Because He Lives

Well, good morning everybody. Thank you all so much for being here and thank you in advance for finding your seats and starting to get sat down. We appreciate that. Great to have everybody here today with us. Miss Caroline talking about the the changing of the seasons and everything. We were sitting outside the other day and you see all the all the flowering bushes and all the stuff blooming and man all that beautiful grass that Mr. Michael and Kenneth were working so hard to plant. All the ry grass, right? All the ry grass back in the the back. So it’s just man so beautiful. It’s a great time to be in Charleston for sure.

Well, yeah. So we are coming to our time of congregational prayer that we do each and every Sunday morning. As you may have seen the video play before the service began, this morning we are going to pray for David and Sarah Gaskins. They have started Mosaic Church in Provo, Utah, what they described as the capital of Mormonism. It’s crazy when I was watching the video this week kind of preparing to pray for them this morning. You know, he said, by capita, by percentage, it is the least Christian city in America, Provo, Utah. I think we would look at that and we’d say it’s a pretty conservative area. They probably believe a lot of the same cultural things we believe. We I bet if we went there, we’d feel pretty pretty comfortable, honestly, kind of navigating and talking with people. But in terms of actual belief, giving yourself in belief to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, less people do it there per capita than anywhere else. Not New York City or Los Angeles or Portland, Oregon, other crazy places like that. It’s Provo, Utah.

So, we’re going to pray for them this morning as well. We’re going to pray for that national goal that we’re contributing to here at Sauldam with the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. By the way, if you want to make a contribution to that, we have special envelopes on the back two tables where you can drop that or if you do your physical giving in one of the other normal envelopes, you can write Annie Armstrong on that or I believe that whenever you give online via Realm. Yep. Okay. Whenever you give online via Realm, there’s also a dropbox there to be able to give specifically to that cause. So, what I want to invite you to do is grab a neighbor and just pray either for the Gaskins family or for their church, that national goal. And then I’ll put a bow on it here in a moment. Thank you guys. Y’all take it away.

Father God, I want to say thank you so much. You are a missionary God. You did not just see our need and love us from afar, but God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son. Jesus, You came not to condemn the world because the world was already condemned. You came to save it. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. And He did that by eating and drinking with sinners. Lord, thank You that the Gaskins family does not just love the Mormons of Provo, Utah from afar, but they sent themselves to go and be Christ in that community and share the love of God with them. The real God, not some false view of God revealed by a demon given in visions or tablets or just ideas of a man. But the real God of the universe who is the very Word of God, the very utterance of our Creator, the very essence of our Holy One that we worship. God, like them, the Gaskins moved. You’ve blessed them to start Mosaic Church. God, we’re ahead of them in the time schedule. So, in a couple hours, they’re going to be kicking off their Sunday morning services. And I pray that You would bring a lot of lost people to Mosaic Church this morning. God, they would hear the gospel. They’d be intrigued by it. And Holy Spirit, You would do an irreparable work in their heart, something that no demon or darkness could ever repair, that You would save them. Please, I pray that You would sustain the Gaskins family, that for many years to come, they would continue laboring there, and that there would be more and more stories like the one we watched this morning.

Father, I pray for us by Your grace through Your sovereignty and Your provision. You have kept us here since 1841, a lamppost for the gospel here in rural West Ashley. God, praise be to your name. To God be the glory for the great things that He’s done. May You keep us, please. May You use us for Your purpose that Your kingdom would grow. Lord, there’s a group of people here that we all have different anxieties, different fears, different ambitions and passions, different sin struggles, and different hopes. I pray that You would use Your Word to meet each and every person in a different way. You would apply the truth of the gospel to each heart this morning. That we would all walk out of here with a step of how we walk with You, God. I love You. We love You. And I’m asking that You would share Your message to this people this morning. Thank You, Father. Amen. Amen.

Well, thank you so much for being here. If you have your copy of God’s Word, you can go ahead and open up to the letter of Ephesians. If you are still navigating the road map of the Bible, then you just open it up right in the middle. You’re probably landing in the Psalms or one of the other prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah. I’m going to want you to take a right from there and eventually you’re going to hit Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Keep going another quarter mile. You’ll go through Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and you’re going to land in Ephesians. You’re going to have to park it in Ephesians chapter 1.

We’re continuing our series that we’ve called “In Christ.” The whole point of the book of Ephesians is Paul writing to this group of believers in a city called Ephesus, and he wants them to know exactly who they are as Christians, people who are in Christ. You see, when Paul wrote this letter about 2,000 years ago, there were no church buildings, no choirs, no instruments, no AV booths, no microphones. It was just small groups of people meeting in homes, fully committed to following Jesus. Yet, they were surrounded by a culture that worshiped false gods, government rulers, and practiced empty religion.

You see, Paul wanted them to know something crucial. Jesus is not just another God, another leader, or another teacher. Like my Buddhist friend from the YMCA said the other day, no, Jesus is in charge of everything. Ephesians is a letter written to a group of people that needed to know who is in charge. This group of people lived on the southwest coast of modern-day Turkey. They were surrounded by a culture that hated Jesus and hated what He stood for.

So in chapter 1, we saw last week verses 15-19, Paul transitions. He has been teaching them about their identity in Christ and then he transitions to praying for them. We saw last week this kingdom prayer that he prays for them. And then what we’re going to read this morning could be the second half of that prayer or it could be Paul teaching. Again, we’re not exactly sure, but if you look at Ephesians 1 verse 19, you see a word there. It’s the immeasurable greatness of His power. What Paul’s going to do this morning in verses 20 through 23 is explain what God’s power has accomplished. Like the Ephesians 2,000 years ago, we are a group of people today that need to know what has God’s power accomplished.

Because here’s the deal. When we as followers of Jesus or as people who soon will follow Jesus, when we walk according to our power, we get what we can control, which frankly is not very much. Honestly, whenever we live by our power, when we live by our wisdom, our practices, our ways, usually life starts to kind of spiral out of control, like if you’re tossing a salad in one of those salad spinners, you take the top off and all those wet lettuce leaves are just flung up into the air. That’s kind of what happens with our lives. We need a powerful God that can control us and can fill us with His own power so that we can live lives that please Him.

So that’s what we’re going to read about this morning. We need to know who’s in charge and why does that matter as followers of Jesus. If we want to live like Jesus, we have to live like Jesus is in charge. And when we fail to do that, we fail to live in the power and the identity that God has already chosen for you. See, God demonstrated His power in Jesus, and that extends to us as His body. So let’s see what God’s power has accomplished in Jesus Christ. Read it with me here. Ephesians 1:20-23. God exercised This power in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens. Far above, not a little above, not on equal footing. Oh no. Far above every ruler in authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And the Father God, He subjected everything under the feet of Jesus. And He appointed Jesus as the head over everything in the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way. That is God’s power. That’s the type of power that God intends for you and me and for our church to walk in.

There are three key words in this passage that help us navigate the directions of what Paul is doing. Raised, seated, appointed. So, let’s just walk through the passage looking at what it means for Jesus to be raised. What does it mean for Him to be seated? And what does it mean for Him to be appointed?

The first one, raised. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus has power over life. I’ll say it again. Because God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus has power over life. Verse 20, God exercised this power in Christ by raising Him from the dead. That word exercised is really interesting. It’s like to carry into effect, to cause to happen, to ensure the result of. It’s interesting because it’s used two other times in the book of Ephesians. In chapter two, it’s going to say that Satan is exercising his power in the world. And in chapter three, it’ll say that God is exercising His power to bless us more than we could ever ask or imagine.

You see, here’s the deal. Satan is carrying into effect, Satan is exercising his power to create sin, darkness, and death in the lives of every person who does not know Jesus. The person at Publix that helps you check out, the waitress at the restaurant you’ll go to later today, your neighbor, your coworker, your family member, whoever it is, every person that does not know Jesus is the recipient of Satan’s power being exercised on them versus God. God is also exercising His power to create better and more and good and loving and beautiful things for those that love Him and that He loves.

Here’s the deal. We are all on the business end of somebody’s work. We’re all on the business end. Either Satan’s work or God’s work. Either for your destruction or for your good. The great news is this morning, you’ve got the choice. Whose business end you want to be on? We submit ourselves to the business end of Satan whenever we give ourselves to sin and darkness and his ways. We submit ourselves to the business end of God whenever we give ourselves to Him. Whose end do you want to be on?

God raised Jesus from the dead. He exercised His power to accomplish the ultimate good against the ultimate bad so that we could have life. That’s why God raised Him from the dead. You ever asked that question? Why in the world did Jesus have to die? I’m glad you asked that question silently. Thank you so much.

Ephesians 2:1-10 details this in incredible detail. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. Man, that’s an uplifting message. You were dead. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is exercising his power in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires. You and me, we are all like the people of Provo, Utah, pursuing perfection and wholeness through our works. We are all like that. We are all carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and our thoughts, just passing decisions. And we were by nature children under the wrath of God.

Here’s the deal. Every person is born spiritually dead. There’s no neutrality. And what can someone do that’s passed away? What can they do? What can they do for themselves? The moment we take our last breath, this is the moment we’re not able to get ourselves dressed. We are not able to eat. We’re not able to pick up the phone and call somebody. We’re not able to help ourselves, let alone helping anybody else. There will come a time when we all take our last breath and our life here will end. Paul is saying we are all born like that spiritually. We can’t do spiritual good for ourselves. We can’t live holy lives that Please the Lord. We can’t pursue God in that way. That’s how that’s who we are. In fact, it’s not just that we can’t do those things. It’s that we indulge in the wrong things. We are all born with a nature, a desire for sin and darkness and destruction. We are all born creating the badness of this world. So, God had to send Jesus. And He does this for us because verse four says that God is rich in mercy because He has great love for us. He makes us alive with Christ, even though we’re dead in our trespasses, we are saved by grace.

Here’s the deal. Even though you are born a dead sinner who just causes sin and you just thrust darkness into the world, even though we were born that way, opposing God and hating the things He loves, God still has grace and mercy and kindness for us. And He still sends His Son, Jesus. While we were yet sinners, God sent Christ to die for you. Amen. God had mercy, love, and grace for you when all you had was sin and trespass and disobedience for Him. How could it be any other way than by grace you are saved?

Verse six of chapter two says, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him.” We’ll get to that in a second. So that in the coming ages, God might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. You see, we’re dead sinners. God has incredible mercy and grace. And then God uses that mercy and grace not just to forgive us of the bad things we’ve done, but to unshackle us from the darkness we live in. He frees us because we cannot free ourselves. If we could free ourselves, there’d be no reason for us to be here right now. We are here right now as joyful recipients of the grace of God who are worshiping Christ Jesus, the lamb that died for us.

You see, if you could save yourself, you would. But you can’t. So God had to save us. Verse eight of chapter two says, “We are saved by grace through faith. And it’s not from yourselves. It is God’s gift, not from works so that no one can boast.” You see, if you could save yourself, you’d get the credit for it. But you can’t. God had to save you. So God gets the credit for that. We can’t save ourselves. God had to exercise His power to raise Jesus from the dead because you needed His grace.

Man, if you’re here this morning and you’re not sure that you’ve ever actually tasted the grace of God, if you’re not actually sure that you are born again, that you are saved, please start ignoring me and start speaking with the one who brought you here this morning to hear this message of good news and just be real with Him. Say, “God, I’m a sinner. I needed You to save me, and I trust that You have grace and forgiveness and mercy for me in Jesus Christ. Please unshackle me from the darkness that I live in.” And God answers that prayer 100% of the time.

God raised Jesus from the dead. God exercised His power in defeating sin and death for us. I kind of already buried the lead, but that’s the question. Have you been raised to life with Jesus? Have you been born again? It’s what Jesus said about it in John chapter three. Have you tasted and seen that God is good? Have your sins been forgiven? Have you stepped from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light of the beloved Son, Jesus Christ? If you have not done that yet, if you have not made that decision yet, if you’re fuzzy on some of those details, I’d love to begin that conversation down here at the front during the final song. Don’t leave here today unsure about if you are alive in Christ.

God’s power did not stop in raising Jesus from the dead. Though the second verb, the second word that I mentioned a few minutes ago, God seated Jesus. It says because God seated Jesus at His right hand or rather I’m saying because God seated Jesus at His right hands. Jesus has power over the universe. Look at verses 20 and 21 with me again. God exercised this power in Christ by raising Him from the dead and then seating Him at His right hand in the heavens far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, every title given, not only this age but also in the one to come. And then verse 22, He subjected Everything under His feet. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, which means He’s got power over the universe. To be at the right hand of God, that is a position of privilege, honor, favor, victory, power. To be at the right hand of the King means you are just one notch below the ultimate authority in the kingdom. So for God to have Jesus Christ at His right hand means that Jesus is reigning. Is that He has ultimate privilege. Is that He is the name above every name. Is that He has the ultimate favor of God. That He conquers and defeats every enemy He could ever come against. That He has the totality of power in His grasp. Jesus Christ is at the very right hand of God.

Because Jesus is seated at God’s right hand, that means He is the King over everything. There is not a single thing in your life that you have ownership over. It’s all Christ’s. This church is not ours. It’s Christ’s. America is not ours. It belongs to Jesus Christ. This world is not ours. It all belongs to Jesus. Which means the sin of sin is when we treat God’s things like they’re ours and we start using God’s things for our purposes and our preferences. Jesus is in charge. He’s at the right hand of the Father. He is sitting over everything. It says He’s in charge over every ruler, authority, power, dominion, every title. Means every source of authority, whether human or spiritual, Jesus is above everything, every person, every entity, every spirit that wields any influence or control.

Right now, remember Paul was writing this letter to a group of people who were extremely familiar with the fact that a spiritual realm really does exist outside of Hollywood movies and spook novels. Paul was writing to a group of people that understood that their battle is not against flesh and blood. It is against powers and principalities and spiritual forces that are at work right now meant to continue to thrust darkness and death and destruction into this world and into your family. Paul was writing to a group of people that understood that behind every disagreement, every division, every argument was a dark spiritual force intending to separate God’s people from themselves. Paul was writing to a group of people that understood that. Do we understand that? Man, I got to ask that again. Do you understand that? Then don’t live in your power. Live in the power of God. The power that placed Jesus above everything. The power that placed Jesus over you. The power that placed Jesus over America, over Sauldam Baptist Church, over the town of Ravenel.

Another Bible commentator puts it this way. Christ as the risen and seated King is now superior to every competitor. His throne is above the principalities and the powers. He is above creation. He’s above Satan and Satan’s system. He is above everyone and every ruler. I really, I, I’ve got to ask it again because this man Paul, what these would have been extremely encouraging words to a group of people who understood that they needed God’s power to take their next breath. American culture has tricked you into thinking that these are offensive words to you and your autonomy and your independence. I got to ask it in a different way. Is Christ wielding His influence over you or are you resisting against Him? Are you pushing against Him saying, “Jesus, you can be my Savior. You can forgive all of my sin. You can deal away with my debt against the Father, but if you are actually my Lord, we’re gonna have some issues with that.” The people of the church at Ephesus, they would have understood they don’t just want Jesus to be their Savior. They wanted Him to be their Lord because they needed a ruler over them that could cover them and help them and support them and sustain them through everything they go through.

Do you see yourself as needy before God or as independent and able to live your life in your own power? The people of Ephesus didn’t think that. They would have recognized that they are desperately in need of the power of God on their behalf. If Jesus is the seated King who is superior to every competitor, human or spiritual, that means that you, you don’t have to be a victim of Satan or the world. Amen. In fact, the Bible says you’re supposed to live as more than a conqueror. You’re not just supposed to be a victim being kept down by darkness and sin and temptations and the lies that come through your mind. You’re not even supposed to be a neutral entity just kind of watching the war happening. You’re supposed to be a victor, a conqueror that goes into dark places carrying the light of Christ with you, like these candles brightening up the dark places, and you’re supposed to be driving the dark stuff through the authority of Christ out of your soul and out of your community and out of your family. Is that how you live? Or are you thrusting the darkness in it? Are you saying, “Man, the ways of the world, they get what they want. It’s a lot easier to live according to my own preferences. Why would I fight this temptation anymore?” In Christ, you are a victor because of what Jesus has done for you. Do you want to live as a victim of Satan or as a victor in Christ? God’s power for you is that you would live as a victor.

I do not believe for a second that God would have sent His very best, Jesus Christ, to come to this world to save us so that we would walk around in our own strength, our own wisdom, shuffling our feet like a bunch of dejected losers. To put it frankly, I think Christ came to set us free and that we would have life and have it more abundant. Christ set us free so that we don’t have to live shackled to the darkness and the pain and the lies of Satan.

Christ is over life. He is over the world naturally. Then if Jesus has authority over life, if He has authority over the world, then God would appoint Jesus as head over the church. God has appointed Jesus as head over the church. Jesus is in charge here. Once again, this might be offensive language to us. Receive it as good news. Jesus is in charge.

That word head is very interesting. Look at 22 with me again. I’ll read it in total. God subjected everything under Jesus’s feet, which means at best we are under Jesus’s big toes or His heel. He subjected everything under His feet and appointed Jesus as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

That word head is so interesting. It can mean person in charge. It can also mean origin of life. Think about it like a dam on a river. I remember when I was in college at Charleston Southern, me and some buddies rented some kayaks from school and we took them to the Goose Creek Reservoir to go fish. I will tell you the most exhilarating fishing moment I’ve ever had was catching a fish out of a kayak. Sorry, it gets worse. It’s catching a brim out of a kayak. Y’all, a brim’s not a very big fish. It might be—it was this big, don’t get me wrong—but it might be the size of your hand. But I’m sitting there on the kayak and I’m bobbling back and forth and I’m—this might surprise you—I’m not exactly an expert angler or anything like that. But anyways, the Goose Creek Reservoir is there because they’ve taken that river and they’ve dammed it up.

Now, the person that operates that dam, they are in charge of the river. They are the authority over that river. If they want the reservoir lower, then they would put up the dam. They would reduce the inflow. They might increase the outflow off the reservoir. That person that’s in charge is also the source of life for that. They could let the reservoir drain completely and nothing would ever grow there. Jesus Christ is like that for us. He’s the person in charge, but He’s also the source of life.

When Jesus met the woman in John chapter 4, the woman at the well who had lived an adulterous life, Jesus asked her, “Hey, are you thirsty?” And she’s like, “Hey man, it’s like the middle of the day and I’m drawing water for myself. What do you think? Yeah, I’m thirsty.” And Jesus says, “I can make rivers of living water swell up in your hearts that you’ll never be thirsty again.” And she says the very economical thing, “Show me that water. I would love to have that water.” And Jesus eventually gets to the point of saying, “I am that water.”

You see, Jesus is like that. He is that—he is the source of authority. He is the person in charge of the church. He is the head of the church. He is the lead pastor of Sauldam Baptist Church. He is also the origin of life. You see, in us and in the world, all We can ever get are little bottles of water. I’ve got a 40 oz. That thing lasts me two hours. Some of y’all have some of those 8 oz little bottles we keep in the fridge. That might also last you two hours. You might also need to drink a little bit more water. Now, I’m getting thirsty thinking about water. But Jesus says, “I’m better than all that.” He says, “I will pour living water in your soul that will never run dry.” The reservoir of your soul should never go dry. The church is that way. Our life as a church is because Jesus is the source of life and He is pouring Himself into us. He is the one in charge. He is the origin of our life. Christ is the head of Sauldam Baptist Church. He’s the person in charge of us. He is the source of our life. And since Jesus is in charge of everything, it would make so much sense for Him to be functionally in charge here.

But what’s a church? Fascinating that word in verse 22, eklesia. Ekklesia. It means an assembly of God. The church is not a building. It’s not 5945 County Line Road. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love our facility. I love the fact that we have a building. I love the fact that County Line Road is becoming a very busy main thoroughfare. They get to read our marquee. They get to see the stuff that we’re up to. I love all those things. But we could still operate as Sauldam Baptist Church without the support of this facility.

Remember, there were no church buildings when Paul and the other apostles and scores of unknown Christians were sharing the message of Jesus. There were no church buildings when people started believing the gospel and gathering in small little clumps together. There were no church buildings when people started to regularly meet, committing themselves to one another and committing themselves to the apostles’ teaching. These people, the people of Ephesus that Paul was writing to, they wouldn’t—they were not meeting in facilities dedicated to church activities. They were meeting in homes. They were—they—they had an experience of church life that would be foreign to us. And what we experience of church would be foreign to them.

Think about it this way. Imagine the average size of a house. Might be able to fit 20 people in a living room. If you’re super wealthy, like 40 people in your living room, something like that. We’ve got a hundred in this room right now. Our church would be two to six times the size of these Ephesian house churches. Or even the leadership—20, 40 people. You probably had a couple elders, maybe a deacon versus us. You got Pastor Al, you’ve got myself, you’ve got other ministry leaders. We have a team of deacons. We have committees. We have other teams. We have task forces.

Think about the affiliation. When Paul was writing to the Christians in Ephesus, he’s writing to a collective network of house churches. They would have thought about themselves as being affiliated with the church of Ephesus. It’d be like us saying the church of Charleston. But that’s not how we think. We think about ourselves as independent yet denominational. We are an autonomous church that chooses to fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention. Not moral, it’s just different. Or like a facility. Like I said, the people of Ephesus, they’re meeting in private courtyards of their homes, maybe a large upper room. We meet in a public building dedicated for this.

When Paul is saying that Christ is the head of a church, he’s saying Christ is the head of the assembly of God. The main point of church will never change. It’s a body of people dedicated to Jesus Christ under His lordship and authority. But the functions of church do change as time goes on. Who knows what church is going to look like in 200 years. I would say since church has changed drastically not only in the things that we do, the things that we don’t do, what’s customary, what’s normal for us. Essentially, at the end of the day, it’s like one of our members said on Wednesday night during the Bible study, we’re looking at the book of Acts, and they made this astute observation. Our building is a tool. It’s a tool that serves a purpose. How can we best be a body for Jesus Christ here? Now, the facility of church, it’s not the main thing. However, we want to take care of our facility. And over the last two years, we’ve come—we’ve become aware of a need of our facility. I want to show you something that’s happened in the last two years since we’ve been here. Look at all these names. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 17 people in the last two years have passed through that baptistry. And on Easter, we’ve got six more that are going to make their profession of faith public. That’s God. That’s not Al. That’s not me. That is the Lord. We’ve put some abuse on that thing. And we’ve discovered that we need to repair it. I don’t know if you noticed, every time we run a baptism, we also put some towels in front of the glass because that thing leaks and the floor under it and the tiles and all that. So, we want to take care of this tool. We want to take care of this facility.

So, we’ve got a, you might see it on the front of this wall right here. We have a baptistry remodeling fundraiser going on about 15,000 for us to totally renovate that thing so that we can keep running scores of folks through it because it’s a tool. It’s not the main thing. It serves the main thing. So I invite you as you are giving your tithes and your offerings over the next few weeks and months whether it’s physical write it on an envelope or if it’s online via Realm there’s a dropbox for the baptistry funds. Here’s the deal. I’m not going to stop sharing the gospel during Sunday morning sermons which means people aren’t going to stop getting saved which means baptisms aren’t going to stop by God’s grace. So, we need to fix this thing so that Sam stops having a heart attack every time I get up there. And we feel a little bit of a wobble right there.

The church, let’s return to the passage verses 22 and 23. Christ or God subjected everything under His feet and appointed Jesus as head over everything for the church. The assembly of God which is His soma, His body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way. You see a church is inherently different from any other type of organization in the world because we are more like an organism. We are a body. We’re not just a committee. We’re not just an organization. We’re not a nonprofit. We’re not a 501c3 at our core. What we are at our core is the body of Jesus. We are the tangible expression of the unseen Christ.

In Romans 12: who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. And in Ephesians 4:es 11-13, it says that Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. Until what? Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s son, growing into maturity with stature measured by Christ’s fullness. You see, we are all different. Yet we all have unique gifts that God has given to Sauldam Baptist Church so that we would use those gifts for the good of the whole. This is important. We will not be who God wants us to be if your gifts are sitting on the sidelines and not jumping into the game. Say it again. We will not be who we are supposed to be if you do not exercise your gifts for the good of the whole.

Here. Let’s put it all together. God raised Jesus from death. God seated Jesus in authority and God appointed Jesus as head of the church. So what’s that mean for us? The one thing I want to end on this. Christ is in charge. That’s your main point. Christ is in charge. He defeated sin and death so that you can live. He rules everything so that you can live as a conqueror. And He is the head of the church so that we can live as conquerors together. So Christ is in charge. What then is your next step? Do you need to come alive by believing the gospel and giving yourself to Jesus and accepting the forgiveness and the grace God has for you? Do you need to begin living as a conqueror by walking in victory and not allowing Satan and his lies and this world and your flesh to have dominion over you? Do you need to begin to participate in the body of Jesus by joining our church as a member or serving in a ministry or even coming into a leadership position? Christ is in charge. That Is God’s power at work for your good? I want to end with this. We occasionally do this, is I call it just a open hands prayer. I believe every person has a response to God’s word. So, if you will, if you’re curious about how you ought to respond to today’s message, I’d invite you to take your hands and you just put them palm up, like on Christmas morning, if you if your family celebrated giving gifts, you would receive your gifts like this. God’s got a response for you. And I invite you for you to close your eyes and you would pray, “God, what’s my next step? God, do I need to come alive by believing the gospel for the first time? God, do I need to become a conqueror by walking in the victory of Your power? Or God, do I need to begin to participate in this body in some way? God, thank You for today. Thank You for Your word. Thank You for Your power exercised on our behalf. Please help us to walk in it. For the lost person in the room, help them to give themselves to You. Bring them forward during this song. For the person that is saved but does not walk in victory, I pray that You would give them victory over whatever sin or temptation or lie they are losing to. And for the person who loves You but doesn’t participate in the life of our church yet, I pray that You would help them to see what their next step is. Please, God, we love You. You’re in charge. We give ourselves to You.”