God's Ultimate Purpose and Our Role in His Plan

The passage of scripture from Ephesians, if you would like to find that in your Bibles. Ephesians chapter 1. I'll be reading from verse 9 in that chapter. Life often times is chaotic. You start down the road to do something or to have something take place and then something bad happens and it seems like it's overwhelming. And then something else happens and something else happens and sometimes we stop and say, well, maybe I really shouldn't be doing this. It seems like everything I'm trying to accomplish or trying to achieve gets sort of sidetracked. And I think it's that way in the world. We look at the world around us and there's so many bad things that take place that sometimes we think the world is in chaos. It's out of control. There's not any direction to it. But the Bible makes it clear that God has an ultimate purpose for the world. In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul addressed this beginning with verse 9. And he has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he proposed in Christ. To be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. The word mystery here is not like a whodunit. Like somebody murders another person and you're trying to figure out who did it. It really has the idea that something that is clearly plain and visible is not clear to you until someone explains it. For example, if you were driving past a field of cattle and you saw some black cows out there and you saw some red cows with white faces out there and you saw some red cows, you would say, I wonder what all those different cows are. Someone with you might say, well, those cows are different breeds of cows. These are Angus cattle and these over here are Brangus cattle and these over here are Hereford cattle. You would then know exactly what you were seeing. Before that, they would have been a mystery to you. Many people in the world look at the world history and they look at ordinary events that take place and they think that the world is simply moving without direction or purpose or goal. The creator of the universe, God, has a plan for this world. That's what Paul is writing in the book of Ephesians. He has a plan for what's taking place. His purpose is that the end result of all the world history would be that Christ would be the ultimate ruler of all the world, the head of everything. That is his goal. It doesn't matter what happens in history. It doesn't matter what happens in the different countries. God is not changing his purpose for this world. So in spite of all the chaos, we should know that there is an ultimate goal as to what God is trying to accomplish, to bring everything in the world under his authority. This is also what it means to be a part of the family of God. God's way by which he does this is to draw together a group of people who are already under the authority and control of Christ. It happens to us because we start out in the world being self-centered and self-focused. We do what we want to do. We do it when we want to do it. And when we're even small children or babies, we want everything we can grasp a hold of. And someone takes something away from us, we cry. As we get older, we may not cry, but we certainly complain when we lose the things that are ours. Our self-centeredness and our self-focusedness is that element of human nature that's a part of all of us. As we live our lives out, sometimes our plans don't actually get accomplished. We know what we want to do, what we want to achieve, but we find ourselves at times looking at the circumstances around us and saying, how can this be happening to me? I seem to be on the wrong road. Nothing really seems to be working to me. Or you may achieve all the things that you've ever wanted, but inside of you, you feel like, you know, there's something missing in my life. Those are ways by which God stops us from our self-centeredness and says there is more to life than what you can accomplish. There is something in your life that only I can really do. It is this awareness or conviction of sin or God's pointing to us our need that causes us to stop and say, is there something else to life that I'm missing? When we call on God and say, I don't know what it is, but I want you to take control of my life, then God becomes the Lord of our life. What he's talking about here is that he wants to have everything under one head. And in that moment, we say to God, I want you to take control of my life. I want you to be the head for me, the head that controls everything in my life. The head is critical to all that takes place in the human body. You can't do anything without the head's instructions to all the members of the body. Sometimes we're not even aware that our head is giving us instructions. We may think I'd like to raise my hand, but we don't think about each finger receiving a message from the head as to what it's supposed to do. It's essential that the head is there to give us instructions. You can pick up a piece of paper, and whenever you pick that paper up, your head tells the finger to stay there and the thumb to stay there, and you can hold it tight. And you can hold it so tight that it's hard for you to tear it out of the finger and thumb grip. But when the thumb is gone, the paper no longer can be held by one finger. You can supplement, you can put the paper between two fingers, but it isn't very hard to pull it out. In fact, as hard as you press, you just can't seem to do it. Our head is a critical part of the function of the body. That's Jesus' instructions to us. He's talking about the fact that the church is the body of Christ, and Christ is head of the church. Jesus implemented this because when he started, the very first thing he did when he started his ministry is he collected around him a group of people, twelve disciples. He started teaching them about what the Father wanted them to do, how they could relate to God, and how could they be a part of God's whole plan for this world. With this group of twelve people, he wanted to illustrate all the world, what it meant to have God's authority over a person's life. No one could enter this group of disciples unless they pledged to do what Jesus wanted them to do. He said to them, come and follow me. They had to make a concrete, clear choice to say, I will begin now to do the things that Jesus teaches me to do. He asked them to leave their jobs and their businesses, and all the things that they were doing, to come for three years and simply walk with him. What he taught them every day was what the Father wanted for them. What did it mean for the Father to be in control of all their lives? He taught them about what to do with money. He taught them about what to do with fear. He taught them about what to do in their marriages. He talked about all the events of life, and what instructions God had for every one of those circumstances. When God is in charge of your life, this is the way your life will look. Now, Jesus not only told them these things, he lived it himself. He lived in dependence upon the Father. He said, I don't do anything except what the Father tells me to do. Having the Father in charge of my life, you can see the way I live this out. This is the way life should be lived. He not only called them to that, but he lived that in front of them, as well as teaching them what they should do. Jesus was building in this small group, the church. The church that was to be able to reflect to all of the world what God's ultimate plan was and how it was to work. In this group, people who said, I'm ready to do anything God wants, wherever he wants, any way he wants. We see people whose lives changed the world. This is what I can do if you will give me your life and live in absolute submission to me. Now, there are different kinds of churches in the world, and all of them have different kind of rules about how you get to be a part of the church. Sometimes people become members of churches when they're baptized as babies. Our church is part of a group in the Christian community called Believer Churches. It doesn't mean that there are other churches that don't have believers in them. But what it does mean is that to become a part of this group, we take the pattern that Jesus used. You have to say to him, I commit my life to follow you. Today, I say, I turn over my life, everything in it, to your authority. I will try to live from this moment on doing what you tell me I should do. Whenever we make this promise to God, he then justifies us. That is, he forgives us of all the things we've done contrary to what he wants. And we stand before him as forgiven people. This is the entrance into the body of Christ or the church. This is what forms this body of Christ. Now, Jesus didn't stop there with his disciples. He began to walk with them and talk to them about how they had to change the way they were thinking to a new way of thinking. You've heard it said in the past, he often told them, this is what you should do, but I tell you, this is what you should do. Over and over again, Jesus was telling them how to think about the most critical things in the world. How do you think about money? How do you use it? That's a big one. How do you think about your relationships with your husband or wife? That's a big thing for us. How do you raise your children? How do you treat the people around you who you don't like, who are your enemies? Over and over again, Jesus taught them the things that the Father wanted them to do. He is in charge and these things will become a part of your life. That was his instructions to them. And all the way through that, he was showing them not only by his instructions, but by his life what he meant. He said to them on a couple of occasions, I only do what the Father tells me to do. I don't go off wild and just do whatever I feel like or whatever I want. I only say the things the Father tells me to say. He shows us that before he did anything, he stopped and said, okay, Father, should I do this or not? With all areas of his life. He shows us that before he spoke up, he would stop and say to the Father, what do you want me to say about this? And he was careful to listen to what the Father said. He lived under the authority of the Father every minute of his life and he called his disciples around him and said, now, since I am doing this as an example to you, this is what you are to do. We believe in our church that the only person who should come into the church, our people have made this same promise to God. I give my life to you. I am prepared to change anything about my life that you want to have changed. I will learn from you. This is what the church's job is, is we are to teach the Bible, just like Jesus taught the Old Testament to his disciples. We're to teach the Bible so that people will know how God wants them to think, how God wants them to use their time, how he wants them to use their life, how he's to deal with the relationships around them. This is the task of the church. This task is the process of what we often call in theology sanctification. You may hear that word sometimes. It means that you are in the process of becoming more and more like Christ, more and more the way God wants you to be. The growth of the Christian to become like Christ is a lifelong process and it's done in the community of the church. When Christ is head of the church, he tells every part of the church what it ought to do, so that all of us, when we start something, building campaign or whatever it is, we ask God for his direction. That's why we have business meetings like we have tonight. We think you ought to pray about what God wants us to do in those meetings and whatever issues that come up. We want to find the will of God about those meetings, about those issues. What gets us in trouble, you see, is oftentimes we don't ask God for what he wants. Instead, we go back to that pre-Christ time, when we were doing what felt good to us, when we were doing what we enjoyed, or we were doing things that were pleasant to us. Jesus made it clear to all of his disciples that following him was not going to be getting what you want. Deny yourself, he said. Take up your cross and do what I do. He knew that following him meant that sometimes you had to say, I don't get my way. Sometimes you had to say, I have to do something that's really risky, dangerous, and costly to me, to obey God. That's the part of discipleship. Because the head, Christ, is in charge of everything. So when he gives us instructions as to what he wants us to do, that is what God tells us. There is no other choice with regard to this. Paul, in the book of Ephesians, in the book of Colossians, I mean, in chapter 1, saying to us again, the relationship that he expects us to be able to have with God. God's relationship is the one of authority over us. In verse 15 of chapter 1 of Colossians, he said, He is in the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He's talking about Christ here. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. In other words, the ruler of Russia is under Christ's authority. Every ruler of every nation is under Christ's authority and answerable to Christ for what they do. In this world, they may have no one who can tell them anything. But the moment they stand before God, accountability will be required. He is the ruler of all powers and authority. All things were created by him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn among many, among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Now this passage opens up a whole different thing. Not only is the head to be able to control each member of the body of Christ, not only is the head to be able to direct to all those who are followers of him exactly what they ought to do, but now he says he is to bring peace among all the people. The presence of Christ is transforming to reconcile and bring peace to people. What we all understand is that some of the most difficult circumstances in our lives are dealing with other people. They want what they want and they want it the way they want it. And all of us are faced in our personal lives, in our homes and families with conflicts that seem irreconcilable. And we're faced in our world with conflicts that seem irreconcilable. Every election period that comes, it seems as if there is no way in the world that we're going to be able to have leaders that can agree with each other. This is the way the world operates when God is not in control of their minds and their will and their emotions. Because the substitute for God is putting yourself in the place of God. I demand that other people do what I think is the right thing. Oftentimes you hear people talk about churches that have difficulties over little issues. I heard a preacher say a few weeks ago that he was a member of a church at one time that had a split over the color of the carpet. But a church doesn't split over the color of a carpet. It splits over who gets to choose the color of the carpet. I like this color. I like another color. And I want everyone to vote for me so I can win. In reality, the color makes very little difference to the world or the kingdom of God. But it makes a great deal of difference to someone who thinks that they have the right for everyone to let them win. What Jesus did when he called his disciples together was to say to them, when you have one head, then you get rid of all that kind of difficulty. The great problems that we have with our bodies that cause such dysfunctions is the failure of the body to be able to get the signal from the head about what they're supposed to do. I've often talked about in churches to say, the problems that come up where you have two sides and people can't get together, the issue is not nearly as important as the fact that you can't get together. Take the color of a carpet. You have someone that likes red. You have someone that likes brown. Really, you could put either one of those on the floor and it'd be fine. It would do the job of a carpet. It would cover the floor. But you see, what's really behind all of this is people feel like they have to be right and have the authority or power to win. So it's that element that disturbs the relationship. What Jesus did when he drew his disciples aside, he said to them, I'm going to show you how to heal all human relationships. And he did that by what the Bible calls love, self-denying, sacrificial service to others. He called his disciples. He did everything they needed from him to do. He only was authoritative when he was telling them the instructions of the Father that the Father had given to him. He probably had lots of personal ideas about what they should do, but we don't find Jesus saying you have to wear this kind of coat. You have to ride this kind of boat. We have to meet in this kind of place. He only told them the things that the Father said they should do and he gave them the freedom to be able to do it in many different ways. And whenever the disciples were proud and they wanted to be in authority, they had arguments about that. They were fighting with each other who'd get to be in charge. Jesus never encouraged that. He always showed them that it was the wrong thing to do. So they came into the room after this journey where they were fighting and they were all proud. They all thought they should be second in command to Jesus. No one wanted to be humble and a servant to the others. They wanted all to be generals. Jesus took a basin of water and they were walking on the road, their sandals off. Now they were dusty and he went over and he started washing their feet. Peter was so overwhelmed by this and Jesus' humility of servanthood. His thinking was, here is Jesus, the great teacher, the Son of God. He can't wash my feet. I don't deserve that. He shouldn't have to be a servant. And he said to Jesus, you can't wash my feet. And Jesus said to him, you can't be my follower unless I can. And he said, oh then give me a bath with everything. Jesus said, that's not necessary. It's only necessary that I wash your feet. What Jesus was showing us was the servant spirit that is marked by someone who's under his control and he lived it out. He met the needs of his disciples at every moment in their life. He gave himself for them even when they were rebellious and even when they didn't get it. Jesus exemplified the servant nature and character that God has for all the world. What Jesus was doing was illustrating what love means. He was showing them that giving their life to another person was the characteristic that God wanted to mark his people who are following him. If you are my follower, you will do what Jesus has done. He's been your servant. He's taken care of you in every circumstances. He puts your interest ahead of his own. He's given everything for you. When Jesus was getting ready to leave, John, two different times and two different places, gives a final instruction that he gave to his disciples. He told them they were to love each other. You see, what Jesus wanted was, in the middle of this stress-torn world, in the middle of this world with confusion and uncertainty, he wanted to be able to say, look at these people who are following me, how they do not conflict with each other, how they resolve their conflicts, how they settle their differences. If you have in your body some kind of disease that doesn't allow your limbs or your fingers to do what they should do, you've understood this, and if you've seen it, you know it. How that a person wants to take a step, but their body is not able to take that step. How they'd like to be able to use their hands in ways that they've done all their life, but all of a sudden their hands won't close in the way they want to. We can't grip the way we want to. We can't get up and walk and run the way we want to. We find our body no longer is able to function that way. And whenever it happens, it means that there is something in your head sending a message to the limbs of your body, and something interrupts that signal, so it no longer gets there. This is the most devastating thing that can happen to us, is that the message from our head does not reach the limbs that they're intended to control and direct. So whenever the church finds itself disobedient to the head, it becomes dysfunctional in the same way the body does. You have a stroke, so that your mind cannot send its signal to your body, to different body parts. It cripples you. Now, in our case, the head never has a stroke. Christ never loses his ability to help us. But we can disconnect ourselves from Christ. When he tells us something, we can say, I don't want to. When he tells us we should pray about the things that we're trying to do, we can say, well, I don't have time. And we disconnect ourselves from the heads. When the body is decapitated, it is useless for anything. And when the church separates itself from the head, by either ignoring Christ, by not reading the Bible, not asking him what we should do, when we do that, we disconnect ourselves from the head. Churches die because they decapitate themselves. They separate themselves from the authority and submission and obedience to Christ. We do that by not reading the Bible, not listening when we do read or hear it as to what God wants to change about our life, when we ignore what God tells us, I know what I should do, but... And the more you do that in your life, the more you find yourself separated from the head. And the more that happens to you, the more difficulty you'll find in your life, the more tragedy you'll find in your life, and the more dysfunctional your life will become. The answer is very simple. So sit down and say to God, I've separated myself from you as the head. I want to acknowledge my failure to do this and ask you now to come again and take control of my life. Oftentimes we decide we're going to listen to the things from the head that we want. That makes anger, that makes a conflict between us and God. And then it begins to affect our relationships with each other. If you think of the conflicts you've had in your life, I can promise you that the conflicts are over who gets to have their way. What God wanted was a group of people who were so devoted to him that they would say, we will do whatever you tell us to do. Now in our body, your fingers can't fight each other. They don't each have a mind of their own. But in human experience, in our human experience with each other, each of us does have a mind of our own. And so we want things to be the way we want them to be. Whether it's the way you talk, or the way you say things, or the things that you do. You look at every family quarrel and fight. Someone wants one thing, someone else wants another. And neither are prepared to give. And so the battle rages on. And in churches you see the same thing. Somebody has an idea about what we should do. Somebody else has another idea that's different. And the battle rages on. Those are hard things to resolve. In fact, many people in their lives and families, those conflicts have been there so long that they just seem like it's absolutely impossible to ever resolve them. But the Bible is very clear and simple about that. If two people in desperate conflict with each other would sit down and say to God, what do you want me to do about this? And the other person would say the same thing. Then they would come together and both of them would say at the same time, you can have your way. The issues resolved. Because God has only one direction to give to us. And if there are two people on a telephone with someone on the other end, you're on a line where both of you are listening to one person talking, you will both hear the same thing. And if the person on the other end is your boss and he tells you what you're to do, then you have clear direction. The problem comes whenever one or the other or both of the people listening to the boss do not want to accept the boss's instructions. So when the phone call is over, they're ready to fight again. There is no marital problem, no church problem, no problem in the world that cannot be settled if every person does exactly what God tells them to do. So if you have a conflict with someone, one of the other or both of you are determined to do what you want. Now one of you may be right and the other may be wrong. Both of you may be right or both of you may be wrong. But it doesn't matter. When you listen to what God tells you, he will tell you to do something that will always bring peace. Peace is the result of the absence of conflict with each other. What is it that I know God wants me to do? It's the same thing he tells the other people involved too. Now he may tell you a little bit of the right answer, if there are two people involved. He may tell each one of you half of the answer. And you may think your half is the real answer and the other person's half is not the answer. But when you sit down and start talking, sometimes both answers have to be put together to solve the whole picture. He does that because he wants us to understand we must be willing to listen to others too. For he not only speaks to us, he speaks to us through other people too. In this story of Jesus' life, he had 8% of his disciples who wanted to kill him. It's a pretty healthy load. And yet in all the three years that he lived, no one ever figured out that Judas was the bad guy. Jesus treated all those 12 exactly the same. He didn't withdraw himself from Judas. In fact, Judas held the only office of the group. He was a treasurer. Judas had the most prominent position in terms of finances. What Jesus did was he treated Judas as if Judas was just like everybody else. What God wants to have in the church is he wants people who are listening to him. And when there's a conflict to stop and say, wait a minute God, one or the other or both of us are really not listening to you. I will do whatever you tell me to do. You just make it clear to me. And the other person says the same thing. So you sit down and say, why don't we have a different idea? Both of us have tossed God. Let's work this out. Maybe I should give a little, you should give a little. Maybe both of us should completely give up and look for another direction. We've got to solve this problem because our head will not separate us. We know that there has to be a solution that both of us can live with. It is a matter of humility, being willing to say, I will say I'm wrong and I'm willing to change anything, any time, any place that God tells me I should change. What Jesus wanted from his twelve was for all the rest of human history to look at that group and say they were all kinds of different people, fishermen, executives, people with more money, people that didn't have any money, but they were molded into one unit because they listened to one person. So every person that gets married, you look at this story and you say we can find unity no matter how different our backgrounds are. Every person that becomes a part of a church says we can be together if we all listen to Christ, put aside our own interests and say what does God want? I am willing to change anything. He wanted from that small group of people to say I want to show the world how I am going to make heaven because every person in heaven is willing to do whatever I tell them they should do. I tell you when you get to heaven, you won't have a vote about what's going to go on up there. I mean, it'll be clear. God will tell us directly. We can hear his voice clearly and we will know. And if you're not prepared in this world to do whatever God tells you, you're not going to be happy in heaven. He may want polka dot carpets. You'll have to learn to like it. And like it because your master wants it. You can like a lot of things if you love the person enough. I go into houses all the time and see terrible paintings on the icebox. That if you were to go out in the community, those people would not choose to have those pictures in their house. But the person that draws them, colors them, they love. And they cherish. So they cherish the result. The other person in the church who's under the authority of Christ, you should love and cherish. And you should want them, if at all possible, to have their way. If that's true for everybody in the church, then all we have to do is to say, okay, let's all express our opinion and find in all of this the will of God. For there is one head over the body. And all the members are controlled by that one head. Solving problems in your marriage or your family or the church is only a problem if everybody's not willing to listen to the one head in charge and submit to the authority of that head. And if that's not true, then you'll never ever in your life find peace. Look around you. All the world in turmoil and peace and conflict with each other. What Christ wanted in the church was a group of very different kind of people to get together and discover there is a way when you listen to one person speaking that we can all be together in what God wants. So when Jesus was getting ready to leave his disciples in John chapter 13 beginning at verse 34, a new commandment I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Now the word love here does not mean like one another. You don't have to like people to love them in this biblical sense. It means that you must serve them. You must have self-denying sacrificial service to others. You must do what you can or must do or have to do to help each other. So that you put the other person's interest and needs ahead of your own. This he said is the characteristic that will describe who you are. So all of the world will know that you belong to me because I have done this in my time on this earth. And again in John chapter 15, Jesus was again addressing them. He's getting toward the very end of his life where the crucifixion is going to occur. Chapter 15 beginning with verse 9. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. As the Father has served me, so I am serving you. Now remain in my service or love. If you obey my command, you will remain in my love. In other words, if you ask me, if I ask God what he wants me to do, he will always tell me something that benefits other people. Not that hurts them. Now we may think we're benefiting other people when we tell them off or we cuss them out, but we're not. What God has is a different way. You will remain in my love as I have obeyed my Father's command and remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. If you get a chance to do something sacrificial for somebody you care about, you have joy. Don't you love helping your people that you really love? Don't you get a real joy out of that? My command is this. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lays down his life for his friends. You can even phrase this a little differently. Greater love has no one than this, that he gives up his point of view for the other. That may be the hardest thing we ever have to do. Unless it's immoral or contrary to what God wants, it doesn't matter. And the greatest joy we can have is giving up our own point of view that others. Greater love has no one than this, that you lay down your opinion for your friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I've called you friends for everything that I have learned from my Father. I've made known to you. You didn't choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last. And that's what he means. It's his sacrificial service that will last. Those things you remember all your life. People who've done things for you that really meant something. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. So if your prayer life is stymied, you may stop and say, what am I doing and not loving other people? Am I in conflict with people? This is my command. Love each other. Serve each other. Serve people you don't like. Serve people you're friends. You serve everyone. That characterized the life of Jesus. And if he's in control of our lives, it will characterize us. The church is the body of Christ. It is the tool by which the whole world knows what God is like by watching you. Listening to your language. Watching the way you treat people. Seeing how you settle your conflicts at work or at home. That's how the world knows what God is like. God has sent us on a powerful mission that through the church, the world would know what God is really like. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment?