Sermon from July 12, 2009
"The Dwelling Place of God"
Ephesians 2:21-22; 4:11-16

Doctors speak a medical language that the rest of us don't know. For example, a pathology report talks about a pigmented skin lesion. We know what skin is. Lesion is more troublesome, and pigmented may stump us, but when the report says that blood vessels show endothelial proliferation, we say, “Doc, just tell me if I’m gonna make it.”

Here’s the curious thing. You can’t be a doctor, if you don’t speak the language of medicine. When you think about it, that’s true of every specialty. If you can’t talk about it, you can’t do it, whether you are a doctor, an airline mechanic, a chemist, or a computer engineer. It’s also true of Christians.

Christians have a religious language. If you’re going to be an effective Christian, you have to learn the language. Words like believe, repent, reconciliation, and atonement shape the way we think about God and man. I have introduced some of our Christian language into my sermons this summer: vocation and God’s chosen people.

Another word for vocation is calling. It means a compelling invitation to be part of what God is doing in the world. If you are a Christian, you’ve accepted the invitation, you have a religious vocation. Your vocation is to be God’s chosen people. We got that idea from the Jews. The liberation from bondage in Egypt was the act by which Jews came to believe that God chose them out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Christ included the Church in God’s chosen people.

Now, look at Ephesians 4:1. As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling (the religious vocation) you have received. Let’s talk more about being God’s chosen people. Then, we can talk about how to live.

God’s Dark, Carnal Presence on Earth
Two sermons ago, I quoted Jewish writer, Michael Wyschogrod, about God’s election of Israel to be His chosen people. If you take out the word circumcised, his statement also applies eloquently to the Church. “‘The circumcised body of Israel is the dark, carnal presence through which the redemption makes its way into history. Salvation is of the Jews because the flesh of Israel is the abode of divine presence in the world. It is the carnal anchor that God has sunk into the soil of earth’” (The Body of Faith, 46).

What right did he have to use such language about God and man? Well, the New Testament agrees with him. Look at Ephesians 2:21-22: In him (in Christ) the whole building (the Church) 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. There it is: a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

We too, my Christian brothers and sisters, are “the dark, carnal presence through which the redemption makes its way into history.” The flesh of the Church also “is the abode of divine presence in the world.” We too are “the carnal anchor that God has sunk into the soil of earth.” That is your religious vocation.

Now, I want to connect this sermon with my previous sermon in this series. In that sermon I talked about the coming unity of all things. Ephesians 1:10 says that it is God’s will some day to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. The Church is a sign of the coming unity of all things. That’s why it’s important for Jews and Christians to get along and for Christians to pursue with each other unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God.

The Church is also a sign of God’s presence on earth. Ephesians 2:22 says that the Church is a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. So, how can we be worthy of being the carnal anchor God has sunk into the soil of earth? Ephesians provides guidance in Ephesians 4:11-16.

Doing Works of Ministry
Let’s begin with verses 11-12. It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (that’s people like me), to prepare God’s people (that’s people like you) for works of service (that’s everything the Church does), so that the body of Christ may be built up.

It is tempting to see all there is to be done in a church and say, “Pastor, that’s your job. That’s what you’re paid to do.” The text we just read paints a different picture. It looks at all the Church does and says, “People of Christ, that’s your job; and, Pastor, it’s your job to equip them do it.”

A word picture of this reversal will help. I learned it many years ago from Howard Hendricks, my teacher at Dallas Seminary. I want you to perform an act of imagination. Picture yourself and some friends with four very good tickets to a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. The excitement is high, because home field advantage throughout the playoffs goes to the winner.

Next, I’d like you to turn your mind away from the game and its outcome and make an astute observation about something that is happening at Lincoln Financial Field. What you see are 22 men on the field in desperate need of rest and 70,000 people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.

That is a parable of the Church in which the pastor is often in desperate need of rest and large numbers of people in the pews are in desperate need of exercise. The Church is an unworthy divine dwelling as long as that disparity exists.

Here’s the good news. You see it in Zach Andress, not yet 20, going to Russia and Cambodia for shorter and longer missions trips. You see it in Melissa McGrath, not yet 20, living for six months at a time in Hong Kong to do missionary work. You see it in Ed and Sue Rowse, Dick and Linda Lawyer, Gabe Agostini and Fred Eck, traveling tens of thousand of miles a year often at their own expense to teach pastors and university students in Senegal, Ukraine, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica and China. You see it in Bob and Lynn Soplop’s passion to support a poor church in Lima, Peru, and in Caitlin Schneider’s involvement in the ministry of Compassion International.

You see it in Gabrielle Townsend’s ministry to AIDS Delaware; Heather Wilson, Christine Rafetto, Sherri Ryle, and Heidi Friedkin teaching children in our pre-school; Greg Miner making Alpha Groups a reality; Willie and Tina Mah and their children and dozens of teenagers serving meals and talking to homeless residents at Sojourners’ Place; a Monday morning Promise Keeper’s small group that goes once a month to the Sunday Breakfast Mission to sing and pray and testify to residents there; Lee Holtzclaw and a steady stream of BVBC people building new homes for low income families in the city of Wilmington to buy; Lanny Weaver and his son, Kevin, sponsoring a golf tournament to raise money for cancer research; Rob Townsend, chairing the board of Delaware Youth for Christ, Tim and Carole Houseal helping to put on the New Castle County Prayer Breakfast each October; and Judy Arthur’s commitment to Read Aloud Delaware.

And what shall I say about: Mike & Janet Helmar going at their expense with Samaritan’s Purse to relieve victims of natural disasters; Gregg and Susan Warren and the 70-80 people on their teams that set up and take down in the Gym and at McCrery every weekend; Winnie Singer, teaching elementary Sunday school children decade after decade; the 140 ushers that minister in five Sunday services throughout the year; the hundreds of teenagers and adult volunteers that have served in Maine, Canada, Ukraine, Argentina, Peru, Haiti, Trinidad, Ireland, and Guatemala; the volunteers in this church who teach children and adults and serve as deacons and committee members and run the Prayer Chain and lead small groups; Cynthia Brown, Jeff and Karen Ernst and mentor couples, who have prepared dozens and dozens of couples with Preparation for Marriage classes for the past 16 years; and Nancy Grant, Nancy Brosius and Terri Traut, who have worked long and hard on the interior finishes of Phase III. Thus ends Chapter One.

You can feel the energy of God coursing through our life together. Here’s how verse 16 summarizes the partial role call of service I just went through. From him (Christ) the whole body (the Church), joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.  What can you contribute here? What works of service can you do? The effort is worthy of your religious vocation to be the flesh in which God makes His way into history.

Stability
The Church is called to be a sign of God’s presence on earth. That’s why it’s important for each part to do its work. It’s also important for the Church to be a place of stability in an uncertain world.

Let’s set the stage here by combining what I just said about works of service with what I said last week about Christian unity. We begin again at verse 11: It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (that’s people like me), to prepare God’s people (that’s people like you) for works of service (that’s everything the Church does). Verse 13 goes on to tell us what purpose our effort serves: so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.

Do you hear what I hear? Seriously, did you hear what I heard here? Doing works of service leads to Christian unity. That’s not wishful thinking; it’s practical politics. The pro-life movement has done more for Christian unity than the World Council of Churches ever did. It isn’t very theological, but it’s very effective for Christians who have been hostile to each other for generations to say to each other, “If you are an enemy of my enemy, then you are my friend.” Out of that humble beginning Christians have discovered how much they have in common.

I’ll never forget an early spring ride from Dover back to Wilmington in 2007. Carole and I gave a ride to two women with whom we had worked side by side that day to persuade the Delaware legislature not to pass a bill supporting hESC research.

As we rode up Route 1, we got to talking about our children and our faith in Christ. One of the women told of an act of devotion that her Catholic church in Claymont encouraged. She and her daughter stopped at their church, went inside and adored Jesus Christ. I was stunned by their devotion to Jesus. Any friend of Christ is a friend of mine.

Tens of thousands of Evangelicals and Catholics have discovered their mutual devotion to Christ, as they labored together to modify or overturn Roe v. Wade and embryo-destructive research. To use Paul’s language in verse 13 this growing unity is moving the Church (not the Evangelical church or the Catholic church, but the Church) toward maturity as maturity is measured by Christ Himself.

Works of service lead to unity and maturity, and Paul thought that the outcome of that maturity would be stability. Verse 14: Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

The culture we live in promotes beliefs and values that often contradict Christian beliefs and values. There are predators out there, and they would love to lunch on you. It’s much harder to deceive a mature church than to deceive one that is divided and whose pastors presume to know everything and to do everything.

Let me tell you where the stability of BVBC comes from. Verse 16 again: From him (Christ) the whole body (the Church) . . . grows and builds itself up. BVBC is connected to Christ like your foot is connected to the magnificent neural structure of your brain. We are connected to Him by faith. And by faith we don’t mean just an inward feeling or experience. We believe that He is God’s Son; born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; crucified, dead and buried as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; brought back from death to eternal life in an indestructible body; ascended to heaven to govern the affairs of earth; and coming again to teach the nations never again to make war. That’s what most Christians in all places for the last 2000 years have believed and lived by and died for.

We expect our pastors to be devoted to this Savior and trained to understand and teach the meaning of Christ in every human circumstance. We want our congregation to be shaped by this faith, so that we become a community of Christ-followers, known by our love, engaging God in heartfelt worship, engaging our communities with compassionate deeds, and engaging our culture with gracious discernment. That faith and vision anchors us to Christ. He anchors us against every wind of teaching and . . . the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 

The Pastoral Center of GravityThe Church is not just another choice in the free market of ideas. It is God’s dwelling place on earth. It merits your loyalty, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s God’s dwelling place on earth. I ask you to share my devotion to the Church.

I hereby swear that to uphold your house
I would lay my bones in quick destroying lime
Or turn my flesh to timber for all time;
Cut away my manhood; lop off the boughs
Of that perpetual ecstasy that grows
From the heart’s core; condemn it as a crime
If it be broader than a beam, or climb
Above the stature that your roof allows.
I am not the hearthstone nor the cornerstone
Within this noble fabric you have builded;
Not by my beauty was its cornice gilded;
Not on my courage were its arches thrown;
My Lord, adjudge my strength, and set me where
Ibear a little more than I can bear.                    -Elinor Wylie