Please open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter two. We'll be looking at Ephesians two, 17 through 22, as we now come to the worship of our God through the preaching of his word. Today is the seventh and the last installment of our series Growing in Grace. In a few weeks, we're beginning a new series through the entire book of Genesis. Looking forward to that. But today, I hope to bring this series to kind of a fitting conclusion and application as I want to consider the role of the church in our growth in grace. We're going to be jumping around to a few different passages, but to really set our hearts and minds on the topic at hand, Ephesians 2, 17 through 22 is very fitting. So let's begin by hearing the word of the Lord. And He, Jesus Christ, came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one spirit to the Father, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me again. Father, just as your Spirit filled the temple in the Old Testament, we now stop and we pray that your presence through your Spirit would fill us this morning, the temple of your gathered people. We pray that we would hear the voice of Christ Just as the Ephesian church of old heard Christ preach peace to them, that we too would hear the message of reconciliation. And that we may cling and hold on to the many and great precious promises that accompany your word in the gospel. Speak to our hearts. This we pray in the name of our cornerstone and the head of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, as we've now reached the end and conclusion of our study, Growing in Grace, I want to begin by going back to the beginning, back to where we started. When we began, we started the series by laying a few foundational truths that are necessary for growing in grace. One of those truths we looked at from Romans chapter one is that Christians are those who live lives of thanksgiving. If we are to properly orientate ourselves with reality, we must recognize with that humble posture of heart that God is reality, and that everything that we enjoy comes from Him. It's the fool who denies his creatureliness. He denies that either with his speech there is no God, or in his manner of living, he denies that he's created. He denies that there is a higher power governing the world around him. He denies that which is necessary for him to even exist. So the distinguishing mark of the Christian is that a Christian gives thanks. A Christian humbly acknowledges our creatureliness and that God alone is creator and it's this perpetual lifestyle of thanksgiving that is necessary for us to grow in grace. Otherwise we're fighting against reality. But we also considered as well the purpose and goal of our spiritual growth and how that is the imitation of God in Jesus Christ. What are we seeking to grow into? To live like Christ. To walk just as he walked. But in this, when we considered it, I tried to dispel the common assumption that to be like Christ means that we're really pious people. When we come to the New Testament, the emphasis on being like Christ is not so much being like who he was in private, his personal reading or praying habits. The emphasis to be like Christ in the New Testament, the emphasis is on being like who he is relationally. According to his virtues, which are always practiced in relation to one another, Jesus Christ lived to love and serve others. His life was a living sacrifice for the good of others. This then accompanies the call to die to self, to take up your cross. The sum and substance of the Christian life is, in that sense, being Christlike by loving and serving other people. So just like, in this sense, living a life of gratitude, serves to take our eyes off of ourselves as the center of the universe, and instead we look and live with this orientation that God is the giver of all things, good. In the same way, the imitation of Christ serves to take our eyes off of ourselves so that we live for the good of others. This then is where it all comes together when we consider the local church. The church is the context. It is the arena, it is the stage, it is the means by which we live lives in gratitude to God, thanksgiving, and service to one another. Because through the church, God gathers his people to grow and shape us together into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why we are called the body of Christ. So ultimately, when we talk about growing as a Christian, we must understand that growing as a Christian is not an individual pursuit primarily, but rather a communal reality. I say it often, but by and large, sanctification is a community project. The way in which God matures His people is through our belonging to and participation in the life and worship and mission of the gathered church. The church is how we experience His grace. The church is how we commune with God and receive the power of His grace that shapes us so that we might live and serve one another and fulfill our calling as Christians. So to illustrate it, think of it this way. If you want to get in shape and live a healthy lifestyle, a great fitness plan will certainly go a long way. But a great fitness plan is not enough. You could exercise every day of your life, but if you don't include a healthy diet, you're not going to get very far. and even your short-term progress by exercising more eventually won't last as your body will adapt and you're eating junk food which will continually, of course, serve to perpetuate your poor health. Think of it that way because in the same way the Word, prayer, baptism, the Lord's Supper, These things are the blueprint, right, the plan that God has given us to pursue spiritual growth, but if you pursue those things outside of or apart from a committed and relational connection to the local church, your growth's gonna be stunted. It's gonna be deformed. And in the end, it's gonna be in vain. That's really what I want us to consider today. how the means of grace ultimately are the plan for spiritual growth as we've considered these last seven weeks, but they are all to be coupled within the context of life in the local church. So, to consider this, I want to take a step back first and take a look at kind of a bigger reality of what's going on in redemptive history when we think about the church. So three points I want us to consider today. Easy to remember. Gathered for grace, gathered for growth, and gathered for going. Grace, growth, and going. First in this, when we think about the church, what the church is, we must see how we've been gathered for grace. God's gathering of us is an outpouring or is for the outpouring of His grace. And here, what I want you to understand is one of the grand, great, overarching themes of Scripture, a theme that can be traced from Genesis to Revelation through this concept and these key words of gathering and scattering. Maybe you picked that up in our readings already, in the call to worship, in the reading of the law, in the reading of the gospel. I chose those specifically in relation to this language of gathering and scattering. But from Genesis to Revelation, when God gathers his people, it's for the purpose of pouring out his grace. But when God scatters, it's a sign and an act of his judgment. It all began in the Garden of Eden. That's why there is a Garden of Eden. God gathered Adam and Eve in that place for the purpose of blessing them. But, of course, sin and the fall, Adam and Eve were exiled. They were cast out. They were scattered into the wilderness as a judgment for their breaking the law of God. We see immediately then in the life of Cain, after he killed his brother Abel. He laments God's judgment and he says, unfortunately, I am a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. The language of scattering. I'm scattered out. I've got no home. Think then of the Tower of Babel. The gathering of the nations was not God gathering them. They had gathered to work together toward idolatry. But in response, what does God do? He scatters them. He separates them through the language and we're told that they were scattered and spread out over the face of the earth. Then we come to the exodus. God rescues and gathers His people at Mount Sinai where they hear His word. And this was in anticipation of God gathering together His people in the promised land, the land of Israel. And that's why in the Old Testament, Israel having their own land was such a tremendous blessing. It wasn't just a national or geopolitical blessing to have your own land. It was the fact that they were all in one place as the people of God, where God promised to meet with them and live with them in His blessing and favor. But all throughout the law, the Pentateuch, first five books of the Bible, God warns Israel, if you break the covenant, I will scatter you. Leviticus 26, 27. If you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, I will scatter you among the nations. Deuteronomy 4, 27. If you act corruptly in idolatry, the Lord will scatter you among the peoples of the earth. Deuteronomy 28, 64, we read this earlier. If you're not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in the book, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other. I could heap up these references over and over and over and over again. God warns Israel, if you sin and break the covenant, I am going to, instead of gathering you, I am going to scatter you. Even in the promises of blessing in the Old Covenant, Deuteronomy 30, three and four, God speaks about how Israel will sin, but he, in this sense, extends hope for the future, the promise of forgiveness when they repent, and he says, if you return to the Lord your God and obey his word, I will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Again, I could keep up. This language, the wording of gathering and scattering appears again and again and again. I think you get the point. All throughout the Old Testament law, promise of gathering, blessing, the threat of judgment is scattering. But if we move beyond the law, we think about the history of Israel. We know they broke the covenant again and again. We come to the prophets. The prophets pick up and use the very same language repeatedly, again and again and again. They speak of Israel in the exile being scattered, but they also hold out hope of the great day when the new covenant will dawn and God will gather again. Jeremiah 9, 16, I will scatter them among the nations. Ezekiel 5, 10, I will scatter to every wind all who are left of you in Israel. Zechariah 7.14, I scattered them with a whirlwind among the nations they had not known. But then the promises of the new covenant, Isaiah 27.12, you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel. Jeremiah 23.3, then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I had driven them. Ezekiel 11 17 thus says the Lord God I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you've been scattered Micah 4 6 & 7 in that day declares the Lord I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion See Israel was scattered in exile in judgment and But the prophets hold out that hope, you will be gathered again by God one day. The day when the new covenant dawns. And so this is what we see when the Lord Jesus Christ appears upon the scene of history. He appears and he speaks in the gospels of Israel being like sheep without a shepherd, scattered. He speaks of the good shepherd in John 10, where he calls his sheep and he will gather them safely into the fold. In John 11.52, John tells us that Jesus would die to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. The cross is the means by which God gathers. This begins to take shape in Acts 2 at Pentecost. People from all nations gathered in Jerusalem to hear the gospel, which is a reversal, with the speaking in tongues, of the scattering of Babel. Babel has been reversed in the preaching of the gospel. This is echoed in the commission of the disciples to be fishers of men, to collect and gather the people of God. And this then brings us to the book of Ephesians, our text for today. We see first in chapter one, verse nine and 10, that this plan of God's purpose set forth in Christ for the fullness of time to unite or to gather together would be a synonym, all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. This is picked up in Ephesians 2, our sermon text. Ephesians 2, 17, He came and preached peace to you who were far off. Those of you who were scattered. So that, verse 19, you're no longer strangers and aliens. The language is scattering. You're no longer strangers and aliens. Now you are citizens. We're the saints and members of the household of God. You've been gathered into a household. All this to say God's great promised gathering that the prophet spoke of is how the work of Christ gathers the people of God for blessing and favor. That gathering ultimately is at the last day in the new creation. And there's an aspect of that gathering in which we enter the universal body of Christ as we're all God's children through the common work of the Spirit. But the expression of that gathering in this life, in this age, is the gathering of the local church. The church gathering is a fulfillment of all the promises of God that go all the way back to Eden. I want you to see that the church is not just one aspect of God's plan for salvation and redemption. The church is God's plan. And the church is the means of every blessing in Christ. God does not just call us to be close to Him individually. He calls us to gather and to be close to Him together, and to be close to one another. And we may think, of course, how does God do this? How does He accomplish this? How does He gather His people? The same way He's always gathered them, by speaking. The call of Abraham, God's word summoned him. The thundering voice at Mount Sinai, they gathered to hear the sermon. John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, out in the place of scattering and judgment, crying out, calling God's people to assemble. The preaching of the gospel at Pentecost. God's word, and only God's word, can assemble God's people. And God's word, faithfully proclaimed, is the only thing that will keep us assembled in harmony. So the defining characteristic of the blessing and favor of God is when God's people are gathered, when we assemble. And when God's word is faithfully read and preached. That's the greatest expression of the grace of God at work in this life. It is the fulfillment of what He has promised from the very beginning, to gather us together so that His grace may be poured out upon us together. Thus, to be a Christian means the grace of God has been poured out upon you. And the evidence of that grace is a profession of faith. And the working of that faith belongs not just believing, but also belonging. Belonging to the church, belonging to a particular church. This is God's plan in redemptive history to gather us for grace. But secondly, building on this, we've also been gathered for growth. Gathered by grace or for grace, gathered for growth. Again, Ephesians 2, we've gone from being strangers and aliens, wandering around in exile with no home, with no family, real family, to now in Christ, we're members of the household of God. This language of the household picks up on how the Bible often describes our salvation in terms of adoption. In Christ, we've been adopted as a child of God, adopted into the family and household of God. Well, you think about what happens when a child is adopted into a family, especially if that child comes from a foreign land or a foreign culture. When they're brought into a family, they begin to learn the family values. An adopted child Living in the family, their lives begin to be shaped by the family around them. They become like the family members in the household they live in. Being around new parents, being around new lifestyle, being around new siblings, this shapes and conforms them so that they resemble one another. They take on not just the family name, but the family ideals, the family characteristics, the family strengths and weaknesses. Well, in the same way, God has gathered us into the church so that we may learn to grow and live as members of the household of God. We've been adopted into this family in order to be shaped by the family values. Now, how does a family grow together? When you think about an earthly family, a family grows together by spending time together, most specifically doing the ordinary things of the household together. Chores together, eating meals together, preparing food together. And bonding with family members primarily takes place just doing ordinary things of the household together. In the same way, we grow together, not just by living life together, but by enjoying and worshiping God together. pursuing the means of grace together, the word, baptism, prayer, the supper, the ordinary things of the household of God. I want you to see the means of grace not as private tools to help you obtain your goals, but as corporate means given by God and meant to be experienced together with one another. It's the primary way in which we grow and which we are sanctified. through the participation of the worship of God together. Another way of putting it is that it's only when we're gathered that the means of grace will yield their full treasure. Gathering to hear the reading and the preaching of the word is the context in which that word will have the greatest effect upon your heart. You know, when we do so, you know, we gather with our bodies, we are declaring to one another that stopping, gathering, ceasing from work and the ordinary callings of life, worshiping, listening to God, we are declaring with our bodies just by being here that that is a vital part of the Christian life. And that God's word is solemn and serious and important enough to stop and be silent and to give our time to collectively to hearing it. That's why half the battle of your sanctification, half your duty towards one another in the church, is often just simply showing up and being present. You know, it's like when you have a family dinner and maybe one of the family members has already eaten that day, right, and they're not hungry. Well, in our house, at least, even if one family member has already eaten, we still sit together as a family. You still come and join the family as we eat. is because a family meal is more than just your need for nourishment. It's also about you being present with your family. In the same way, the sermon is more, it's about more than just your need to get nourishment out of it. It's about participating together. Families grow when they participate in life together. The worship of God and the means of grace is the most important thing in your life. So when you do that together, the most important thing in life together, it grows you. It grows you in ways that nothing else can. The same, of course, is true with prayer. I mentioned the word, but that's why Jesus says, pray our Father. It teaches us to pray with others. Give us our daily bread, not me. Forgive us our debtors, not just me. To pray as we ought, we have to pray with and for others. Otherwise, our prayers become self-focused. Working contrary to the very point of our sanctification, to love and serve others. We got all concerned about ourselves. What do I need? Same with baptism. Baptism is an inherently communal act. You can't baptize yourself. There's a reason for that. You need the consent and participation of the church because you need the help of the church to keep your baptismal vows. You can't do it alone. That's not how God designed the Christian life. Same is true with the supper. We commune together with the body and blood of the Lord. We share it together. We don't share it or hoard it individually. It's because in the shared body and blood of the Lord, God uses the meal to shape us according to his crucified image. The crucified image being self-sacrifice and love. That's why to approach the Lord's table without a concern for the body of Christ is to eat and drink judgment upon yourself. Because you're approaching the meal as an individual thing. It's all about me. And you're declaring with your body what you don't believe in your heart. That the body of Christ is corporal. Right? The supper, one purpose of it, one main purpose of it is to unite us together so that we love and serve one another. To take it individually irregardless, if that's even a word, of the body of Christ, is to work against the very purpose for which the supper is given. Which is why I bring judgment. It's like blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Not to the same extent. When you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit, you're working against the very purposes for which the Spirit has been poured out, and that brings judgment. So, to put it bluntly, the means of grace do not will not allow us to live however we want. Because they're all inherently corporate in nature. And so, to play off of the phrase I used repeatedly last week, the words of C.S. Lewis when he talked about Aslan not being safe, but good. There is a real sense, there is a true sense in which worship is not safe. But it is good. Because when you worship corporately and the means of grace are poured out and observed in the public context of the church, God will either confront your idols, leading you to what is often painful change, or you will be hardened to create a God after your own image which will lead to scattering. They went out from us because they were not of us. They were scattered, people left the church. People are excommunicated out of the church. People have no regard for the church. Because worship will either conform you to the image of Christ, true worship, where God's word is loved and honored and believed and preached, it will either conform you to the image of Christ or it will harden you in order to scatter you. True worship then, excuse me, God has gathered us ultimately so that we might grow together. And true growth happens when we give ourselves to the worship of God together and are shaped together according to His image. This is why the wording of Ephesians 2 is you are being built together into a dwelling place. The whole structure joined together. Ephesians 4 comes back and says the very same thing as well when it talks about all of us, every part working and equipped properly so that the body builds itself up in love. You can't think about spiritual growth apart from growing together. It does not exist. This leads third and finally to our last consideration. And I hope you know, I'm giving a 30,000 foot view here. If we were to talk about the church, I could preach 20 sermons, you know that. But again, for the purposes of growing in grace, what's our third and final consideration here? We've been gathered for going. We've been gathered for going. God gathers us into local churches to pour out His grace through the corporate means of grace and to grow us and build us up together into the fullness of the body of Christ. But all of this has a purpose as well. Again, I'm hoping you look at spiritual growth as more than just an individual thing. Because one of the purposes He's gathered and one of the purposes He grows us is for the purpose of sending us. Now you may think, that's a contradiction. We've been gathered in order to go out again. Well, that's right, we have. Here, turn to Matthew 28 and the Great Commission. In Matthew chapter 28, We read that Jesus gathers the disciples and brings them to a mountain. A mountain where they will now hear the voice of the risen God in Jesus Christ. This is Israel gathered at Mount Sinai once again. This is a recapitulation. Except in this sense, the mission of the church has been transformed and empowered by the Holy Spirit, whereas the Old Covenant was all typical and earthly, pointing to greater things to come. But notice, instead of God visiting Israel at Sinai in order to gather them into the Promised Land, what are the instructions that Jesus gives? Go out into all the nations. Go therefore, verse 19, and make disciples of all the nations. It's the exact opposite of Israel's commission. Israel, go into the land and drive out the enemies and don't let anybody else in. Now, new Israel, go out into the nations. What's even more ironic here is that in the opening chapters of the book of Acts, Jesus ascended, right? And do you think the disciples just remembered these words and were, you know, okay, let's get to the work of going out into all the nations? No, they were huddled in fear in the upper room. But then Pentecost and the pouring out of the Spirit, and they at least began the great commission of preaching the gospel. But even still, They were gathered and they were, in this sense, committed to staying in Jerusalem. Why and what is it that caused the apostles to go out from Jerusalem into all the world? They only went out into all the world when the persecution in Jerusalem forced them to flee. This is very ironic considering everything we've considered today. If the Old Testament was their ultimate guide, they would think that God gathering them in Jerusalem, the promised land, was a sign of ultimate blessing, and they would think that persecution, causing them to be scattered as they were out from Jerusalem, was a sign of God's judgment. But this is how the Gospels turned everything upside down. It's not about kings and nations and nationalities and land and physical temples. In the gospel, persecution and difficulties and sufferings and physical scatterings fleeing for your life is not a sign that God is judging you, judging the Christian. In fact, Jesus says to rejoice when men persecute you and revile you on the sake of Christ's name. This is because the kind of gathering that God intends in the gospel is very different as well. It's not a holy huddle, as it's often said, where we build high walls and we shield ourselves off from the world. Neither is it a gathering in order to stay like a monastery. So concerned were the monks. growing in grace, which they saw primarily through personal piety and godliness, studying scripture and praying all day, so concerned for that that they failed to understand the purpose of all spiritual growth. Christlike service and love to one another, going out in order to win people to Christ. So returning then to the Great Commission here in Matthew 28, the irony is that with the command to go out, the purpose of going out is in order to gather. We go out to make disciples, to baptize them, to teach them, to observe all that Christ commanded, which only happens when we're gathered. So going out into the world is for the purpose of bringing in and gathering the children of God into local churches. So when we think about growth and grace, when we think about the imitation of Christ, we must see that being conformed to His crucified image of self-service and love is for the purpose of participating in His mission, the mission of His body here on earth as His body, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Sometimes we can speak of this, and I'm careful with this language. We don't want to speak of it or read too much into it. It's an imperfect analogy. But when we think about an incarnational ministry, Christ went out from heaven. We could use the language of scattering. He took upon himself the form of a servant and suffering to the point of death for us and our salvation in order to gather us into the people of God. Well, in like manner, the church also goes out from our comfort zones from our obsession with our own lives and stories and estates in order to spread the gospel. In order to spread the gospel, in order to see God's people gathered again in local churches so that Christ may be loved and adored and served and worshiped and obeyed and glorified. And every single week, we get perpetual, regular reminders of this in the means of grace. It reminds us that we are the body of Christ. It reminds us of what God has done for us in Christ in order to make possible for us the imperative of what we're called to do as Christians and members of the body of Christ. The word then, the means of grace, prayer, baptism, the supper, They immerse us into this crucified body of Christ to conform us into His image so that we might fulfill the Great Commission. The Great Commission is given to the church, not just to individuals. We are to fulfill it together. and the means by which we fulfill it is God gathering us in order to grow us and equip us, in order to send us that others might be saved. All for His glory. So to live in service to God is to live in service for one another. It's impossible to do one without the other. and the means of our growth in the local church serve this purpose and order to send us out in the mission of the crucified Lord. Well, brethren, as we bring all this to a conclusion this morning, gathered for grace, gathered to grow, and gathered then to be going, I wanna come back and I wanna remind you that the thankful life is a God-centered life. and that the Christ-centered life is a Christian life, and that to live a God-centered and Christ-centered and Spirit-filled life is to live a church-centered life. For the church is where Christ dwells with His people, it's where He grows us in His grace, He prepares us for His service here, and He prepares us for the glory that awaits us. You know, the Bible warns warns us and says that he who isolates himself seeks his own desires. And one of the dangers when we think about spiritual growth is that it's easy to isolate ourselves and fool ourselves into thinking that we're doing the right thing because we're isolating ourselves so focused on personal piety of prayer and Bible reading and things of that nature. God graciously calls us to give ourselves to growth in the body of Christ. Not to look at the church ultimately to meet our needs, not to keep the church at arm's distance until we get what we want out of it, but to joyfully, faithfully, lovingly, sacrificially give ourselves to the body of believers where God has placed us. For committing to and belonging to a local church, it's not optional or secondary. It's the means by which God pours out his grace and shapes us and shapes you for your Christian life. It's the means by which he gathers us from our scattered isolations and concerns to shape us according to word and sacrament and send us on mission. This is why, as Sinclair Ferguson put it, To belong in a committed and relational way to an ordinary local church may be the most significant thing you do with your life. How do we grow as a Christian? What are we called to pursue? It's not a mystery. It's not a secret you have to search out and find. You don't have to look to the other traditions that go beyond the biblical data into mystical or traditional or self-centered Again, mystical, esoteric, I'm searching for words here, different things to connect with the divine, different things for spiritual growth. It's not a mystery. Growth happens through communion with God. And where and how do we commune with God? Where is Christ found? He's found in His Word when we hear His voice. He's found in prayer at the throne of grace. He's found in baptism where we die and rise with him. He's found in the supper where we share and participate in the crucified body and blood of the Lord. And ultimately, the context in which all of these things find their greatest and fullest expression is that he's found in his church. This is how, Ephesians 2.22, we are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is spiritual growth. This is what we're called to in the Christian life. May God give us grace and pour out his spirit so that we may pursue these things as he has told us to bring glory and honor to his matchless name. Amen. Let's pray.