To Encourage You

Ephesians 3:8-10 “though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

I don’t know what you might think about the word “church” for we all have a great variety of experiences with reference to it. Some have never entered a church except perhaps on a holiday or for a wedding or funeral. Otherwise, the “church” is a totally irrelevant thing to them. To others that were perhaps dragged there as a child, it’s a place only for children – or old people – that sort of thing. Some have had very negative experiences in relation to a church.  Perhaps they were mistreated by someone there, or the walk of the people that they saw there didn’t match their talk, so to them, it was just a place full of hypocrites. To others, it was a place of mysterious rituals and ceremonies that made little sense, so as soon as they could get away from it, they did. But what does the Bible say about the church? Is it relevant in this day and age? What good is it? What is the church?

Well, the Bible has much to say about this word. For one, the church is a body of people who are believers in and followers of Jesus Christ. It is made up of all believers everywhere in every age, no matter what sex, age, nationality, social status, or income level. It is not confined to a building somewhere. It is not the same as a denomination or a church building. On any given Sunday morning, there are people in perhaps every church building in the world that are actually a part of the church and that are not a part of it. The church is a living thing, the body of the living Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). The only people that are actually a part of that body are those that have truly been born again, those whose sins have been forgiven and who have been completely changed by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The verses above from Ephesians 3 speak of the “manifold wisdom of God.” The word “manifold” means many colored or variegated. It means God’s wisdom is manifested, i.e., made known, in a great variety of ways. One of those ways is through the plan of salvation made possible when He sent His Son to die for us so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Then there is the infinite variety of ways in which God has demonstrated His wisdom in the application of His saving work in the life of each and every believer who is a part of the true church. Every single person who is a part of the true church has a story to tell. It’s a story about how they came to realize their need of forgiveness, how they came to realize that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for their sin that made that forgiveness possible, and how they turned to Christ for salvation. They all have a story about how Christ indeed did save them and changed their life. Paul, who wrote the words above, had his story. I have my story, and if you are a believer, you have yours as well. They are, every one of them, amazing stories of the grace and wisdom of God. And they are examples of God’s wisdom that are not only awesome to behold for those of us who live on earth, but the verses above tell us that they are awesome to behold even “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” That means that the angels are awe-struck by God’s work of saving grace in our lives, something that we don’t see but know because God has told us so. And it’s not just in the book of Ephesians that we are told this. In Luke 15:10 Jesus said this: “I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The church; such an awesome example of the manifold wisdom of God. Do you know the church in this way? If you don’t, you don’t know what the real church is, for it’s so much more than meets the eye.