about living as God’s children. In the Disney film The Lion King, the new king Simba is scared and wracked with doubts. In a memorable scene the ghost of his father Mufasa appears to him to encourage him and says this. “You have forgotten who you are. … Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true King. Remember who you are.” The secret of putting on our new nature and living our new life is simply to remember who we are. Sons and daughters of the Living God. Remember who you are.

In fact, as if it wasn’t completely obvious, we should be following the example of Jesus Christ. Our new nature is to be like Christ. Jesus is our example in everything.
2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

So we must learn Christ. Be like Jesus.
MESSAGE we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

Be like Jesus. Put off the old nature. Put on your new nature!

What is life in the church supposed to be like?
Ephesians 4 15 … speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 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.
We grow as Christians and we grow as a church when each of us plays our part.
New Living Translation 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
But what does each part doing its work mean? Paul probably wrote his Letter to the Ephesians from prison around 62 AD. Church life was very different for the first Christians to what it is like today. For a start, churches were just groups of people, meeting together in each other’s homes. The earliest church buildings date from the first half of the third century. So churches didn’t run activities like Toddlers or Café or Drop-In. Churches didn’t run events like International Evenings or Family Fun Days. In fact, life in the early church was probably more like our church life has been during lockdown than it has been at any other time we can remember.
When Paul wrote about each member of Body of Christ doing its work so that the whole body was built up, he probably did have specific things in mind. To begin with, we play our part in the body of Christ by obeying the great Commandments: loving God and loving our neighbours. And Jesus also gave his disciples a Third Commandment.
John 13 34 ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
We each grow up into Christ and play our part in the Body of Christ by loving other people. The Bible commands Christians to love one another or love each other 15 times. A dozen times it commands us to forgive each other, to agree with each other, to live in peace and to submit to one another. We are called to encourage each other 4 times, as well as to build each other up, to help and admonish and warn each other. We heard these commands from earlier in Ephesians 4 last week.
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
We play our part by keeping the peace. At the same time, loving other people will also mean doing all the good works of practical service which God calls us to do within the church community, in our workplace and with our neighbours.
Ephesians 2 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Another aspect of the work God has given to Christians to do is to bear witness to his salvation, to share the good news about Jesus and to make disciples. Jesus commanded,
Matthew 28 19 … go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
An essential part of growing up into Christ is learning the truth which sets us free.
4:15 speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
We have thought before about some of the wonderful truths God wants us to learn. Discovering for ourselves just how wide and long and high and deep God’s love is. Experiencing the amazing power which raised Jesus from the dead released in our own lives. God calls all Christians to learn and grow in their faith that comes as we teach each other.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Christians can also each play our part and do our work by exercising spiritual gifts. Some of these seem more spectacular, others very mundane, but all gifts are just as important in building up the Body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about prophetic gifts: prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discerning spirits, speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. Apostles and prophets and teachers are named alongside those with gifts of helping and of administration. When spiritual gifts are exercised, the Body of Christ is built up.
In Romans 12 Paul says this. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing, leading, acts of mercy. Our spiritual gifts may be different but all Christians have our work to do. Every Christian has our part to play in the body of Christ. In the comedy horror film/series “The Addams Family”, a strange creature “Hand” pops out of a box to answer the telephone. But there is no such thing as a disembodied hand in the church. No Christian is an “independent ear” or a “freelance nose”! We ALL have a part to play in the Body of Christ. NONE of US is useless. That is the difference between the Body of Christ and the human body – the Body of Christ doesn’t have an appendix. NO part of the Body of Christ is redundant, NO part in the Body of Christ is useless! God has jobs for each and every one of us to do. Our responsibility is to use the gifts God has given to do the jobs he wants us to do. It is only when EVERY separate part works as it should that the whole body grows. We each have to play our part.
Ephesians 4 also tells us that God has provided ways for us to grow in our faith as individuals and move on with God as a church. Those ways lie in the people Christ has given as gifts to the church – apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers.
Ephesians 4 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Too many churches misunderstand this passage. They think it says that “God has given pastor-teachers … for works of service”, as if all the works of service are done by just a few people, just the pastor-teachers. That is wrong. What it actually says is that God has given the pastor-teachers to prepare all God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. It is NOT that the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor-teachers do all the works of service themselves! The role even of evangelists and especially of pastor-teachers, is to to equip and prepare and enable ALL God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up! Incidentally, in the Greek the phrase in Ephesians 4 is not “pastors and teachers” which might imply two different kinds of people doing two different jobs. These are pastor-teachers, teaching shepherds, those who pastor by teaching, one person, one task.
Baptist Christians have always believed that ministers are not some special kind of Christian, set apart from ordinary Christians. The pastor-teacher is just an ordinary Christian with particular spiritual gifts (and often with training and experience) called to do a particular job in the life of the church. Baptist churches recognise that the pastor is not the only person who can do “pastoral care”. Loving God, loving other Christians and loving our neighbours and being a witness for Jesus should be part of “the normal Christian life” for EVERY believer, just as much as worship and prayer are. The work of the pastor-teachers, and the apostles and prophets and evangelists, equip and enable and support and train and encourage and help every member of the Body of Christ to play their part. Pastor-teachers are called to help every Christian grow to become active serving Christians, to help all Christians express and share their faith in daily life and in the community, and equip everyone to exercise pastoral care for one another, and bring glory to God in their worship and their witness. When Christians are growing in their faith, then outreach and pastoral care will follow naturally. “Evangelism is the overflow of our joyful faith.”
So this is what being the church is all about. Each of us playing our part. This is what God wants North Springfield Baptist Church to become, more and more in the months and years ahead.
,,, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (New Living Translation)

We have now been in Covid lockdown for 100 days. From next weekend many parts of the lockdown are going to be lifted. Some parts of church life will gradually be able to go back to normal. But not normal as it was before. “New normal”. The reality is that until a vaccine or an effective cure is found, in the same way as offices and factories and shops and public transport and the hospitality industries have changed, church life will not just go back to the way it was before. But what might church be like in the “new normal”? In what forms might our activities continue? Worship, teaching, prayer, fellowship, pastoral care, mission, evangelism, work with children and young people, community involvement and prophetic witness? What should the church be like after Covid?
We will find ways all to talk about these questions over the next few weeks. To start with, we need to go back to the Bible and find out what churches are meant to be and to do. Last week I shared with everybody a Booklet of sermons on “What is the church? This week I posted an article on “Church Life After Covid19.” The message for this morning, which will continue next week, explores these important questions. What is the church? And then, what part do we each have to play in the church?
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) once said,
“The New Testament does not envisage solitary religion; some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted. So we must be regular practicing members of the church. Of course we differ in temperament. Some (like you—and me) find it more natural to approach God in solitude; but we must go to church as well. For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the body of Christ, in which all members, however different (and he rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out) must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.”
The church is “the body of Christ, in which all members however different …. must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.”
We have been finding out in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians about God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation. This is worked out in each of our lives as God’s amazing grace forgives our sins and gives us the free gift of eternal life.
Ephesians 2 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
As Christians we share all of these wonderful blessings. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. We have so many things in common. We are one body – says Paul. Think about your body. Is there any part of your body you don’t like? Your ears? Your nose? Your feet when they play you up? But is there any part of your body you dislike so much that if you could you would have the doctors chop it off? I doubt it. We read about the first Christians in Acts, “They were like family to each other.” We are the family of God! Christians should never ignore other Christians or treat them as if they aren’t part of the family of the church.
But there is more to being part of the body of Christ. We saw in Ephesians 2 that when any person is saved we become part of God’s new community. We are
no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, (2:19)
This is God’s cosmic masterplan – we are all united in Christ.
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. (2:20)
Each of us are the bricks God is using to build a new kind of temple.
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (2:21-22)
The old Temples where people went to meet with God were built of stone. The New Temple is made of living stones and God lives in us! We are the church, the Body of Christ and the temple where God lives by His Holy Spirit.
So what part do we have to play in God’s cosmic masterplan? It’s very simple. God is creating a new community, all one in Christ Jesus. All we have to do is not mess things up! Don’t break up the unity of the church. Keep the peace.
Ephesians 4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
As God’s family and the body of Christ, we are called to live in peace together. To get on with each other. Every Christian has received God’s amazing grace which makes us part of the church, and we are all called to live just like Jesus Himself.
Be completely humble and gentle; not arrogant or proud
be patient, not in a hurry, not demand that everybody else moves at the same speed as we do, but all moving together as one.
bearing with one another in love. Tolerant and not critical. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:7) Love never gives up!
So in the life of the church, we should all
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
We don’t have to create unity in the church. The church is already one. We just have to make every effort not to mess things up by dividing the church. We have to keep the peace.
Paul goes on to remind us that we have so much in common that draws us together – so much which we share as Christians which this lost world does not share.

4:4 There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope when you were called- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
We share so many things in common! One word appears seven times in those three verses, and that word is “one”. As Eugene Peterson comments, “Everything is permeated with Oneness.” Paul lists seven things which Christians share.
One Body – the church, the body of Christ
One Spirit – the Holy Spirit who lives in every Christian and makes us together to be the church
One Hope – the hope of sharing the glory of God, the inheritance which is guaranteed for us all by the Holy Spirit who lives inside us as the first instalment of heaven.
One Lord – the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, risen from the dead and ascended on high, King of Kings and Lord of Lords
One Faith – the trust we all place in Jesus for our salvation
One Baptism – the sign God has given us to show that we share in the benefits of Christ’s death on the cross and we also share in the power of his resurrection life.
one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
We are part of God’s forever family the church because we all share the one God and Father of all.
Did you notice how all three Persons in God the Holy Trinity were included there? The one Spirit and the one Lord Jesus Christ and the one Father. Christians must be united as one, because God in Himself is one, unity in diversity.
Seven things which all Christians share and which unite us together.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
That is why all Christians should always Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
New Living Translation 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.

Keeping the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace can be very hard. Some people are very hard to please!!! We can all find things to criticise and even fall out about! So we need to work hard at preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. God has already created the unity – in Christ. All we have to do is not mess things up! Because when we do we are getting in the way of His cosmic masterplan!
As we seek to discover what North Springfield Baptist Church should be like in the “new normal” the most important thing is that we move on together – maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Some of us would naturally want to rush on quickly. Others of us could well be anxious and afraid. Some may continue to be vulnerable and shielding and we must make sure that nobody is left behind or left out. Maintaining the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
The story is told of two porcupines in the freezing north country of Canada which huddled together to keep warm in the snow. Because they were pricked by each other’s quills, they moved apart. Soon they were shivering again and had to lie side by side again in order to survive. They needed each other even more than they needled each other!
Members of any church sometimes rub up against each other and needle each other.
To dwell above with saints we love, That will be grace and glory.
To live below with saints we know; Well that’s another story!
This time of lockdown has helped us to appreciate each other more. As we go forward, WE will need each other more than we needle each other! We need to work hard to stick together, to move on with God as ONE body, ONE family.

MESSAGE I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.
You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly.
New Living Translation 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.

The last three months have been very hard for everybody! So our verses for this morning are especially relevant and encouraging.

Ephesians 3 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
We need to hear this reminder about the power of God at work in our lives more than ever in these days.

As 2020 began life for most people was going along smoothly as ever. Then Covid19 came along and so much has changed. First, we had to cope with a form of grief as most of our everyday lives of working and shopping and leisure and even ordinary face-to-face relationships, were taken away from us. At the same time all our usual activities and events of church life ended abruptly. Then we had to invent new ways of being the church. We had to find new ways of worshipping and praying and learning and sharing fellowship together, and for many people that has meant wrestling with new and unfamiliar aspects of technology. Now we are at the stage of supporting each other with all kinds of needs in this strange new world. But there are still so many restrictions about actually meeting together. We all need God’s help so much in these days!

Glory to God, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

But now life is changing again. Our immediate next task is to steer our way forward towards to safely resuming some of our activities again. And now is also the time for us to begin to prayerfully consider the future of the church once lockdown is lifted. The reality is that until a vaccine or an effective cure is found, just the same as in offices and factories and shops and public transport and the hospitality industries, church life will never be the same as it was before. What will worship and teaching and mission and outreach and evangelism and pastoral care look like in “the new normal”?

“Home working” is likely to become part of “the new normal” for possibly millions of people. In the same way churches will continue use technology to enable people to join in worship and prayers and Bible Studies from their homes, especially to help folk who may be housebound or elderly or vulnerable. Services like this will be recorded on video and put on Facebook for those who have to be at work at service times.
On the other hand, the sad reality is that some common elements of the way church used to be may not return for years, if ever. Coronavirus and some measures of social distancing are going to be with us for years and there are some things we aren’t going to be able to do, at least for a while. When we are allowed to gather together in person, fewer people will be able to be in one room. Sharing food and drink will be much more difficult and activities with young people and children will look very different. Many of usual activities may not start for a while. What will outreach and evangelism look like in “the new normal?” I have three thoughts.
Firstly, for decades churches have tended to meet needs in the community by organised activities and events and projects. In the future the mission of the church may fall back much more on to the shoulders of individual Christians loving their own neighbours. More than ever evangelism will be about ordinary Christians “gossiping the gospel” and simply talking about Jesus.
Secondly, I think the church will need to focus more on its core identity – worshipping God and praying for people in and outside the church community. I think churches (and perhaps particularly ministers and church leaders) will devote less time and resources to running events and projects and more on prayer and pastoral care and teaching with individuals and small groups. Equipping Christians to be salt and light by loving their neighbours and talking about Jesus. Making disciples who make disciples.
This may all sound very new and very difficult and indeed very exhausting. Which is where my third thought comes in. We will all have to put ourselves completely in God’s hands. In ordinary times Christians and churches have put lots of time and energy into our activities and events and projects. Now is the time for us to put our trust in God. Our human ideas and our hard work will not be enough to take the church into “the new normal”. Instead we will need to rely on God. And this is where our verses this morning are so inspiring.
Ephesians 3 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
As the Covid lockdown is lifted and we move forward into “the new normal”, we do not need to be worried or afraid. We are never on our own. God is with us. We will always be able to depend on the Holy Spirit, the power of God which raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, at work in our lives. Thanks be to God
We have already learned a great deal from Ephesians about the work of God the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers and of the church. The Holy Spirit is the seal of our salvation guaranteeing our inheritance and a foretaste and our first installment of heaven. And it is the Holy Spirit who helps us to know God better. We saw three weeks ago that it is the Holy Spirit who makes us into God’s family , the church, God’s holy Temple.
2 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Yes, the church is not the building. Nor is the church the programme of activities or events which we run. The church is the people of God. But even more than that, we are the people in whom God lives by His Holy Spirit. The church is not the building, not the programme, not even the people. What makes us the church is the presence of God. It is the presence and activity of God the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers that transforms a group of Christians from just a club or a human organisation into the church, the Body of Christ, God’s Living Temple. If God isn’t here, it isn’t church at all! But when God IS present, there are no limits to His love and grace and power! If any of us want to move on in our individual Christian lives, we need to be open to the working of God the Holy Spirit. And if any church wants to move on with God and become the church God wants us to be the secret is the same – we need more of the power of the Holy Spirit, more of the presence of God!

And that is because of the glorious truth we learned from Ephesians 1. The Holy Spirit comes and releases into our lives that same almighty power which raised Jesus from the dead.

1 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know … 19 … his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

It is that resurrection power of Christ in us which means that God can accomplish in our lives, and God will accomplish in our lives, immeasurably more than we can ask, or even imagine! That is such an encouragement to us in these challenging times. And such a reassurance as we step into an uncertain future.

Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth, can accomplish whatever he chooses in our lives and through us. The prophet Jeremiah prayed
Jeremiah 32 17 “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
As the Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God.” And Jesus taught his disciples, “With God all things are possible.”
We may be struggling with life in the present. We may be anxious and fearful about the future. But God wants to lift all our hearts to him.
20 … all glory to God, who is able to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think, through his mighty power at work within us. (NLT)

God loves us! God loves you. And God loves me. In these strange and uncertain and fearful times God wants us to know just how very much He loves us all.
Ephesians 3:17 …. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
God wants us to do more than just know ABOUT his love. God wants us to KNOW his love, to know it in our own experience, to know his love in our everyday lives every day. God wants us know his love as we know God Himself. And God wants us to be filled with his love to the measure of the fullness of God.
“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.” Ephesians 3:19a NLT
So just how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ?

How WIDE is God’s love?
God loves everyone. The width of God’s love may be the most obvious thing that distinguishes His love from human love. We love certain people but not others. We love certain types of people, but not others. God loves everyone equally.
Read: John 3:16-17 NIV
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God does not reserve His love for a specific class of people. Race and gender and social status and location and background are all irrelevant when it comes to a person’s standing before God. God loves all kinds of men and all kinds of women equally. God’s love is wide enough to embrace everybody.
We may feel that we are unworthy of God’s love. Absolutely right! We are totally undeserving of the love God has for us. But he still loves us. That is what grace is all about. Some people find it hard to believe that God loves them. They think they have gone too far away from God. His love could never stretch far enough to reach them. They are mistaken. God’s love is wide enough to reach everybody!

How LONG is God’s Love?

What is the length of His love? From eternity to eternity. Neither the present nor the future can separate me from God’s love. I do not have to worry about it running out. The Bible tells us that God IS love. Jesus is the same today, yesterday and forever. God doesn’t change. His love for us doesn’t change. Maybe today God loves me, but what about tomorrow? Some people say, ‘I believe God used to love me, but what about now?’ We don’t have to worry about God’s love running out.
Through Jeremiah the prophet God tells us ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. (Jeremiah 31:3)
God’s love is everlasting. God’s love endures forever. God wants you to experience that love with Him forever. That is length of God’s love. God’s love is forever and for always. It isn’t just available on Sundays. There are no “regular business hours” for God’s love. God’s love is never “out to lunch”. The love of God doesn’t take holidays.
And God’s love doesn’t give up. Ours does! Our love runs out but God isn’t like that. God’s love just keeps on going and going and going! God doesn’t give up on us
“I will never, ever, ever leave you or forsake you.” In times of trial, we may think we are “clinging on to God. The truth is it really is the other way around. It is God who clings on to us with a love which never lets us go.
Jesus said this.“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 1 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no-one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10 :27-30)
We have a new relationship with God.
Jesus said in John 6 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all he has given me,
We have been born again to eternal life and have the Holy Spirit as the seal of our salvation and deposit which guarantees our inheritance, our first instalment of heaven.
The Almighty God is greater than everything in the universe. God CAN keep us safe and God WILL keep us safe with a love which never lets us go.

How HIGH is God’s love?

“Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies…” Psalm 36:5 NIV
Earlier in Ephesians we saw how high God’s love stretches. God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (1:3). And God has raised us up and seated us “with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus” (2:6).
God’s love is limitless. We are lifted up to heavenly places. We are no longer people who live on earth. Now we are citizens of heaven. This is only made possible by the great love of God. God’s love is the highest love, the purest love, the finest love we can imagine. And not only that, but it is completely free. Anybody who wants God’s love can have all they want.
God’s love is like mountains getting higher and higher. All through our lives we can climb higher and nearer to God. There are always more heights to press on to! We should all keep on going to know more of God’s love. “Onward and upward.”

How DEEP is God’s love?

Perhaps depth refers to God’s love being with us through even the most difficult of situations. That definitely is true. He said He would never leave us nor forsake us.

Romans 8:35-39 NIV Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“NOTHING …will be able to separate us from the love of God…” God loves us so much that he gave His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us. God’s love shows us that just how important we are to God.
The depth of God’s love is also that it reaches down to the deepest parts of our being. God’s love is deeper than our deepest secrets. God’s love can go down into the darkness of our worst fears.
Many people have deep hurts. Things which have happened to us in the past which still hurt us today. God cares about these things and God wants to bring his healing and freedom and wholeness and peace down into the deepest parts of our body, mind and spirit. However deeply we may be hurting, God’s love is deep enough to reach down and heal us! There is no pit too deep for God’s love to reach us. God’s love will rescue us!
So how wide and how long and how high and how deep is God’s love?
Wide enough to reach every person.
Long enough to last forever and never let us go.
High enough to lift us up to heaven.
Deep enough to reach down to our deepest needs.
MESSAGE take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God wants each of us to know just how wide and long and high and deep his love is! Thanks be to God for loving us so much!

We are going to need to reinvent the church. The last 11 weeks of Covid19 Lockdown have brought all the regular activities and events on our premises to a standstill. Every church in the world is recognizing that coming out of lockdown things are not just going to start up again as they were before. Some of our activities will not be possible for a long time. Maybe some will never happen again. Things could start, and then have to stop again if there is a second spike of Covid19 and a second lockdown.

So all churches are at a turning point. It is not an understatement to say that we need to reinvent the church for a post-Covid society. For many Christians and for those on the fringes, church had become a programme of activities, a cycle of worship and prayer and outreach and service. We need to rediscover what church is really about. We need a vision from God about what His church really is, and what the church can be, and what the church needs to be, in the post-Covid19 world. That may sound scary. In fact, I believe it will be an exciting opportunity for us to work out what it means to be disciples of Jesus in the fellowship and community of his church in the 21st century.

We began to think about this last week when we reminded ourselves that the church is not the building – the church is the people.
Ephesians 2 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The church is not the building – it is the people. For this morning, Ephesians 3 goes on to lift our eyes beyond our understanding of church, and beyond our experiences of church, and give us a glimpse of God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation and the part which we in the church of Jesus Christ have to play in that.

We all love a good mystery. And Paul writes to the Christians at Ephesus about probably the most exciting mystery in the universe. He wants them to be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
But I don’t want to confuse anybody. Because when people use the word mystery they are usually talking about detective mysteries, Sherlock Holmes or Chief Inspector Morse. Nowadays a mystery is some kind of puzzle to be solved. But Paul is using the word mystery in its original sense. Something hidden. Something mysterious. Something waiting to be revealed. This morning we are going to talk about what the apostle Paul calls God’s mystery. Something God had shown Paul in a revelation. Something God has been doing in secret throughout history behind the scenes which at the moment is concealed but in the fullness of time will be revealed to everybody. We could call it “God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation.” God’s mysterious plan is at the heart of the message of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. God’s cosmic masterplan which is all wrapped up in God’s new community, the Church.
. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

God’s cosmic masterplan is that both Jews and non-Jews alike can experience the blessings of God’s salvation which comes to us all through Jesus Christ. We thought about this last week.
Ephesians 2 14 For (Christ) himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Jews and Gentiles together, indeed all races and colours, are now part of God’s one new humanity, the Body of Christ, the church, the spiritual building where God lives by His Holy Spirit. The church, all of us who have access to God through the Holy Spirit living inside us, are God’s big secret, God’s cosmic masterplan. Paul had hinted at this in chapter 1.
Ephesians 1:8 … With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
God brings the whole of creation into unity in the church, through Christ. That is his mysterious plan. In Ephesians chapter 3 Paul continues,
Ephesians 3:8v Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,
The boundless unsearchable riches of Christ. The endless treasures God pours into our lives through Jesus. Every blessing in the heavenly places! Forgiveness and eternal life and adoption into God’s forever family. All the riches of God’s grace which he has lavished upon us. The power of the Holy Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead, at work in OUR lives and making us into God’s Holy Temple where He dwells by His Holy Spirit. We will spend eternity exploring and enjoying these boundless riches of Christ and never get to the end of them. They are given to us as God’s free gift, never earned or deserved, all by God’s amazing grace, God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. By grace you are saved, through faith. And that is not of yourselves – it is the gift of God. But all these amazing blessings poured into our lives have a far, far greater purpose than just to bless us. They are just a part of God’s cosmic masterplan for the salvation of the whole universe.
Ephesians 3:8 … this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 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, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The purpose of God’s masterplan of salvation extends far beyond those of us who experience the boundless riches of Christ here and now. This mysterious plan is even bigger than the creation of the church made up of every believer in every place and every age.
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,
The reason God has saved each of us, and all Christians, the reason God has brought Jews and Gentiles together into one new humanity, the reason God has put His Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the church, is this. This cosmic masterplan reveals God’s wisdom in its rich variety to the whole of creation. Not just to every being on earth but to all the unseen spiritual rulers and authorities in heavenly places as well. This is the destiny of the church. You and I, North Springfield Baptist Church and the churches of Chelmsford and every church in the Baptist Union and all the Christians alive around the world today, and every Christian who has ever lived, fit together in God’s mysterious plan to reveal his wisdom to the universe! This is God’s eternal purpose which He has accomplished in Christ and in his church.
The Message translation puts it this way.
… here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels! All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus.
Most people want their lives to have meaning. Most people want to do something worthwhile in their lives – to play their part in something much greater than themselves. As Christians our lives so have a meaning and a significance far greater than any of us can imagine. As part of Christ’s Body, the Church, we are all participants in something unimaginably huge, God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation. Our lives, the seemingly ordinary lives we live day to day but lived in the resurrection power of Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, even our lives are demonstrating God’s supreme wisdom to the whole of creation. Each one of us is playing our unique part in God’s redemption of the whole universe. That is the reason why God has blessed us so immeasurably with the endless treasures of Christ. For his glory and praise.
This is God’s mysterious plan. This is God’s purpose for the church, the body of Christ, the living Temple where he dwells through the Holy Spirit. So how should we respond to this amazing grace of Christ? By praise and worship and thanksgiving. By obeying God in every part of our lives. By loving God and loving our neighbour and doing all the good works God has lined up ready for us to do. And by allowing the Holy Spirit and the resurrection life of Christ flow through us. Flow, Spirit, flow! Blaze, Spirit, blaze!

Right from the beginning of this time of lockdown, Christians have been declaring a simple message. The church is not the building. The church is the people. And that is the heart of this morning’s message for Pentecost Sunday. A church is a gathering of believers. But even more than that, the church is God’s Holy Temple where he lives by His Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 2 21 In (Christ) the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Paul has already talked about the work of the Holy Spirit several times in Ephesians. Let’s just recap the story so far. In our union with Jesus Christ, Christians have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. God has forgiven our sins and redeemed us. He has made us his children and he has lavished the riches of his grace upon us. When we put our trust in Christ as our Saviour the Holy Spirit brings us all the blessings of salvation. We have been marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, the foretaste and the first instalment of heaven.
God has given us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know him better. And it is the Holy Spirit who releases into our lives that incomparably great power of God which raised Jesus from the dead – the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.
All this is part of God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation. Paul goes on in Ephesians 2 to explain more about how God is bringing the whole of creation into unity. Until Jesus came, God’s salvation was just for his chosen people Israel through the covenants he had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and with the nation of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt. Salvation came through the Jewish Law revealed to Moses. God is bringing his chosen people Israel into unity with those who had been outside his purposes, everybody else in the world who were not Jews but Gentiles.
2 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
It was Jesus’s death on the cross which has brought everybody back to God.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

When Jesus died for our sins on the cross, God brought human beings back to himself. More than that he removed the barrier between Jews and non-Jews and created one new human race.

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Together all believers form one new humanity. The one Holy Spirit gives us all access to the Father – Jews and non-Jews alike. But all these blessings of salvation do not just come to each of us as individual believers. The amazing access to God the Father we experience through the work of the Holy Spirit binds us into God’s new community, the church.
The church is the body of Christ. Ephesians 122 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
And Christ fills His church by the presence of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Listen to the wonderful things Paul says about all those who are saved by God’s grace. We are all fellow citizens with God’s people. We are all members of God’s household – God’s family. And we are a spiritual building, with Christ as the cornerstone, built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets and the gospel they proclaimed. We are now God’s Holy Temple, and God Himself lives in us all by His Holy Spirit.
This is what sets the church of Jesus Christ apart from any clubs or teams or choirs or organisations or bodies or families. This is what makes the Christian church different from any other religious groups. We are unlike ANY other group of people in the world. We are “a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” God is alive and at work in His church. God dwells in His church, in a way that God does not dwell in ANY other group of people in the world!
In the Old Testament God gave the Temple in Jerusalem to his chosen people the Israelites. It was a very special building in three ways. It was the place where God was to be found. God was present and active in the Temple in ways and to an extent which He was not present anywhere else on earth. So the Temple was the place where people met with God. When the time came to worship and to pray, the Temple was the place to go. And then even more important, the Temple was the place where God dealt with sin. The Temple was where sacrifices were continually offered, and especially at the great festivals of the year and most important of all the sacrifices for sin offered by the High Priest once a year in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. The place where God was to be found, the place people met with God, the place sin is dealt with. But now hear how Paul describes the church of Jesus Christ:
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
There aren’t special buildings where you go to meet with God any more. The Church of Jesus Christ is not the buildings – it is the people. WE are the New temple.
We Christians are the new “building” in which God is especially present. We Christians are now the “place” where people go if they want to meet with God. And Jesus Christ the greatest High Priest has offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin. So we Christians are the people with the gospel of salvation. We have the good news of how Jesus has dealt with the problems of sin for all who put their trust in Him. We Christians are the new temple.
1 Peter 2:4 As you come to him, the living Stone- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
We Christians are the “dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” God the Holy Spirit lives in each and every Christian! But God lives and moves and works in Christians even more wonderfully when we gather together, even if that is only possible virtually on Zoom.
God brings the fruit of the Spirit, Supernatural examples of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and faithfulness! The Holy Spirit brings a unity which can’t be explained by human effort. God releases spiritual gifts building up the church and changing lives. And the Holy Spirit works in signs and wonders – Almighty God breaking into His broken world to put things right. These are the things we can expect to see in the church of Jesus Christ, the new Temple, the “ dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”. And all of this is still true, even when we cannot gather in person to worship or pray or serve God together. The Holy Spirit still makes us into the church. And the church is not the building. The church is the people.

PRAYER –
Spirit of the Living God, Fall afresh on me
Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me
Spirit of the Living God, Fall afresh on me