Building God’s Church Part 4 - Life Together
Ephesians 4:17-32 - 11th March 2007
Andrew Lim

for the reason why God made human people

There’s an old confession called Westminster’s Confession
It says we were created so that they may glorify God and enjoy Him forever

Whatever that says / it is saying that God created us for community with Him

Imagine in ages past / the three Persons in the Trinity
Father Son and Holy Spirit got together / and God the Father said:
“Let us make people in our own image
Let us walk with them in the garden / Let us commune with them
and have them commune with us / in the cool of the day
Let us enjoy being with them and have them enjoy being with us”

That’s the delight of God’s heart / He wants to create us so we can relate to Him
And so picture the joy that God shared with the Son and the Spirit
as they anticipated the creation of our first parents / Adam and Eve
that was before one single soul ever existed
- what an anticipation / expectation / and hope

But also imagine the wickedness and cunning of Satan
and imagine his evil scheming with the demonic hosts
as they hatch their plot to disrupt what was to be something most beautiful

So imagine also the surprise of the angelic host
as they watched helplessly / with horror
as our first parents succumbed / to the seduction of Satan

Instead of drinking from the nectar of the pure garden
they reached out for the slime

And imagine the hurt that the disruption of relationship brought to God
Imagine God coming into the garden / in the cool of the day
to be with Adam and finds that he and Eve were both afraid
In fact they were both hiding

And God had to call out to Adam “Where are you”
“Why are you hiding? I did not create you to hide from me”

Can you hear the sorrow and ache in the Father’s voice

Or try to sense the heart of God
after Cain had killed his brother Able / in a fit of jealousy
He asks the same kind of questions again
“Where is your brother? What have you done?

And ever since that day / the venom from the dragon’s tongue
has poisoned our relationship to God and our relationship to one another
and out planet has been grieved by the pain misery and death
over what human people have inflicted on one another
the crusades / the slave trade / child-labour / the holocaust
the killing fields in Vietnam / ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
Tutsis and Hutus tearing each other apart in Rwanda
abused children / the 150,000 babies aborted everyday around the world
broken marriages / split churches
the way we mistrust each other / suspect each other / kill each other

Time and again God comes along us / and the same cry rings from His heart
“Where are you? What have you done? I didn’t create you for this
I created you for relationship and intimacy
and security and love and joy / What have you done?”

God’s heart longs for people to relate / to Him first then to one another
And this is the reason why Jesus came to this planet
He came to earth to reconcile people to God
and people to people / and a person to himself

Of the 10 commandments
the first four / have to do with our relationship with God
the last six / have to do with our relationships with people

Someone has estimated that 44 % of the content of the letters in NT
has to be with relationships

God gives direct clear instructions about how we are to relate to one another
between husbands and wives / wife to husbands
children to parents / parents to children / slaves to master master to slaves
employees to employer / employer to employees
leaders to their congregations / congregation towards their leaders
and church members towards one another

We’re called to agree together / assemble together / build together / cleave
come / grow / live / knit / meet / run / struggle / work / sing / cry / laugh

And the phrase “one another” occurs 59 times / in very specific commands
we are told to love one another / be devoted to one another
accept one another / have concern for one another / forgive one another
carry one another’s burdens / submit to one another / pray for one another
confess our sins to one another

And out of all those “one anothers” / the most repeated command in the NT
is this “Love one another” / Sixteen times it is repeated

And when God describes our human nature / that’s been infected by sin
He uses words / that talk of the stuff we do to each other / with each other
“sexual immorality / impurity and debauchery / idolatry and witchcraft
hatred / discord / jealousy / fits of rage / selfish ambition / dissensions
factions and envy drunkenness / orgies and the like” / Gal 5:19-21

Words describing our nature are relational words
and those words describe the ingredients the devil uses
to brew his poisonous broth
and many of us / unfortunately / have eaten from his table

By the way when God talks about the fruit of the Spirit
He uses relational words too / “love / joy / peace / patience
goodness / kindness / faithfulness / gentleness and self control”

And on this subject of how we relate to one another
the Bible gives us a real bad news
It tells us that as this world is drawing to a close
human relationships are going to get / not better / but steadily worse
This is what it says: “Mark this:
There will be terrible times in the last days
People will be lovers of themselves / lovers of money / boastful
proud / abusive / disobedient to their parents / ungrateful / unholy
without love / unforgiving / slanderous / without self control/ brutal
not lovers of the good / treacherous / rash / conceited /
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God / 2 Tim 3:1-4

The only one laughing all the way to the bank is the devil
It looks like he has succeeded in breaking us up

Now / loving relationships is one thing Satan hates
Satan seethes with anger / whenever he sees true loving community
- that’s why he hates families so intensely / and the church so fiercely

Satan’s ploy is to get people isolate from one another
alienated from one another /
- he hates community / and he’s been eroding it
since God initiated the family / and he is succeeding

The devil hates any thriving happy communities
- he wants to get you to be alone / so he can get you

And one of the clearest evidence / of the fracture in relationships
is the isolation we see round us
we are relating less and less to one another
we each retreat into our own little world
we don’t have much to do with one another

You know / one of the saddest sights for me as I drive around this country
are the Town Halls of New Zealand towns
most of the Town Halls have long been shut down / ever noticed that?

The town halls / in many towns / were once the hub of life of the town
- people got together / ate / sang / danced / laughed / shared lives together

Now of course there are sociological factors that have lead to this
- like changes in work patterns / the decline of the family structure
suburban lifestyle / television / the internet / computers

But what I am saying / is that over and above this
there is a scheming grandmaster / who has an overall diabolical plan
to get people isolated from each other

C. S. Lewis has said / that hell is a place of isolation
Not only is a person separated from God and His love
but they are also separated from people because there is no love there

I have mentioned before that Robert Putnam
has written a most disturbing book called Bowling Alone
He draws on evidences from nearly 500,000 interviews
over the last quarter century to show the collapse of American community
but the findings reflect most Western countries

Putnam observes that since the 50’s
membership in voluntary community groups has been steadily declining

Virtually every group he has surveyed / has been on the decline
- labour union membership has been falling for nearly four decades
- PTA meetings have been dropping
from 12 million to barely 5 million in 18 yrs
- Federation of Women’s Clubs – fell by 59 percent
- Boy Scouts has dropped 26% since 1970
- Red Cross – dropped 61% since 1970
- Lions dropped 12 % since 1983 / Masons - down 39 % since 1959

And people are even bowling alone / hence the name of the book!!
- we’re signing fewer petitions / we belong to fewer organizations
- we know our neighbors less
- we even socialize with our families less often

It used to be that in the evenings / families would gather by the piano
just to have fun together
In most of today’s families / the lounge is hauntingly empty and silent
- each one is in his or her room / gratifying themselves

Let me paint two pictures for us

One / you’re travelling in a bus
We have been in a bus for decades now till we were in Vancouver
about five years back for our sabbatical

We notice that / whether deliberately or unconsciously
each person in the bus / tries to avoid contact with each other
they either gaze absentmindedly ahead / or look out the window
or read a book / or close their eyes and listen to their own music

These people are transcient fellow travellers
By sheer necessity / they have been thrown an island of humanity
are forced to endure each other / for a short span of time

I believe as this world grows older
the more will people be alienated /divorced /isolated from one another

Now let me paint you a second picture
It’s a party / people are there because they want to be there
they’re laughing / moving around / fraternising /interacting / talking
listening / relaxing / sharing / laughing

Unlike the experience of being in a bus or an elevator
No feels out of place / each one is there because she wants to be there
They choose to be there / they are happy to be there
They don’t someone to break up the party / they want it to go on
They are with people they know and want to be with

Now its hard to imagine two situations
more radically different than these two situations / in a bus / at a party

Now the question is really this: “Should a church be more like a bus or a party?
Unfortunately some congregations / can look so much like buses
People come on board / simply to get from one place to another
– from earth to heaven / but like in a bus / there is little relationship

But God meant for us to share our lives together
He puts us in a place He calls church / “ecclesia”
which means “a people set apart”

Set apart for what? Set apart to form a new community
out of the wreckage of the fallen one

Did you know that God does not give you an option / of joining a local church
The day you commit yourself to Christ / you commit yourself to the church
Acts 2:42
The day you became a Christian / He brings you into His Church
and you became a part of the family of God

Grab a concordance / and you’ll find that 60 out of the 61 times
the word “saint” is always found in the plural
Only once is it used in the singular / “Greet every saint”

For good or for ill / we’re bonded together
There is no Christianity apart from the church
Christianity is corporate / we’re meant to live our lives together
in a new redeemed community

God know that this is a broken world / broken people live in it
And God wants us create a community
and relate to one another in such a way / that broken people can be healed

And God is right / many people live lives of quiet despair
there are broken people everywhere
so many people live alone in their pain and loneliness
they’ve had to deal / with the pain of loneliness and lovelessness
all by themselves
- not many people really care for them

People come back from work into lonely flats / and lonely evenings
The phone seldom rings
No one is interested to hear the cry in their hearts
Few remember their birthdays / no one asks how they are doing
what they are feeling

Now in a community like that / can you imagine them being thrown into a party
I am speaking of the church as a party / quite deliberately
Jesus speaks of the church as a place
where the leper is touched for the first time in his adult life
- everyone shuns him until Jesus comes along and embraces him
and for the first time / he is touched by another human person
and for the first time / he smiles again - it’s a party

Jesus speaks of a church as a place
where the young woman / who finds herself in trouble with men
is received with love / and acceptance
where people work together to help her find healing
and finally she jumps up and celebrates her healing - it’s a party

Jesus speaks of the church as a place
where that lonely guy / that dishonest inland revenue officer
having been shunned for many years by all the people
is finally is accepted as a person / who needs love
and finds the love he’s looking for
and he breaks his money box / and begins to give people back their money
and they celebrate together – it’s a party


Now if one of you here should spend an hour or two a week
intentionally getting close to someone the Lord prompts you to
you call that person up / take her out to a movie / and then to dinner
and then following it up a week later / with a phone call

And you do that for a while / just hanging out together
And when the timing is right you invite her to Christ Sanctuary
and introducing her to all of us here
And in God’s grace / we each showed her genuine loving care

You know what! It’ll drive her crazy!!
she will be blown away by the way she is received
she will feel herself drawn and attracted to this place
she may be puzzled / she may shake her head in disbelief
but she will be drawn to God we worship
because for once / she’s seen / and tasted the real thing

You treat people with love like that
for once / they will stand up and take stock of what might be happening here
for once / they will be forced to seriously consider / just who this Jesus is
because / for the first time / they will be seeing the love of Christ in action
and they will want to know / what all this crazy stuff is all about

They will see / with their own eyes / people forgiving one another
people living selflessly for each other
people giving themselves to each other to look out for the other
people who are more ready to give than to receive

Howard Hendricks used to say
People will know it / if you’ve caught the real disease
How right / Francis Schaeffer was when he said: “Love is the final apologetics”

People are lonely and in need of deep meaningful relationship
People need friends / a safe place / where they can go to


Have you ever noticed that a lot of TV sit-coms
are based on stories of people who connect with one another in small groups

Cheers / Friends / Veronica’s Closet / - you see people coming together
the same friends / the same place / same café / same bar
every time / doing the same things / being with the same people
Why? / Because there / everyone knows your name

Can you not translate this into church?
Can you not principalize the concept / here in church?

You walk in / and people say / “Hey! Joe / How’s it going?
What’ve you been up to / You’re doing OK?
Hey! How about joining us for lunch after this?
C’mon / Come along! / I’ll introduce you to some friends”

Now / if my thesis about the devil causing fracture in relationships
then this / will frustrate him o no end! / It’ll spoil his plans
it’ll expose his scheme

This is my dream and vision for Christ Sanctuary
That we relate to each other in this new community / as Christ taught us

Our text this morning from Ephesians 4 says
“You were taught to put off your old self / and to put on the new self
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood
speak truthfully to his neighbor
In your anger do not sin
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths
but only what is helpful for building others up
Get rid of all bitterness / rage and anger / brawling and slander
along with every form of malice
Be kind and compassionate to one another
forgiving each other / just as in Christ God forgave you”


What if we treat each other this way in church
If we did / people will know we are Christians / by our love
By our love / And they’ll know we are Christians by our love

Why can’t we have some Saturday nights / once a month / Fun Night
where we bring pizzas and coke and settle over a great video
and just catch up on each other
and when friendship has been established
then we can talk about some controversial subjects
and just provoke discussion and thinking

It’ll make an impact on many people / it’ll soften their heart
it’ll send their guards down
Because every human person is vulnerable to love
Every human people / can and will respond to real selfless love
Every false and self-erected defense / will eventually collapse

The human heart is made to melt / when it is loved / and loved selflessly

Meaningful relationships is the key
- people will be a little more likely to stay around
if they feel valued as people
if they feel a meaningful relationship is developing
if they feel understood / if they feel they are listened to

Our Lord Jesus not only gave us the command
to love people and spend time with them / He set us the example

How many times in the scriptures
we find Him engaging in a one-to-one encounter
He called sinners friends
And why did they accuse Him of being a glutton and a drunkard
He must have ate and drank with them all / partied with the people

He visited with people on the streets / attended their parties
invited himself over to their houses for dinner
he entered homes to heal the sick
he made wine at the wedding of a friend
he helped some unlucky fishermen catch fish
he received a costly act of love from a woman at the home of a Pharisee

Sitting there on the edge of the well / he met a woman who had five husbands
He listened to her / He showed her compassionate empathy
And her heart began melting
and step by step / He led her to faith in God
and how she in turn brought the whole village to hear him

Another day He came into a town / looked up into a tree
and saw that Inland Revenue officer / I spoke about earlier
His name was Zacchaeus / avoided by everyone like plague
because he collected their money and gave it to the Romans
But Jesus invited Himself to his home for tea
and right there in that home / our Lord led Zacchaeus to salvation

There are many other such encounters in the Bible
there was Nicodemus / there was Bartimaeus
there was the cripple man at the pool called Bethesda / and many more

Time and again / Jesus could see right through people’s inner hurt
and He just reached out and touch that very spot

Rebecca Pippert says Jesus “had an extraordinary ability
to see beneath the myriad of layers of people /and know what they longed for
but were afraid of revealing
That is why His answers so frequently
did not correspond to the questions He was asked
He sensed their unspoken need or question
and responded to that instead

Jesus could have healed lepers in countless ways
If He dreaded touching the leper that He healed
He could have shouted from a distance / “Be healed”
and He would’ve been healed

But He didn’t / He reached over and touched him
Jesus’ touch was not necessary for his physical healing
But it was critical for his emotional healing

Rebecca Pippet writes:
“Can you imagine what it meant to that man to be touched?
A leper was an outcast / quite accustomed to walking down a street
and seeing people scatter / shrieking at him / “Unclean – unclean!”

Jesus knew that this man not only had a diseased body
but an equally diseased self-concept
He needed to be touched to be fully cured
And so Jesus responded as He always did
with total healing for the whole person”

In fact it was His friendship with people that got Him killed
The cross was the climatic act of his friendship for sinners
On the eve of His crucifixion He said: “Greater love has no one than this
that he lay down his life for his friends” /Jn 15:13

Are we reaching out and touching people’s lives at the layer of their greatest needs

The key to evangelism is not some big covert secret
There are no complicated equations / for bring someone to Christ
The key to bringing people to Jesus Christ / is found
in our willingness / to share our lives with people
The key to evangelism / is relationship

Did you know that God has designed it in such a way
that some people will respond to His love / having experienced your love

And if that is true / the opposite is also true
There will be people who will miss on God
simply because you have chosen to withdraw yourself from them

Isn’t that a frightening thing to think about
- that there might be people / who will not come to know God
simply because you / haven’t befriended them

It sounds scary but this is what the Word of God says:
“How can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him?
And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him?
And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?” Ro 10:14

Have we been far too busy for the greatest business on earth
the business of turning people away from hell
and turning them to God

There’s a great deal of junk in our lives / and junk saps your energy for God
If you put time aside each week to spend with someone
that person’s life may be forever changed / because of your obedience

Think of the many chances you’ve had last week
to invite someone home / and showed them love / but you pulled back

Let us join hands together / encourage each other to build communities
loving communities / where people relate to one another lovingly

Let us be on the lookout for people we can invite into our loving community

Let us love people to bits / sacrificially / willingly
Let us reach out to people out there
broken people / are scavenging the junkyards of life
for food that will not satisfy / and water that will not quench
because they do not know that what they’re really looking for / is love

Let us give the love they are looking for
And in receiving our love / they will come to receive the love of Christ