Our Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful
saviour. He is a wonderful saviour who
has done amazing things, everlasting things, glorious
things for the happiness and for the good of those whom he
loves. Our Lord Jesus Christ has saved
us by his mercy. He has washed us by his blood. He has covered us with a righteousness
and he has laid up for us a crown of glory that will never fade
away. He has promised us a mansion
in which to dwell. And he has made us fit in every
detail to inhabit the presence of God. Think about that. Think about
what it is to be a member of the Church of God. Think about
what we have been brought into. because of such a saviour. All of these blessings together
are called our great salvation. Scripture writers knew what they
were talking about when they spoke about salvation. It's a
great salvation. They are free gifts. That means
that they are unconditional. That means that we don't have
to do anything. We can do nothing. God freely
gives his blessings to his people. They are gifts of God's love
and God's grace. They don't depend upon our works.
They don't depend upon our will. They don't depend upon our eligibility. They don't depend upon our effort. They flow liberally to a people
chosen by God in eternal election, to a people who are scripturally
and collectively called the Church of God. Now these blessings of
our salvation are all very wonderful indeed. But there is something
else too, which is just as amazing It is the way and the means by
which God conveys these blessings to us. These are not esoteric. These are not remote. These are
not something that is beyond our sense and comprehension,
great and glorious as they are, heavenly, divine as they are. They are applied. practically,
experientially to people like you and like me, sinners. These blessings of salvation
are wonderful indeed, but the way and the means by which God
communicates them to us, God delivers them to us, his people,
is also very wonderful. And that is done quite simply
by God the Father giving all the blessings to God the Son,
and God the Son giving them to us. That's how it works. That's how it happens. God the
Father has brought about this great salvation, and he gives
them to his Son, to whom he gives all things. as the head of his
church. And the Lord Jesus Christ communicates
these things to his body. Christ is the head of the body. Christ is the husband of the
wife. And when we've read this passage
together, thank you Matthew for reading this passage for us.
When we read this passage together, it's not about husbands and wives,
not in the first instance. It's about Christ and his church.
And the apostle is taking the example, the reality of Christ
and his church and the relationship that exists between Christ and
his church and applying it to the relationship that we have
with our husbands and with our wives. Because that's how we
can practically see these things at work. The Lord Jesus Christ
is distributing all the blessings of grace, all the blessings of
salvation, throughout his own body, which is the people of
God, the church of God. The Apostle Paul says, with respect
to this, no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. What we are
experiencing as the body of Christ is the nourishment and the cherishing. of the Lord Jesus Christ for
his own body. Now, I'm sure that there's no
one here doesn't take care of their bodies in some way or another,
whether it's the breakfast that we have, whether it's those that
have got to watch their insulin all the time, whether it's those
that are active and sporting and trying to keep their muscles
in shape and their body in shape. We all look after our bodies.
We cherish our bodies. We nourish our bodies. And these
are practical ways in which the apostle has helped us to understand
what the Lord Jesus Christ does for us spiritually. Christ nourishes
and cherishes his body, the church, and he does it with the blessings
of salvation, which the Father has given to him. When saving grace is imparted
by God, the Holy Spirit, conversion follows. The new birth brings
converted sinners into a new and living communion with the
Lord Jesus Christ as a member of Christ's mystical body. When a sinner is converted, that
individual is joined experimentally to the saviour. in a new and
living way and bound together with other believers as a member
of the body of Jesus Christ. And thus Paul tells the Ephesians,
Christ is the head of the church and he is the saviour of the
body. the head of the church, the saviour
of the body. He's speaking about the same group of people, head
of the church, saviour of the body. He tells the Corinthian
believers, ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. He tells the Romans, so we being
many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another. They might not worship together
in the same church, but if you are a believer, if you're a member
of the body of Christ, then we are members one with another. He tells the Colossians, Christ
is the head of the body. And just like a body, the church
is comprised of living parts, and each part, each individual
member of the body grows into Christ. Believers grow spiritually
in grace and a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as we are nourished
and fed and sustained by Christ in the gospel. The gospel, brother
was speaking about this a little bit earlier, the importance of
the gospel. It is of absolute necessity that
you hear the gospel. He was talking about whether
or not we had communion, the frequency with which we might
have communion. We need to hear the gospel every
week. That's the reason why we go to
church. That's the reason why we're engaged
in these assemblies, because we need it to eat. We need it
to live. We derive our strength from Christ,
who is the head. He is made of God unto us, wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. If we want justification,
sanctification, the benefits of redemption, if we want spiritual
wisdom, where do we get it? We get it from the Lord Jesus
Christ. We get it through the preaching
of the gospel. We get it when the gospel is
preached in our hearing and we receive it by that Holy Spirit
indwelling us. And though we are all individuals,
whose names are separately and particularly known to God. Yet
every believer is united to Christ and bound up together in him
so as to derive all our blessings from him. You're not going to
get any blessing that's worth anything outside of Christ. Every individual member is knit
together as one complete whole. For this purpose, says the apostle,
the general edifying of the body in love. We all have a responsibility
to one another. So we can talk about structures,
we can talk about mechanisms, we can talk about patterns, but
the rubber hits the road here. We are bound together in the
body of Christ to do one another good. And that's an obligation
that rests upon us all. This body, the church, springs
and descends from Christ the head. Our spiritual blessings
originate in Christ. We are dependent upon him for
them all. He is our life, and he is our
light. He is our righteousness, and
he is our holiness. He is our strength, he is our
joy, he is our peace, he is our comfort. Everything spiritually
blessed is derived from the Lord Jesus Christ and any spiritual
usefulness, any spiritual fruitfulness that emanates from my life or
yours comes directly from him. He preserves, He sustains, He
protects, He delivers. Remember what we said? He nourishes
and cherishes. And that's including all of these
things by His grace and by His goodness. And He will never lose
us. And He will never let us go.
Our relationship with Christ is indissoluble, our union with
him and with the other members of the body is unbreakable, and
he will deliver us safe to glory. Scripture has a lot to say about
this union. and the church and Christ the
head of the body. And I hope to show two things
today. Firstly, that this union is ordained
by God to do us good. And we're going to look at 10
clear apostolic statements concerning the origin and the character
of the church and its identification as the body of Christ. Don't
panic. I'm watching the clock. The second
thing we're going to look at is that the union supplies benefits
and blessings to all God's people. to be treasured and exercised
and enjoyed by faith. Now the first part will take
up the greater part of our time. The second part will be considered
by way of application to us personally right at the end. Just before
I start enumerating those 10, I want to clarify something if
I may. By the church I mean, and I hope
I'm not being simplistic here but I'm going to say it anyway,
we've got some young people in our midst and I'm sure they know
this but it's for the benefit of you older guys. The church
is the whole body of the redeemed. all whom God the Father has given
to the Lord Jesus Christ in the covenant of grace and peace. Sometimes this is called the
invisible church because it is all true church members distinguished
from those who self-identify as Christians but are so in name
only, having no true faith in Jesus Christ. The invisible church. Sometimes it is called the universal
church. The sense of that is because
it is endeavouring to encapsulate, to gather in and include the sum total of all true believers
in all times and in all places. 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 2,000
years ago, how old the world is ago. And all those in heaven
already, this is the universal church. So these two words are
sometimes used to describe this church of God or body of Christ.
And these distinctions are valid. They're valid because the Lord
told us in Matthew chapter 7, not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, And that's
nothing to do with legalism and duty and bondage. Doing the will
of the Father in heaven is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and
what he has done. It's as basic as that. Many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils? And in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then I will profess unto
them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. So Christ made a distinction
here. And that distinction we see. evidenced in every age,
in every part of the world where the Christian testimony is proclaimed. As soon as there's a believer
in a place, you can be sure that the devil will set up an opposition. And he might make that opposition
as much like the real thing in outward appearance as he can. but there is always this distinction
about who is the invisible church and part of the universal church.
Not everyone who claims faith is a member of the church of
God, not everyone who professes Christ is a member of his body. The church is the whole election
of grace. It is what Paul calls the whole
family in heaven and earth. It's in Ephesians 3, verse 15. They are those whom God the Father
loved and adopted as his own sons and daughters from eternity. They are those he committed into
the care and safekeeping of the Lord Jesus Christ in the covenant
of grace. They are those whom God the Spirit
covenanted to bring into the body through the preaching of
the gospel. They are those whom the Lord
Jesus Christ covenanted to redeem, whose names are already written
in the Lamb's Book of Life This is the one essential church of
God, and it is scattered throughout the world. It is spread throughout
time, and though it is divided by nationality, and divided by
language, and divided by culture, and divided by religion, it is
known of God, and it is set apart for his purpose. to be gathered
by the Holy Spirit into the family of God through the preaching
of the gospel. The church had an existence in
the mind and in the affection of God before it ever existed
in time. It was foreknown by him. Each
of its members was personally chosen and united to Christ in
love. And the Apostle Paul says in
Ephesians 1, verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. That's why the Lord Jesus, that's
why God the Father chose the people that the Lord Jesus Christ
would save, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Now the fall of Adam and the
entrance of sin into the created order, though far-reaching, did
not abolish that union that God had formed between the Lord Jesus
and his people. It did, however, supply the occasion
by which the love and mercy of God would be most fully demonstrated. so that even the entrance of
sin into the world was part of the purpose of God revealing
his love and his grace and his mercy to the people of his choice. In this, the Lord God justifies,
reconciles, and redeems by the blood of Jesus Christ his people
to himself. And for that reason, this is
called the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Acts chapter 20, verse 28. So here are 10 characteristics
of the church of God. And because the church is spoken
of as the bride of Christ, and because I'm not too careful with
the way I say things sometimes. I'll sometimes speak of the church
as she or her. And sometimes I'll speak of it
as it. Sometimes I'll speak of it as
we and us. But I'm talking about this universal
body. The church had her beginning
in eternal election. This is our first of the 10.
She was chosen according to God's own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Timothy
1, verse 9. Sometimes we hear people speaking
about the pointlessness and futility of life. Well, the scriptures
lift us above that. The scriptures lift us above
that because they teach us that God in the beginning created
the heavens and the earth, and he created the heavens and the
earth with a purpose. It is purposeful. We are here
with a purpose. We are here with a reason, and
that is to glorify God and to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Christian can never find life pointless. He can never find
it to be without purpose. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
reveal his grace and his glory to a fallen sinful people. And the church of God existed
eternally in the unchanging will and mind of the triune God to
satisfy the purpose of his glory. In Jesus Christ, the eternal
counsel and the eternal council before the world began. Grace
was bestowed upon all those who would later be revealed as the
body of Christ. Your little fellowship here at
Hope. Chapel, no, hope church, hope
fellowship. Do you call yourself a church
or a fellowship? A fellowship, a particular Baptist
church. Church, there you are, you're a church, good. Your little
church here in Osset is not very old, just a few years. But the saints amongst you have
got a long, long heritage. God himself chose you in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Isaiah chapter 40 says,
the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the
earth. Fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his
understanding. There's no searching of the knowledge
of God. He knows all about us. He has
known all about us forever. He's the unchangeable one. You,
Your name, your experiences, your life now, and the life that
you will live in the days that lie ahead, whether that be longer
or shorter, are known to God. And it's all been put in place
for the glory of his name. So, consequently, as we've already
mentioned, number two, she is God's church. She's God's church. We are God's church. He chose
her. And speaking to a group of preachers
in Ephesus, Paul says in Acts 20, 28, take heed therefore unto
yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has
made you overseers to feed the church of God. It's his church,
and it's the responsibility of preachers to feed that church
with the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is how Christ
nourishes and cherishes his body. The church was given to Christ
in the covenant of peace and thereby it is said to be God's
church sanctified in Christ Jesus. God's church set apart in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And in receiving the church at
the father's hand, Christ became surety for her every requirement
and her every obligation before the holy God. Number three, these
are characteristics of the church of God, characteristics of the
body of Christ. The church is comprised of individual
members. having been set apart in Christ,
God's church, known, numbered, and individually named. See,
you think your mum and dad gave you your name? God had your name
written down in the Lamb's Book of Life before the world began.
Take that home and think about it. Get your heads around that. Because this is the God we have.
This is the knowledge of the God that we have. He placed us,
we existed in Christ. in a covenant head from everlasting,
being the body of Christ and members in particular. Every
one of her members was seen in Christ by Jehovah God, seen in
love, seen under Christ's covering, seen in holiness, seen in beauty,
being personally loved and justified in Christ from the foundation
of the world. Nevertheless, number four, God's
church is a united body. It's comprised of individuals,
but it's a united body. And though comprised of individuals,
the church is represented by Christ in its entirety. It bears numerous collective
titles in scripture in addition to the body of Christ. And these
titles distinguish God's people from other men and women in this
world. They reinforce our separate,
our separated identity as being in union with Christ. So that God's church is called
Brethren of Christ, Romans 8.29, Hebrews 3.1. The bride, the lamb's
wife, Revelation 21.9. Children of the kingdom, Matthew 13.38. Christians after Christ, Acts
11.26. Companions. Psalm 45 verse 14, Song of Solomon,
1 verse 7. Complete in Christ, Colossians
chapter 2 verse 10. Daughter of the King, Psalm 45
verse 13. The family of God. That's Ephesians 3, 15. The flock
of God, Acts 20, verse 28. The fold of Christ, John 10,
16. Friends of God, James 2, 23. The glory of God, Isaiah 46,
verse 13. The habitation of God, Ephesians
2, 22. The heritage of God, Jeremiah
12, verse 7, Psalm 127, verse 3, Joel 3, verse 2. The Israel
of God, Galatians 6, 16. The Lord's jewels, Matthew, sorry,
Malachi 3, 17. The Lot of God's Inheritance,
Deuteronomy 32 verse 9. Members of Christ, Ephesians
5.30. Peculiar people. 1 Peter 2, verse
9. The portion of the Lord, Deuteronomy
32, verse 9. The remnant according to the
election of grace, Romans 11, verse 5. The temple of God, 1
Corinthians 3, verse 16. The treasure of God, Psalm 135,
verse 4. Vessels of mercy, Romans 9, 23. The vineyard of the Lord, Isaiah
5, verse 1. Are you getting the Sense, are
you getting the feeling of this collective way in which God has
gathered his people? This is who we are. This is God
who has placed us and calls us by these names. These Old Testament
and New Testament writers seemed to be exercising their imaginations
to the best of their ability to find images and pictures by
which they could convey to us this union that we have in Christ. Christ himself calls us the great
congregation. And the writer to the Hebrews
in Hebrews 12, 23 says, the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven. That is our names are written
in the Lamb's book of life. Here's the fifth characteristic.
We are the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. Being
essentially corporeally and organically united to Christ. The church's Christ is her head
and is bound together with him by the same flesh. Paul says, God has put all things
under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to
the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth
all in all. That's why we're the body of
Christ. That's Ephesians 1, 22 and 23. And the physicality of this union
is not merely symbolical. Okay, it's spiritual, but it's
not only spiritual. The physicality of our union
with Christ, he is the head, we as the body, is not merely
symbolical, though there is doubtless a symbolism within it. It was
necessary that the Lord Jesus Christ took our flesh when he
came into the world. To represent us, he needed to
have our body. That body was prepared for him. And he represented us as the
God-man being really God and really man. And this body was
specially prepared by God the Father. And with it, Christ came
into the world to fulfil those covenant representative duties
that the Father had laid upon him. The symbolism, the symbolism
is the fact that God took Eve out of Adam's side. The symbolism
is that he took a rib of the man and he made woman from it. That's the symbolism. That is
showing us just how intimately connected with Christ we are. We are part of him. And Paul tells us clearly in
Ephesians 5, verse 30, we are members of his body, of his flesh,
and of his bones. I mean, just think about what
he's saying. Do we just spiritualise that?
Do we just say that's symbolical? Well, Paul's telling us where
the symbolism is. Paul's telling us that the husband
and the wife, being separated, join together, consummate their
marriage, come together and are viewed as one. And we insist
upon that in so many moral ways. We insist upon the integrity,
the unity of the husband and the wife, and rightly so, because
that's Scripture's teaching. But that's just, as it were,
the picture to show us the greater reality, which is our union with
Christ. This physical union will be revealed. in the day of Christ's return
for his church. We're told, who shall change
our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious
body. That's in Philippians 3, verse
21, and in Hebrews 2, 11, for both he that sanctifyeth and
they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is
not ashamed to call them brethren. Number six, the church was involved
in the fall of Adam. When Adam fell, the church fell
with him and incurred all the consequences of exclusion from
the presence of God. Adam's act of rebellion and disobedience
brought the elect into sin guilt, condemnation, and under the curse
of the law. And our flesh continues to carry
the scars and the corruptions of sin. It always will. It always will. Don't think that you're ever
going to get rid of the effects of sin in your life because that's
not going to happen. You're never going to be rid
of sin in your life and yet the Lord calls us holy
before him in love. You see, these scars, these corruptions
of sin is what requires this body to go through that transition
of the grave. It's the reason we get scared
of dying. We do everything we can to stop
from dying. but that's what's necessary to
rid ourselves of this body of flesh. For us to be fully united
to Christ in that spiritual sense with that new body, we are going
to have to lay down this Adamic body, this sinful body. In this flesh dwells no good
thing, but in Christ we are a new creation. And that's the gospel. That's the gospel right there.
The fall did not destroy the union that we have with Christ,
which divine love had formed between the Lord Jesus Christ
and his people. Christ, our surety, who stood
for us in the covenant, became our substitute, and Christ, our
substitute, became our saviour. and an outcome that only God
could have devised. It was the fall of the church
in Adam that gave occasion for the display of God's love in
salvation. And here's another characteristic
of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if those of you who
got more than the first couple of classes in primary school
will know that I'm a number seven now. She was redeemed by Christ's
blood. The saints in heaven sing a new
song to Christ. Revelation 5, 9. Thou was slain. This is what they say. Thou was
slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every
kindred and tongue and people and nation. Now this confirms
to us limited atonement. This confirms what we call particular
redemption. These saints who sing this song
in heaven to Christ were redeemed out of the nations and peoples
of the world, not with the nations and peoples of the world. They
were redeemed out of the nations and people of the world. And
this redemption is cleansing by precious blood to this end. Ephesians 5.27, that he might
present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. And that proves, number eight,
that Christ's redeemed church is holy. Christ's redeemed church
is holy. We are a sanctified, set-apart
people in time and in eternity. This isn't just something that's
going to happen in the future when we get to heaven. We are
holy now. We are holy in Christ now. We bear the name of our husband. Ephesians 3.15 says, of whom
the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Ephesians 5.23
says, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ
is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body.
And regardless of the time and nature of our calling and conversion,
God always sees the Lord's people as holy and pure under the blood
of Christ our Saviour. Number nine. She, the church, will be called
to the marriage feast of the Lamb. Revelation 19 verse 7 says,
You know, the Bride hasn't made herself ready by all her good
works. The bride has made herself ready
by her faith in her husband who has done everything necessary
for her salvation and for her righteousness. And marriage is
a beautiful picture of this relationship, this spiritual relationship,
and it is used by Paul to emphasise that in Christ the Lord's people
are so much part of him as to be indistinguishable from him. I know that's not quite the way
things are tending today when even within marriage people insist
on their own identity and that manifests itself in so many different
ways. But the traditional Christian
view of marriage said that these two who were separate are joined
together and become one flesh and are thereby identified as
being one person. And that used to have lots of
legal ramifications and cultural ramifications which are generally
breaking down now, but whether that happens or not in the world,
it really doesn't make too much difference to the point that
is being made here in the scriptures. We're one with Christ. The two have become one flesh
and Isaiah tells the church, thy maker is thy husband. The Lord of hosts is his name. Isaiah 54 verse five. Which brings us to number 10.
Thank you very much for sticking with me all this time. The church
shall dwell eternally with the Lord Jesus Christ. As his bride
and as heirs and joint heirs together with him in heaven.
A man who truly loves a woman wants to spend his life with
her. They marry and set up home together. And here too is a picture of
our blessed union with Christ. John 14, verse two says, in my
father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Who goes? The Lord Jesus
Christ was going. Where is he going? He was going
to heaven to prepare a mansion. For whom? For his bride. I go
to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am,
there ye may be also. This then is the character of
God. the character of the church of
God and the character of the body of Christ. We are a chosen
people. We are a redeemed people. We
are a holy people. We are a people blessed with
rich inheritance in Jesus Christ. This is God's view of his people
in Christ, regardless of our personal feelings and our many
failures. And it is the true standing of
the church in Jesus Christ. And yet we are a fallen people,
beset with fleshy passions. A people called to live in a
sinful world. In our flesh we experience the
weakness of our natural state. These bodies grow old, they get
sick, they harbour sinful passions, they succumb too easily to temptation. So we struggle to believe the
promises of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But let me make
a quick application and then I'm done. Our great need is for
faith. Faith is God's enabling gift,
the gift by which All other gifts, all other blessings, all other
promises and privileges of being in God's church are received
and discovered and enjoyed. Because of what Christ accomplished
at the cross, we who are the body of Christ have obtained
in union with him all the covenant promises that he obtained. Remember
what we said at the beginning? The success of Christ, God looked
upon his son and he was well pleased. The success of Christ
gained for Christ every blessing from his father. What does Christ
do with that blessing? He distributes it to his body. It flows down to his people. So that as he received all the
covenant promises from his father, that were contingent and dependent
upon his success upon the cross, so we are told by Paul in 2 Corinthians
1.20, for all the promises of God in him are yea and amen unto
the glory of God by us. Are yea and in him amen unto
the glory of God by us. So our great prayer should be
for faith to believe that. That's all we need. Faith to
believe that. If we could get our heads around
that, if we could get that into our minds, into our hearts, into
our understanding, that, that would transform our lives. More faith. more faith that we
might enter more deeply into the appreciation of what the
Lord has done for us and what his gifts to us are in Christ. Every spiritual blessing is to
be understood by faith. Faith is the key to open the
door to the treasure house of Christ's blessings. If your faith
is weak, then ask for more faith. Ask that it might be strengthened. If your faith has fallen asleep,
then ask that it might be stirred up. And prepare to hold on, because
it might just be stirred up. In light of all these blessings
given by God to Christ, to nourish and to cherish the body, let
us not be reluctant to ask for more. May our prayer be, Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And if you have no faith at all,
then you too may ask for it. I do not know anyone who has
yet been refused. The Lord told Ezekiel, thus saith
the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house
of Israel to do it for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock. I'm going to read that again
and then I'm finished and I'm not going to say any more unless
you ask me a question. But I thought I'd maybe run the
clock down enough for that. Let's say this. Thus saith the
Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of
Israel. That means I want the church
to ask for this. I want you to ask for this. I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel. To do it for them, I will increase
them with men like a flock. Do you want the church to grow?
Do you want your life's experience of the Lord to grow? Then ask
for it. Ask for the faith that enables.
And may the Lord be gracious to grant it to us.