We're not going to dismiss the kids just yet because they need to hear the next presentation. We have some guests with us this morning. They are the family of Becky Stassi. And she has a nephew, also the nephew of the wife of one of the Dean Bible Ministry board members, Trina Lawson. And they are visiting here, and the nephew is Lucas Cropp and his wife, Mariah. And they have recently joined with a ministry in Alaska, joined Victory Ministries as full-time missionaries. And so they're traveling around the U.S. right now raising some support for the calling that God has given them. And it's a Christian camp and I am a product of a Christian camp. I spent all of my summers from the time I was nine until the time I was 25 working at a summer camp. And I don't know what the statistics are today, but I know that back in the 70's something like 75%, 70-75% of those who were in full-time professional Christian ministry came to it through the ministries of Christian camping. And we have one man in this congregation Jeff who has founded the Camp Arete and so we participate in that as a ministry one week each year. So Christian camping is very important. So Lucas come up here. He's got a short video he's going to play for us and then he will just say a few words about what they are involved in. So there you go. You can just hit the space bar and it should start. Hello, hello. Can you guys hear me okay? Awesome. Well, thank you, Pastor, for that introduction, and thank you for the privilege to let me speak behind your pulpit. I spent many of my formative years actually right here in Texas going to church at Bracca, right down the road. So it's pretty cool. Now, of course, my wife and I are in Alaska, and we've been recently accepted as full-time missionaries. for Victory Bible Camp in Alaska. I will be one of their head cooks, that's what we'll be doing there. And Victory operates not just as a summer camp, but as a Christian retreat center for many churches and groups all year long, and yes, even in the crazy Alaskan winters. My wife and I flew to Chicago from Alaska on March 21st, and we'll be doing our big loop all the way through the United States until May 8th, and then fly back up to Alaska, where we'll be starting as full-time there. And through the last 16 days, God has continued to affirm and remind us how much better His timing is. One of the ways we've seen God working in just the last 16 days is we're driving a 15-passenger van all around the country right now. And we had to do some brake work when we arrived here in Houston. And so that was a little bit of a bummer. But once we got all the brakes fixed up, thanks to my uncle Matt here offering his garage and tools up for us, we went over to Discount Tire to make sure all the tires and everything else was square and good to go. And a wonderful gentleman named Tristan came out. And I got to share the story and our heart God has for us to him. And lo and behold, he was actually stationed in the army in Alaska, went around, did a couple more of our tires, came back, and he goes, you know, I was actually a missionary for a couple of years prior. And I was like, no way. And it ended up being a blessing for him to hear and a blessing for us as well. And now he's joining us and partnering with us as we continue this journey throughout. So just really cool to see how even unfortunate what seems like time-consuming events actually is for God's glory in that. I'd like to show you all a short video of what we're doing and what victory looks like. We'd love to connect with you after the service and share more of our heart for what God has given us for victory and our support-raising journey. Hello, folks. My name's Lucas. This is my beautiful wife, Mariah, and son, Solomon. We are The Crops, and we're living here in Alaska now, and we've been accepted as full-time staff with Victory Bible Camp here in Alaska. We've always had a heart for ministry and for youth, and through Kingdom Air Corps is what brought us up to Alaska, and I pursued my pilot certifications through them. And with the Brooks Range Bible Camp, we really felt God pulling our hearts towards camping ministry, and we saw the great need the youth of Alaska have for Christ. And so in winter of 2024, we put an application in to Victory Bible Camp and we were accepted. So our vision is proclaiming Christ through the food that we cook. The basic need of food isn't being met. You bet campers aren't hearing the gospel either. So being the cook in the kitchen provides a really cool opportunity to touch lives around the world, even from in front of the oven. or behind a knife. Inside of the kitchen, we have upwards of 30 different volunteers ranging from varying ages and backgrounds for different lengths of time. As a part of the food service team, I get the opportunity to interact and lead these folks inside of the kitchen. Some from uncertain places in their faith, in which we get to live and work alongside, encourage and direct them to Jesus. Victory's kitchen serves about 60,000 plates a year. Each time that plate reaches a camper or a guest, you bet they're also hearing about Jesus. Through meeting their physical need of nourishing food, we can prepare their minds and hearts to hear about Christ. But, serving in the kitchen isn't all about the food, although it is crucial to making sure kids can hear the gospel. It's about serving spiritual food and showing people the love of Christ no matter what position you work. Our goal is to evangelize the youth of Alaska by serving them great food, helping people find their purpose through Christ while working in the kitchen, and always being ready to give an account as to the hope we have within us. If campers aren't being fed, they aren't hearing the gospel. All staff at Victor are funded solely by generous supporters who partner alongside us to carry out our mission here in Alaska. You can now take a step of faith with us. If you feel led to support us financially or be a prayer partner, please come talk to us. Thank you all and God bless. Those who cook also serve. Very important. All right, this time we're gonna dismiss the kids to go back to their prep school classes. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Desire the unadulterated milk of the word like a newborn baby that you may grow thereby. His divine power has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Jesus prayed to the Father, sanctify them by means of truth. Your word is truth. As we prepare to study God's word this morning, let's bow our heads together and go before the throne of grace. Our Father, we are thankful we can come together this morning to focus upon you, to let your word inform us, teach us, build us, equip us, edify us. Father, we're thankful for Lucas and Mariah, for the ministry that you have provided for them and their enthusiasm and desire to serve you in this way, and the impact that they will have on numerous young adults and children throughout the coming years. Father, we're thankful that we have your Word to inform us and help us to shape our thinking, to renew our minds so that we can think biblically, think your thoughts after you, and be reminded that we are to be conformed to the character of Christ. And so we pray that as we focus on our passage this morning, that you will use that to continue to mature us. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. This morning our focus is going to be on the church, the body of Christ. What exactly is the church? What is the purpose of the local church? What is the purpose for Christ's body called the church? And today we see among so-called evangelical Christians such confusion over the meaning of the church, confusion over the local church and its purpose, that often it is confused with social interaction, it is confused with entertainment, And little is ever done that is biblically accurate. The purpose for the local church, according to Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, is to equip the saints. Church is not for unbelievers. Church is for believers. That doesn't mean we don't proclaim the gospel. As Paul told Timothy, that part of the work of a pastor was to do the work of an evangelist, to proclaim the gospel. But the purpose that God gives the gift of a pastor is to equip the saints, the believers, to do the work of the ministry. I'm the equipper, you're the ministers. But in most churches in the world, the pastors are considered the ministers, and the believers are just the observers. And that's not biblical. We've totally missed the purpose of the local church in so many, many areas. And so we need to look at that because it's integral to this passage that we've been studying for the past several weeks. So the whole section goes from verse 25 down to verse 33. And as I have been pointing out so many times recently, when we read through Scripture, we need to be able to think through what the writer is saying. because God the Holy Spirit is working through the writer in these various letters that are written for local churches. And so when you look at a paragraph you get a collection of sentences that all revolve around a certain basic theme or subject. And within those sentences, each sentence presents a key idea. Some are complex sentences or compound sentences, and they have a couple of major ideas, a couple of major independent clauses. But I've broken this down and color-coded it so that you can see where the sentences are. And we're still looking at the first three verses and building off of that into what is said in the next two sentences. In verse 28, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. Now that introduces that word body. And then we look at an expansion of that in the next two verses. So you see the connection here is going to be that husbands are challenged to nourish and cherish their wives. And that is built off of the analogy with Christ as the head of the church that is nourishing His body, the church. So this is the second of these two metaphors that are in this passage. that are for the church. The first we looked at last week which was the idea of the Bride of Christ. And we saw this as we looked at that first sentence in those three verses of 25-27 that this is built off of an analogy to a Jewish wedding and the process of the betrothal, which occurred a year before the wedding. And for all practical purposes other than consummation of the marriage, the couple was viewed as husband and wife. And the groom would come to his intended, and then he would propose to her, knowing what the answer would be, And then once they were betrothed, then there would be a preparation for the marriage for the next year. And then as they came to the wedding night, one of the things that would happen is the bride would be prepared through ritual washing. She would go to a mikvah. A mikvah was something that was carved out of the ground usually. and filled with water. And so and they would have steps that you would walk down going into the mikvah. And you would come and then you would immerse in the water and then you would come out the other side because the one side was the side where you were not clean. And so you would come out the other side, not being tainted ritually by walking in the same footsteps where you were, you were ritually unclean. And so this is a picture of the bride being prepared and a statement of her purity and preparation for the marriage. And so this is picked up by Paul. This is the idea of being positionally sanctified and positionally cleansed. So this is depicted in this event, that the wife is prepared and ready. This is then used with the analogy of the washing of water by the Word, which I'll come back to and say in just a minute. So Christ is preparing the church. These are positional concepts. I've talked about this in the past. And all of this is a demonstration of the love of Christ for us as seen in the five uses of the word love in these verses from 25 down to 33. We've also looked at the structure of these first three verses that indicate the ultimate purpose for Christ dying for the church. And I made the point, and you need to remember this, this is the only place in Scripture that talks about Christ's love for the church. and dying for the church. Other passages you have God's love for the world and Christ dying for the world. You have emphasis on God's love for individuals and Christ dying for individuals. But here the focus is what He does for the church. And so behind this is that understanding that the original audience would have had of these bridal customs and the washing of the bride. And so his first purpose is to set apart, that's the meaning of the word sanctified, to set apart the church for the purpose of serving God. And so to be set apart there has to be that spiritual purification that takes place which is related to the cleansing, sanctifying and cleansing with the washing of the Word, to a further purpose which is to present to Himself a glorious church. not having spot or wrinkle, and that she should be holy or set apart and without blemish. Again this is positional, but that's what will happen at the rapture is we will all have our resurrection bodies, we will not have a sin nature, we will be positionally and experientially without sin. And that is when we are presented, Christ presents us to Himself. And that's the last part of the last that clause, our result clause, is that she should be holy that is set apart and without blemish. So just to review, we saw that Paul states these three aims or goals that Christ has for dying for the church. The first is to set her apart, to sanctify the church, and to cleanse, which means to spiritually purify from sin by the washing by the Word. So this is an important concept that we see here that builds off of the fact that in the Old Testament there were a number of ritual washings. All of them were related to the priest at the time that the priest was initially officially entered into the priesthood he would be, he would take a bath, full bath. And that pictures that initial cleansing in preparation for service. And then every time that he would come into the tabernacle in order to serve the Lord he would have to wash only his hands and only his feet. The Lord used that backdrop when He's washing the feet of the disciples and He says said that all but one, which is Judas, all but one were cleansed. And that's a term that indicates their positional cleansing, they had been saved. all 11 had been saved. And he's washing Peter's feet and Peter said, don't, you're not going to wash my feet. And the Lord said, if I don't wash your feet, you have no, he said, it's usually translated, you have no part with me, but you have no future inheritance with me. It doesn't mean he's not saved, but that there's not going to be an inheritance, there aren't going to be rewards if you don't learn to be experientially cleansed from your sin. It's emphasizing the fact that you are to confess your sins regularly to be cleansed so that that which you do by virtue of walking by the Spirit has eternal value and will be rewardable at the judgment seat of Christ. You're not rewarded for what you do. you're rewarded because you're walking by the Spirit and the Spirit is going to do certain things through you. And so because the Spirit does these things through you and you allow that to happen, you're going to get rewards. It doesn't have anything to do with, oh, I did this, I'm so smart, I did all these things, and so I get rewards. No, what you did was you submitted yourself to the Holy Spirit and walked by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit did these things through you, and God graciously is going to reward you for that. So positionally, though, at salvation we're set apart and cleansed. And so Jesus does this secondly in order to present the church to Himself at the rapture which is immediately followed by the judgment seat of Christ. And He is presenting to Himself a glorious church. And then third, so the third ultimate goal is that this body, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ is presented to Him set apart and without blemish. So this then, it provides all of the background here and we've looked at this as it relates to something that happens with the bride. So to put this in a graphic we have the Bible talks about our relationship with God in terms of two perspectives. One of them is our position, our legal identity. The moment you were born to your parents you had a legal identity. The moment you are adopted, if you were adopted and you became legally part of that family, you had that legal identity. But sometimes you didn't like your parents. And some of you may have even run away from home a time or two. Some of you may have chosen to just completely separate yourself from your family. But you can't change your DNA. You can't change that legal identity. That is that is yours. That's the analogy that we have in Scripture is once we are saved at the moment of salvation, we're adopted into God's family. We can't change that ever. Now, there are a lot of Christians who are like the prodigal son and they want to just take their inheritance and run away and do their own thing. And then maybe eventually, hopefully, They will come to their senses like the prodigal son, and they will come back. They'll confess their sin and turn back to the Lord and walk closely with Him. And so that's what happens with the prodigal son. So that's what we're talking about is that legal positional identity that's ours. The instant we trust in Christ, the Bible says we are baptized by the Holy Spirit. Again, baptism has that often represented by water. And it's that analogy. In baptism, you're identified with something. And at the instant we trust in Christ, we're identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. And we are positionally cleansed. because of that. And so Scripture talks about that as being set apart, we are legally a new creation. And in Ephesians, I didn't change this slide, did I? Ephesians 2.22 we see that we are a new creation, we're a new man, we're a new building, we're a new temple and a new body. That's all who we are in terms of our identity. Ephesians 2.16 says that Christ died that He might reconcile them, meaning both Jews and Gentiles, reconcile them both to God in one body. That's where we started seeing this term related to the body of Christ at the beginning of Ephesians. So we have reconciled to God, we're being placed in one body. This body is also referred to as the household of God. Now that's not talking about Old Testament believers. That's talking about the church age believers. And we know that because it relates to this being placed in Christ. And so that only relates to the church age and what the Holy Spirit is doing now. And Ephesians 2.20 tells us that this household is built on the foundation of the apostles, New Testament, prophets, New Testament, and Christ the cornerstone. None of that's true for Old Testament believers. This is the unique entity that the church is. in whom the whole building," this refers to the whole entirety of the church, the body of Christ, in an analogy with the temple. The whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." So we are not only individually indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, the church is corporately indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. So we have to really understand what this entity, what this organism is that we call the church. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, the instant we are baptized by the Holy Spirit we are placed in Christ. Anyone who is a believer is in Christ and is a new creation and old things have passed away and all things are new. You're not the same person you were before you were saved. You didn't feel anything, but you are now a new entity. You're a new creation. And you have a new family, and you have a new identity. And most of what the Bible is talking about in the New Testament about living a certain way is that you were part of a family before, and they had certain rules and regulations, and you need to disabuse yourself of those rules and regulations and ideas, and you need to put into practice your new identity, your new rules, regulations, and guidance that you get from the Scripture, that's what Romans 12 is all about. We're to not be conformed to the world, that's who we were before we were saved. But we are to be transformed by the renewing of our thinking and by doing that we grow and mature as believers. So this is identified as our positional truth. So positionally, we are redeemed. Positionally, we are regenerated. We're a new creature in Christ. We've had a new birth. We're regenerated. We're adopted into God's royal family. We become a new creation. We are freed from the tyranny of the sin nature, but you still have that nasty sin nature inside you. We have a new life that needs to be nourished and we need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been sealed by the Spirit so that we have the brand of God on us and we are His and we are not our own. Can't just do whatever we want to. We're indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. We are cleansed from all sin. and we have that new identity. Now that's what Ephesians 5, 26 is talking about at the end there when it talks about the fact that we have been cleansed positionally because we have been set apart. So this is all part of that new identity and we are set apart for the purpose of serving the Lord. So when we talk about this phrase here, the phrase of being washed, let me back up. Maybe I have that coming up. I'm going to skip through this slide. OK. verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. Now one of the things we have to recognize here that up until we had computers in the last 30 years, pastors did word studies. They could focus on words, they could pick up a concordance and you can look up the word. But they didn't do phrase studies. Phrase studies are difficult. because you have to know so much more. You've got three or four or five words that are a phrase, and that phrase may be used over and over again with its own meaning that is greater than the sum of the parts. And what we see here in this phrase that we're cleansed, the way it's translated is really wrong. It's translated as, First of all, it's translated, the cleanse is translated like a finite verb. It should be, he might sanctify by cleansing her. Okay. It's an instrumental participle describing how the sanctification takes place. It's by cleansing the church. And how does he cleanse the church? you get the next phrase, with the washing of the water by the word. So you really have two things you have to understand here, not just washing and not just water and not just word, but you have to understand what the phrase means, washing of water. because that takes you to the imagery I just talked about in John chapter 13, and it emphasizes this act of cleansing. Washing is a metaphor for the act of cleansing. So we're set apart by this cleansing. It's not a physical washing, but the physical washings both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament are to picture the reality of the spiritual washing, the spiritual cleansing that God did for us at the instant of our salvation. And here it's stated that it is we are cleansed by cleansing her by means of the washing of the water, by means of the word. So it's interesting. You have two instrumental ideas here. And the last one, where it says, by the word, is clearly stated. instrumental statement. It is like we talk about walking by means of the Spirit, that's the preposition, Greek preposition, en, en, plus the dative of the noun pneuma for spirit. This is the same preposition, en, plus the dative of rhema, which indicates the spoken word, not necessarily the written word, although it can have that meaning. So it's a broader term, and it can be translated as message. And what this is saying is that it's by means of the message of the gospel. and responding to it, that God then when we respond to it we are cleansed by the washing of water by means of the spoken word for that last purpose. So as we get into this next section we recognize that here there are these two metaphors that we've seen. The bride of Christ and the body of Christ. We saw last time that there's no specific use of the phrase bride of Christ anywhere in the New Testament. That surprised some people. I had a long-time listener and sharp Bible student call me up and say, I was so surprised when you said that. He said, and this guy teaches us a lot about how to use Logos. And he said, and now the new Logos has this artificial intelligence, which I usually refer to as artificial incompetence. But... He said, so I asked it, we're both just trying to learn how to use this. He said, I asked it, well what are the passages in the Bible that teach about the bride of Christ? He said, and Robbie it came up with the exact same passages you taught. No more, no less. So it doesn't always do that. You can't rely on that. You always have to start with the Word first and do your own study. But it emphasizes the fact that, but the phrase the Bride of Christ is in the background. It's in the metaphor that's used as the backdrop to understand the passages that I just talked about in Ephesians 5, 26, 27. And it also relates to other passages in later on in the New Testament. In Revelation 19, verses 7 to 9, we see the backdrop is the marriage of the Lamb. Well, if the Lamb's going to get married, there's got to be a bride, right? So it doesn't state the bride of the Lamb and where that is, it doesn't state the bride of Christ, but you have to have a bride for Christ for this to take place, right? So we know who the Lamb of God is because of what John said in John 1, 29, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Lamb of God is one of the most common titles for Jesus in the Scriptures and in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 5 you see this heavenly scene where they're looking for someone qualified to take the seal from God the Father and open the seal. The document is a title deed to the earth, and finally the Lamb of God comes forward to take the seal. And so this is the backdrop of the imagery in Revelation 5, 8 and 12 and 13. The Lamb refers to Jesus Christ. So when we get to Revelation 19, we know that the Lamb is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there John writes, let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. That's the Bride of Christ. So the Bride of Christ is an important title to understand the church. Now, as we go into Ephesians 5, 28 to 32, what I'm pointing out in this slide is the emphasis on body. Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. How do you do that? The comparison is to Christ loving His body, the church. In verse 29 we read, So that is the model for husbands and how they should love their wives. Christ, that's one reason we believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. the rapture comes before the tribulation, otherwise the church, the bride of Christ, would go through the tribulation and he would be a wife beater. Simple argument. He nourishes and cherishes the church and we are members of his own body. So this is another important, what does it mean to be a member of the church? What's the implication of this word member? Is that like joining a country club? Joining a fraternity where you're a member of an organization? No, it's very different from that. And then there's an Old Testament quotation, there's a paraphrase of it at the end of 30, we'll get into that later. And verse 31 is a quote from the end of Genesis chapter 2. And then we come back to 5.32 that says, this is a great mystery and I speak concerning Christ and the church. So the concept of the body of Christ as a term for the church is well documented in Scripture. So that's what we need to look at this morning. And I would be surprised if we get through this this morning. But we need to understand this. This is so rarely understood today. So we're just basing this on this fundamental understanding that the Bible speaks of the church as the body of Christ. But that's not talking about the local church. that's talking about the universal church. So we've got to understand that, that our local body here is just one of millions of manifestations of the universal body of Christ. And so we need to get into some basic introductory material before we go very much further. The term body of Christ has basically two meanings. It refers literally to the physical body of Christ. Jesus talks about His body in the Lord's table, takes the bread, said, this is my body. It's representing His humanity, His physical body. You also have phrases where they took His body down from the cross. They put His body in the tomb. That's talking about His literal physical body of His humanity. And after the resurrection we see that He appears bodily. and that is in his new resurrection body, and that's referring to that resurrection body. But it also has a figurative sense where it's used as a metaphor, a metaphor which represents the spiritual body that is made up of all believers throughout all of the church age. From the day of Pentecost in A.D. 33 until the future imminent rapture When Christ returns for us in the clouds everyone who believes in Christ is a member of the body of Christ and is part of the bride of Christ. That is so important to understand that it's hard for us to grasp because this is dealing with the church as a corporate entity. And so we are a member of the church. And as such, we are part of his body and part of his bride. What happens is when Christ ascends to heaven, he replaces his physical mortal body and then his resurrection body on the earth with another body. We are to represent God to the world just as Jesus did at the first advent. Remember what the passage says, no one has seen God at any time but the only begotten has what? Has revealed Him. And it goes on to talk about we beheld His glory. But the glory there in John, as I've pointed out numerous times, isn't the Shekinah glory that you read about in the other Gospels at the Mount of Transfiguration, because John's the only Gospel that doesn't mention the Transfiguration. The glory is seen through His character, through His words and His works. not through this physical manifestation. And that's why John goes on to say in chapter two, after Jesus turned the water into wine, that was the first manifestation of His glory. But nobody saw this bright effulgence that represented the Shekinah. It was in His words, and that's how it's supposed to be for us, is the body of Christ. So that people look at Christians and they can see God. You think that happens very often? Not very much. Not in this time. Not in many other times either. So the body of Christ is a new reality. There was no body of Christ in the Old Testament. And the body of Christ, that whole concept was completely unforeseen. There's no understanding in the Old Testament that there will be this intervening age before the kingdom where there's a new people of God. It's totally unseen, and there's no prophecy that it fulfilled. The church itself is not first mentioned until Jesus mentions it in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18. Ecclesia, the word for church, is only used two places, Matthew 16 and Matthew 18, only in that Gospel. Not in any other Gospel. The church doesn't, as we use it in this technical sense, doesn't show up until after Acts chapter 2. So when Christ ascends to heaven in his resurrected body, and he's now seated at the right hand of the Father, his presence on earth is replaced by a new spiritual body. Now, how do we know that? Because when Saul of Tarsus, who is persecuting the church, who is having Christians executed for their heresy against the Pharisaical law, When he is confronted by Jesus Christ, when he is on the way to Damascus in order to arrest more Christians and have them killed, Jesus appeared to him in a blinding light. And Paul falls to the ground and he hears a voice that says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now, was Paul persecuting the individual body of Christ, the physical body of Christ? No. He's persecuting his body, the church. He is persecuting Christians. So you have a representation here of the corporate entity of the church that Jesus, it refers to as me. It's his body. And so Paul is persecuting the body of Christ. That's the first one of the first indications there. There are four basic passages in the New Testament that utilize this imagery of the body of Christ. The first is in Romans chapter 12 verses 4-5. The second is in 1 Corinthians 12. Both of these passages talk about the body of Christ and that the members of the body of Christ have been given spiritual gifts. But that's the extended metaphor. Then in Ephesians, we have numerous references. Ephesians and Colossians are critical books for understanding the nature of the body of Christ, the Church. So it's referenced in Ephesians 1.22. It's referenced as those who are regenerate in Ephesians 2, 5-7. We have been made alive, we have been raised with Christ, we died with Christ, we've been raised with Christ, and we have been united together with Him. That's all stated in Ephesians 2, 5-7. And then Ephesians 4, 15-16 talks about how God has provided certain spiritual gifts for the equipping of the saints in the body. And then you get to our passage in Ephesians 5, 23 and verses 28-32. These are the core passages for understanding the body of Christ. And then in Colossians 1, 17-18 and Colossians 2, 19. Two key passages. which I put in a wrong order there. Galatians 3.28 says that, talking about the body of Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ. The Old Testament, you had these distinctions. For example, in the Old Testament slaves could not go past a certain point as they went into the tabernacle or the temple to worship. They could not have the same access to God that a free person had. In the first contrast, Jews or Greeks, Gentiles could only go so far. Slaves could only go so far. Men could go further and get closer to God than women could. There were these distinctions in terms of worship. But in the church age, in the body of Christ, these distinctions no longer are in effect. It doesn't mean they are equal. that women can do what men can do and men can do what women can do or that slaves can do what a free person can do and a free person and slavery have no distinctions. We know from just the book of Philemon that Onesimus the slave was still a slave. Paul doesn't even quote or refer to the baptism of the Holy Spirit in relation to his argument to Philemon to release Onesimus from his slavery. So this is not talking about outward distinctions, it's talking about our spiritual relationship. Everybody in Christ, every believer in the body of Christ has equal access to Christ and to God the Father at the same time. We don't have these ritual distinctions that were part of the Old Testament. In Ephesians 2.15, we are told that Christ abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments, contained in ordinances. So at the cross, Christ abolished the law, the Mosaic law. This is the strongest passage. A lot of people will go to Romans where it says Christ is the end of the law. And what that is really saying is not that that Christ ended the law, but that everything in the law pictured him in the future and he completes it. that word teleos is used there which often means completion of something. He completed the law. He fulfilled the law in its entirety. But this passage tells us that Christ abolished the law. He ended it for all time at the cross with his with his work on the cross. So having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so as to create in himself one new man from the two. That's the church that doesn't come into existence. Obviously, based on that passage it can't be in existence prior to the cross. So there's no church in the Old Testament. Despite what covenant theologians say in covenant theology, they will say that the Jews are the church in the Old Testament and they are Israel in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the church is the new Israel. That's not what the Bible says. That's what their theology says, but it's not based on scripture. Third thing is, The literal meaning of the physical body of Christ becomes the foundation for understanding the spiritual body of Christ. In John chapter 2 in verses 19-21 we read Jesus has been talking to the Pharisees, they've been having a little conflict, and then the Jews say to, Jesus answered them and said to them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Now they're thinking literally that Jesus is going to destroy the temple so they want to accuse Him of blasphemy. But Jesus isn't talking about the physical temple. The Jews responded to him by saying, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and it wasn't quite complete yet either by that time. And will you raise it up in three days? And then John tells us in the next verse, but he was speaking of the temple of his body. So there's a connection to Christ's body is a temple. Now, Then we go to a passage such as Ephesians 2, 21 and 22 which says that there's this, we the church are a new building. And it's in Christ that the whole building is being fitted together. That's the building of the church. And it's growing into a holy temple to the Lord. That's looking at the church corporately. We are being grown and developed by God the Holy Spirit into a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. And verse 22 says, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place. Who's going to dwell there? God. dwelling place for God. And we are the temple that is being built by God the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you, I go back to that passage from 214 down to 222 again and again because this is not well explained by just about anybody. And it is a profound chapter for understanding who we are in Christ. So we also need to talk about some terminology. And the first key word is, of course, the word for church, ecclesia. And it has a secular meaning of just an assembly, the meeting of anybody, any group. It was used to describe the assembly and the congregation of Israel in the Old Testament. And so you'll find covenant theologians who go back, see, it talks about the Ekklesia of Israel. See, that's the church in the Old Testament. Wrong. It's used in a completely different sense. In Acts 19, there's the episode in Ephesus where the crowd is getting riled up and there's a riot against Paul. And the reason is, is because as people are coming to Christ they're confronting others about their idolatry at the temple to Artemis, the Artemis of the Ephesians. And so the unions of all of the people who made the little idols of Artemis are losing money. People aren't buying their little statues anymore. And so they're losing money and so they want to get rid of Paul and Silas and Timothy and get rid of them. And so Acts 19.32 says, some therefore cried out one thing and some another. They're making various accusations for the assembly. That word assembly there is ecclesia and it applies to those who were involved in the riot. and said that ecclesia. It's not a church, it's just its normal everyday use of an assembly of people. In verse 39, we read, but if you have any other, this is the speaker, the head of the city, we'd call him the mayor. And he comes out and he confronts the crowd and he says, y'all need to settle down and break up and go home, but if any of you have, but if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly. That's the meeting of the city government. And then in verse 41 when he had said these things he dismissed the assembly, now he's talking about the rioters. So the word is used three times with two different meanings in just these passages, none of which is related to its application to the church, the body of Christ. In Acts chapter 7, we have the description of the episode where Stephen is found guilty of heresy, and they take him out to stone him, and he preaches a message to those who are going to stone him. And he goes through the history of the Old Testament, how again and again and again the Israelites rejected God and rejected His prophets. And so he says in verse 38, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers." So he's talking about Moses. And the word congregation there is ecclesia. So he's just talking about the congregation of Israel. It's not a technical term for the church. It's the nation of Israel. And it's found in other places as well. In the New Testament, in Hebrews 2.12, the writer of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 22.22 from the Septuagint. And in the Septuagint, it has ecclesia for the assembly. And so he says, quoting from Psalm 22.22, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you. So the word ecclesia is used several times in the New Testament with this just basic secular meaning of an assembly or a gathering of people. And then it is used mostly though for the church. So our third point is that the term church is used with two senses. First of all it's used to refer to the universal church. The universal church, sometimes it's called the invisible church, is composed of all of those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from the day of Pentecost in A.D. 33 until the rapture. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether you go to some denominational church, whether you don't go to church at all, or whether you are part of a solid Bible teaching church, you are part of the universal body of Christ. And when you look at an assembly of believers in a church, some of them are part of the body of Christ and some of them are only part of the local church. They're not saved. So this, the term church, has this general, broad meaning of the universal church. Then it also refers to a local church, like the church in Ephesus, or the church in Colossae, and talking about believers locally at a certain time frame are assembling together in a local assembly. So the local church describes this specific gathering of Christians. And in a local church, not everyone who's there may be a believer in Christ and a member of the universal church as well. A fourth thing that we need to understand is that the Christian Church is distinct from Israel. Israel refers to a group identified by their genetic relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It can also refer to Gentile proselytes who had joined themselves to Israel, such as Rahab, Rahab the harlot. How would you like to be known through eternity as Rahab the harlot? Okay, Rahab the prostitute. That's how we remember her. But she was a believer in the promise of a future salvation through a Messiah. And so she is listed in the genealogy of Christ and also listed later in Hebrews. Ruth, the Moabitess, in the line of Christ also. and she is the great-grandmother of King David. So these are Gentile proselytes who became part of the congregation of Israel. The first time we see the use of this term in the New Testament to refer to something distinctive, it is mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 16, 18. This is when Jesus asked the disciples, well, who do people say that I am? And it is Peter that says, well, you are the Messiah, the Son of God. And so Jesus then makes this statement. that he's going to build his church. It's a future tense. He says, I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. The rock he's talking about should be capitalized there. because this was a title for God the Father all through the Old Testament. Yahweh is referred to as by Moses as our rock. He is the rock we depend on. So this is another name or title and nickname for God. And so Jesus says it's on that rock. He's probably pointing to himself on this rock. I will build my church. Jesus is the foundation stone, remember? and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." But he says, I'm going to build it in the future. He didn't say, I built it. I started building it. I am building it. He said, I will build it in the future. There was no church in existence until the day of Pentecost. And it's still future at the ascension in Acts chapter 1 verse 4 when he's with his disciples and being assembled together with them he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father which he said you have heard from me. Now the promise of the Father is the coming of the Holy Spirit but it hadn't happened yet. So the church hasn't begun yet. Acts 1-5, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized by means of the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So it's close. It's not like the coming of Jesus is near. That's a broad term. It's not many days from now. That's pretty specific. It was 10 days away. Then in Acts 1.8 Jesus said, And then we see in Acts 2 the description of what happened on the day of Pentecost. Then they appeared to them as divided tongues, as a fire, and one sat upon each one of them." This is just talking, if you trace back the nearest antecedent to the word them, it's the eleven disciples. It's not everybody. The 120 met there ten days earlier and they're not living in that house. for the next ten days. So this is early in the morning and just the eleven disciples are there. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now I put the Greek in here because in our study in Ephesians we've seen that in Ephesians 5.18 we are to be filled by means of the Holy Spirit. It's a different word and a different grammatical construction there. It's not pimplemi. Pimplemi is used several times in the Gospels where when the father of John the Baptist speaks it says he was filled with the Spirit, pimplemi. When Mary speaks, this is before the coming of the Holy Spirit for the church age, it's pimplemi. And it's almost always followed by someone speaking. And so it's very close to the kind of endowment of the Spirit that you have in the Old Testament when the Holy Spirit would give specific abilities and would give specific messages through the prophets. And so this is not anything like what Ephesians 5.18 is talking about. And many scholars have made the mistake because the English always translates very different phrases, different verbs, different grammar, as if it's all the same thing. They are not all the same thing, so you have to be very careful, and I've done detailed studies on that in other places. When you get to Acts chapter 11 Peter is talking about what happened when he took the Gospel to the Gentiles, to the centurion Cornelius. And he says that, as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Again, this is a unique type of situation. He said, then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized by means of the Holy Spirit. The baptism by the Holy Spirit's taking place. This was predicted by John, predicted by Jesus in Acts 1, and it happened in Acts 2. And that's the beginning of the church. And the baptism by the Spirit is the unique thing. Now, it has different manifestations in the very early church because it's accompanied in several places by the speaking of languages, but not in every place, and in some other places with some other miracles. But those accompanying signs and wonders stop once the canon of Scripture is complete. So I made it through the first six points this morning to give you a good understanding of the significance of the body of Christ and for you as a member of the body of Christ and the responsibilities that are put upon us as members of Christ's body to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and to glorify Him. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed. Father, we're so thankful that we have such clarity in Scripture, that it is important to understand the statements. how they were structured, the words that were used, because these were chosen specifically by you to communicate specific, precise details. And by understanding your word, we recognize that you have a plan and a purpose. And there is something extremely distinct about us as a church. not us as West Houston Bible Church, but us as members of the invisible body of Christ in the church age. That as members of your body, we have an important role, we have important responsibilities, and we are to be representatives of you and of God so that we are a visible testimony to the world of the reality and the existence of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Father, we pray that we might be challenged by understanding that, that we have been bought with a price and therefore we are not our own. We are not to live our life just as we would want to live it, fulfilling our own desires, but we have been called for a purpose, and that is to serve you by growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, Father, we also pray that if there's anyone here, anyone that's uncertain of their salvation, or anyone listening online, that the gospel would be clear. The good news is that we cannot go through life, need not go through life as being spiritually dead, but we can be spiritually alive. We can be born again, regenerated. We can have new life in Christ. And all it needs is for us to trust, to believe, just believe that Jesus is who he said he was, the Messiah, the eternal Son of God, who came into this world to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, that by believing in Him we may have everlasting life. We pray that you would drive that truth home, and we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Dr. Reagan Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, This service perfectly illustrates just how blessed we are as a congregation to receive this level of teaching of your word. We thank you, Father, that we have freedom in this nation to assemble here unpersecuted. We're not in any way held up from coming here. So we thank you so much for that freedom. And we thank you for the diligence of our pastor to present these things to help us to understand how tremendously blessed we are as members of the body of Christ and what what all that means. And so, Father, as we close our service now, we pray that we'll all meditate on these things through the week so that we can build your truth in our hearts, Father, and that we might, by doing that, praise and bring glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.