Unfathomable Riches of Christ - The Church as the Household of God

All right, so we have the schedule. We're at the last one in October, which is the Church is the Household of God. And that leaves us after today with the four that are scheduled through the month of November. And so it has their continuing as we've begun the month. And as we will continue next month, the church as, with an underline there, and fill in the blank with a different thing each week. And so this week is the church as the household of God.

Now as we showed last week, the church as the body of Christ was about four pages. This is about a page and a half, and that's even with the schedule, so it might turn out to more like just one page. That's okay. One of the things you also note, and we quoted a lot of it just in order to give context, we keep going back to Ephesians 2, 11 through 22. Why do we keep going back to the same passage week after week after week? Is Vern just stuck like a broken record or what's the problem here? What's the issue? Pardon? Yeah, so there's a lot of information, and it's not all of one category. So that's one thing, as we keep going back to it, we notice different teachings of different categories.

So for example, we've looked at our God's household, or we will look at our God's household in verse 19. But at other times, we've used this to point out other things, like we're a temple, right? So it has multiple truths all packed into one passage. So it is the fact that you've got kind of an insight-packed passage that we keep coming back to it.

And that's actually a good thing. All right, so let's take a look. We've got Galatians 6, 9, and 10. And so all of these are in the American Standard, as I've quoted them. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of God.

One of the insights that we have here, Greek word for house is oikos. The house is oikos. For household, it's just adding what we would transliterate as an e and an i. So oikos would be the way it would look and So just that slight change a couple of letters in the English and in the Greek Makes the change from house to household.

Yeah Yeah, so so what we looked at If we do not grow weary so that's a conditional That is what this is saying, that we will reap, assuming that's true, right? But if we do not grow weary, Nancy and I have installed on our smartphones just a great app, which if you have an Android phone is free for the download. Greek Interlinear New Testament, and we just found it's fantastic. So I'm going to look that up and see if I can get an answer to your very good question. Because that leads you back to what grief is. Grief what? Rewards? Salvation?

Yeah, well, so, yeah, it does. Like for a very good question, we're weary in time indeed. We will reap a harvest. Yes, it's it's it's brief, and that's that's why we've got Just real brief questions, and in one case it's an inferred meaning, which we'll talk about in a bit.

So, this is actually an unusual if. It's not typical. I'll have to study it more carefully. So it is an if not of usual construction. So I'd have to take a careful look at it to see what it implies. So, anyway, that's the quick answer. It's not the usual, you know, one of four constructions. So, it's an unusual one. Okay, so here's the principle, and Nancy was asking me about this just yesterday, and so it's a very good one.

Do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of God. Say, first of all, who are of the household of God? Church-age believers are of the household of God. So that's part one. So when it says, let us do good to all people, especially to those of the household of God, what is that telling us?

Yeah, in other words, so the principle is, do good to all, and what does it mean, especially? Why doesn't it say, just do good to all, leave it there? Why doesn't it say, do good to all, including the household of God? Yeah, so one, the principle of do good to all is there. But when it says especially, what that's telling about is priority. See that? So do good to all, but in a priority, make sure that's what's happening within the household of God.

By the way, do Christians sometimes fail in this? Yeah, a lot. Also, the priority issue is often misunderstood by Christians. Some folks, they've got to go out and do good, but they don't understand that the priority is those within the body of Christ. Yeah, so let's think about that. Why would the priority within the body be more important, a higher priority, of greater significance? Why? Yes?

Well, I said it's kind of like a family member. You reach out to other people, but if there's some need within your family, or you go too far. That's a responsibility, basically, they have to take their family and extend it out. So just think, do we not have responsibilities in our immediate family? So this carries that principle out to include the church body. Yes?

It's also a fact that those who know the best, you've been hurt the most. You know, you're very kind and congenial to people you don't know because you want them to think good of you. But those you know the best, it's easy to disregard them and hurt them. Yeah, there are greater sensitivities there. The other thing is those for whom you have responsibility, you know, even you think about taking care of your own family, right? Those for whom you have responsibility, you need to put your priorities there.

Right? Yes. Yes. Right, so each of us has, and one of the ways you could look at this is the one another's. You look through the one another's in the New Testament, and there's all kinds of one another's. And so the one another's are especially important, right? And it includes multiple times where it says love one another.

You may recall during the campout weekend, if you were here and remember, one of the things I looked at was of the two My Disciple statements in John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, of the two My Disciple statements which are intended for us in the body of Christ. There were things pointed towards the body of Christ at that point in time, but the first one was those who love one another are acting out my disciples. So he first said love one another in John 13. John 15 he said abide Those who abide and are therefore fruitful are my disciples.

So anyway, a really big and important difference there. Really, really cool. So this, you look at it, this priority issue which is stated very well and very clearly here, is something that is consistent with the entire New Testament. Do good to all as a priority, especially, particularly the household of God. It's interesting that the translators would say, of God.

I think that may be a textual difference. I'd have to look that up too. It sheds a little bit of light on it. If it's a variant of that particular variant. Yeah. So I'd have to look that up. I don't know if this tends. go towards the older Texas Receptus, King James kind of reading. But that would be something to look up. But yes, that is interesting. Even if the Of God reading is a more reliable reading, it says at least one point in time the understanding of some was the household of the faith. Good. Let's take a look at the next one. This is the one we've looked at a number of times, Ephesians 2, 11-22. And we've read through it enough times, I won't read the whole thing, even though I've included it here. So, it talks in the middle of the passage about Christ, who is termed as the Messiah, the Christ, right, in this passage. The Christ did what in order to make Gentiles and Jews together one body? What did he do in order to make that happen? He took the law out of the way. He got rid of the dividing wall.

He didn't make it more porous. He didn't kind of grayscale it. He didn't get rid of most of it, all but ten or something like that. He completely, totally got the dividing wall, which is the law, it's very explicit in terms of calling it two or three different things, out of the way. And it was, why is it not just partial? He got it mostly out of the way. Why isn't it just partial?

Yeah, so the law is one. As Paul put in Galatians, if you sign up for one, you sign up for them all. As James put it, you break one, you've broken them. All, right? So both Paul and James, it's amazing, they're really kind of in agreement here, in harmonious statement.

The law is one, it is not one to be selected, oh, I'm going to live by these ten, or I'm going to live by the ten plus a modified one, because I don't do the Sabbath, but I'm going to add tithing, and we also don't dance, or something like that. So whatever kind of rules and laws people come up with, The list is none. Completely and totally. We died to it. We didn't just swoon to it. We didn't just get really sick to it. We didn't get just simply in shock over it. We died completely to the law. He got it entirely out of the way.

So that what? So that both Jews and Gentiles, and not on some different level, both Jews and Gentiles are one. And he puts it here, fellow citizens with the saints, no longer strangers and aliens, and you are of God's household. And so let's also think about, what does it mean to be of God's household? What does that mean? Yeah, so here's, I mean, we've looked at, here are all the other things, there's the church, the body of Christ, there's the temple, there's the bride of Christ, and things we'll be looking at, you know, next week. all one household. So, now in a household, yeah? Yes, so here we look at it, of God's household, are both Jews and Gentiles of the new creation? Are they new creation believers?

Both Jews and Gentiles? Yep. Absolutely. Is it referring to Gentiles and Jews when it says, no more are you strangers or soldiers? So what he does is if we look up here, he's particularly referencing the Gentiles. If you look at the context, and it says, because above they were strangers and aliens, right? The Gentiles were on the outside. And even more so, the Gentiles were the uncircumcision, they were separate from Christ, they were on the outs. They were outside.

Yeah? Yes, remember your question, so we don't want to forget it. He preached peace to you who were far away. Who were the far away? The Gentiles. And those who were near, who was near? The Jews, right? So he's still making a Jew-Gentile distinction, but he preached peace to both of them. And so in this particular case, he's still making the distinction between Jew and Gentile, but at each point saying that each of those distinctions that once mattered no longer do. The distinctions that once were very stark and very measured and very pronounced, all those distinctions go away. In Christ, there isn't Greek or Jew. Greek being the representative Gentile. There isn't that distinction.

And that's in Christ. So, it all goes away in our position in Christ. In an effort to compare and contrast with something else in the gospel, this is very similar to what Jesus talked about when he said you can't put new wine in old wine in So it's almost like that means he's got a new, the Holy Spirit's going to be within the person. You can't do it with the Jews who are under the law. So now he's going to do it with the Gentiles. And so I was just reading that last night and I thought, wow, this all kind of fits. It's consistent, isn't it? Yeah.

Because the wine, being the Holy Spirit, if you put it back into the Jewish society, it would never work because you've got the law. So he did away with it. You need an entirely different container, so to speak. You can't just keep reusing the whole thing.

And this is where a number of Christians don't get it. Where they, I still got to do this and that, and I got my Ten Commandments, and I got to try to be good, and follow the Ten, and all those things. And there are whole denominations that are still stuck in that. But scripture isn't.

And so we have to look at scripture and look at what scripture says and let that call the shots for us. suffer so much because he was changing the wineskins. The whole thing was going to change and he was the one, as far as the Jews were concerned, he was the one that was causing it. Yeah, if you look at it, the Jews, sometimes the Gentiles had problems with what Paul did, but the Jews rather consistently, and in the extreme, had trouble with what Paul was doing. Even to the point where, as we saw in Acts, when Paul was in Jerusalem, it was like, we've got to kill this guy. And even when he went to Caesarea, they were still trying. And finally, Paul says, you know, no, I don't want to be set free. I appealed to Rome, even if I'm not guilty of anything. Let me get out of here.

And by the way, one of the things we'll look in Acts is when he went to Rome, did the problem follow him? And actually what we'll see is that people were aware of it. It didn't follow them in the same degree, but it did follow, right? So we see of God's household as a part of a very substantial list. of things that it used to be the Gentiles and the Jews were separate.

Christ, the Messiah, in his death on the cross, in the many things he accomplished, accomplished taking the dividing wall out of the way completely, not leaving 10, not leaving 9, not leaving 11, completely out of the way to make the two groups into one. There isn't a short wall to step over. There is no wall at all. In terms of the picture that is used there, this is operating in the church age as opposed to operating under the law. And so it is one of the things in the Gospels that points forward. But wine a lot of times is used synonymous with the Holy Spirit, right? It could be, yeah, you have to be careful of it. But nonetheless, remember the focus is on the wine skin. So essentially, that's really what it's looking at.

You can't use the old container to deal with what's coming with the new. So what we see is Ephesians 2, 11 through 22, which starts off underscoring the distinction between Gentiles and Jews, and in summary it says that Christ the Messiah takes the law completely out of the way in order that the Gentiles and the Jews together are brought into being of God's household, no longer strangers and aliens. among the Gentiles, but instead looking at them as one, and then into a holy temple. Alright, so now let's look at the flip side.

1 Timothy 3, 4-16. So here's Timothy, he's receiving this letter from Paul. This is 1 Timothy. Earlier, in the latter part of Paul's ministry, 2 Timothy being right towards the end, and he has sent Timothy to Ephesus to correct the false teachers. So I'm writing these things to you, Timothy, hoping to come to you before long.

But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. So how do we know what he means by the household of God? That's the next bolded part in the sentence. The household of God which is the church of the living God. So is there any question that the household of God is the church? So he's abundantly clear in putting those two together. conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.

So what does he mean? Is this stating position or is this assuming position? Because what does conduct mean? So conduct is condition. How do you conduct yourself knowing that the church has the position of being the household of God? So that's what it's looking at. It's condition. within the church body based on the position that we are the household of God. Yes.

Okay, and then thinking about that, Ephesians 2.11.22, going back to that, isn't that what he's saying here also, that the Gentiles in the flesh, that's conditional? in the flesh, and then it goes down in verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus. So what you look at is Gentiles and Jews is a human level ethnic distinction, right? Does that distinction go completely away? No, I mean you're still Gentile and Jew, so it doesn't go away, but it becomes superseded in terms of its impact.

So as far as I know, I have little to absolutely no Jewish background. So far as I know. So Gentile all the way. As far as I can tell, I'm a northern European, you know, Mongol. You know, mostly British as I understand from, you know, 23 of me, you know, DNA test. So, but I'm a Northern European Mongol.

That's it. But that distinction is an earthly ethnic distinction. Is that going to matter eternally? No. Does it matter in terms of the household of God? No. Right. So I would ask you a question. Pardon? Say that again. What's that? They have a different relationship on earth, but that doesn't apply to the church. Yes, in the Millennial Kingdom, those who are of human bodies, somewhat like ours, will still have an ethnic distinction. And why is that true?

I thought you'd get rid of it in Christ. And the reason is, they're not in Christ. We are in Christ, in which case the Jew and Gentile ethnic distinction doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, you say the church is a body, a spiritual body, in which Jew and Gentile distinction mean nothing. Male and female mean nothing in terms of our position. This is what Peter exhorts the husbands about. Treat her as joint heir.

Why? Because you have the same position, husbands, as your wives. Therefore joint heirs in our position. Different roles? Yes. You didn't say husbands live with your wives in an understanding way and wives live with your husbands in an understanding way. It was the husbands who had the responsibility. But underscoring underneath that the position of both husband and wife is the same.

Yes? And that goes along with the passages where it talks about the head of the household becoming a believer and then the rest of the household also automatically became saved or believers all the way down through the servants, right? Yeah. So that's a household too, right? It's another example of a household or a family. Does that not fit? I mean, I never could understand why if one person became a believer, why everybody else in his household did. But that kind of fits.

Yeah, one of the things that you see is this word household is used also, and sometimes it's implied, but the word household is used also for the offer of the gospel. This applies to you and your household. This was what was said to the Philippian jailer. So the offer of the gospel applies to you and your household. Believe, you, individually, believe, and you'll be saved. And you and your household get the same offer. As they believe, those of the household. also are to believe and therefore receive the same benefits including position.

So the offer of you and your household, so my believing doesn't save my household, but my believing is an offer that is also given to the rest of the household. And you'll see that repeatedly, Act 16 is one of those with a Philippian jailer, but you'll see it repeatedly in the New Testament that that offer was made to households.

Alright, so we have this one here. So this is how one ought to conduct himself, condition, in the household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, position. See that? So this is the position-condition distinction. The basis for conducting oneself, condition, within the household of God, which is the church of living God, is position. So this is the why and the how of how that gets carried out among us in the church body.

So, not to dwell on the negative in any sense, what happens if, say, there's a church split? What's going on there? A mess. One of the things is, in the household of God, in the household of God, and let's assume you don't have a church split that's based on believers and unbelievers, but in the household of God, the understanding of, hey, we're one in the Lord, needs to be looked at real carefully.

And the tendency for people to live in the flesh, follow the man, suddenly shift over to earthly politics. I follow this guy, I follow that one. Even a lot of the major terminology for different groups and denominations within the church. A little tough to support biblically. We have major churches that are named after people. Can you think of some? Lutheran's is one. Of course, there's all kinds of sub-denominations within Lutheran. But yeah, named after Martin Luther. So there's one. Can you think of another?

So Baptists, which is actually a Reformed era group, Baptists was another group separate from the Anabaptists. That's actually a different group, different origin. And some of those followed after particular people, and some of the splinter groups followed after particular people. And whether you have the name or not, for example, the Presbyterians, they started John Knox, went to visit John Calvin, went back to Scotland, started a civil war, and that was the root of the Presbyterian Church. Look at the phrase at the end here, I guess it's verse 15. Thank you for pointing that out, by the way. It's 3.14.15, not 3.16, so thank you for pointing that out. So verse 15, yeah, 16 is not included.

So anyway, that's a very good point. The pillar and support of the truth, and is that singular? Right. So the pillar and the truth, those are singular. So if we start splintering and having schism and things like that, certainly it's historical reality. It's not what's prescribed by God. The denominations are reality. It's tough to support them from scripture. Because it's the church, right? How many churches? This is the church, which is the pillar and the support of the truth. So from God's perspective, the church, from His perspective, is made up of the members in all of these churches.

Yeah, well, so you think of it, is there going to be a Baptist rapture? No. As a matter of fact, the Lutherans don't teach a rapture. So is there going to be a Lutheran rapture? yeah yeah yeah they define it differently and so so you've got all these different things you know and so so what happened you had you had Luther and guys that followed him and then we have Calvin and only sometimes the churches that follow after Calvin use the name but Calvinism you've probably heard of named after John Calvin I'm not sure it was a Calvinist even but anyway that's another point but both the Lutherans and the Calvinists and the Catholics too persecuted the Anabaptists that is those who didn't believe in infant baptism Between 4,000 and 5,000 Anabaptists died, mostly by drowning and burning, during the Reformation because they didn't believe in infant baptism.

And so if they were baptized as infants, they got re-baptized. That's what Anna means, re-baptism. So it's a different group from the Baptists, even though the name sounds similar. The Baptists were another split off, separate from the Anabaptists. And the Anabaptists actually have been around for a long time. Yes?

I think all this came about by having to conduct yourself. It's kind of like throwing a wall in your church. They're still trying to fix up the old man. One of the questions is, how do you conduct yourself? They all have different answers. But he's saying that the basis for conducting ourselves is all on, and from there on, everything is singular. The household of God, the pillar, everything is singular.

So there's no Lutheran truth, there's no Calvin truth, there's no, you know, and then you've got Westlianism, right? Which is, Methodist is another term for that, but again, you name it after somebody. Even the Anabaptists, one of the Anabaptist groups was Simon Menno, the one who originated the Mennonites. So you got all these different groups named after different people, and that's been the pattern in church history. People following men, following other people. And once in a while, people fall in women. What you see there is that in our position, there is no basis for all the splinters. So it doesn't say the churches of God which are the splinters in the support of the truths. It's not there.

Here's 1 Peter 4, 12-17. It says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes among you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree to which you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a troublesome meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in his name, in this name.

Verse 17, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? So first of all, is there judgment for the household of God? Yep. Why does it begin with the church, the household of God?

Because they're supposed to be the example. One is an example. They also have more revealed to them, and they should have greater understanding. Right? And so there's a responsibility. Pardon? Quenching the spirit, right? So, it doesn't mean that we forego judgment. Is there also another reason for the difference in the judgment that begins with the household of God? Or other reasons? Think about it. Can we be judged here? Yes, Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, chapter 11, right? They had Lord's Table problems.

Yeah, here's judgment. So the church is not excused from judgment, but the church is not condemned with the rest of the world. What is one of the differences about judgment? One is we are not punished here on planet earth, but we are judged by discipline. So that's a distinction. It's not the only one. So the Lord disciplines us, never punishes us. When we go to be with the Lord, What will be the Lord's motivation and perspective in judgment when we go to be with Him?

Is He going to say, you know, some of you guys, you are horrible, and so you're just going to have to spend some time in hell for that. Is that what He says? It is a loss of rewards for believers, not a matter of, you know, you're going to have to do some hell time, and not a matter of God saying, you know, You blew it so bad, I'm going to just kick you around heaven for 10,000 years. That's not his point, is it? No. And what's he going to do with the things that are not of the Lord?

They're burned away. 1 Corinthians 3, 10-15. Pardon? Yeah, bring a lot of marshmallows. They'll be burning away. But he is motivated to reward us to the max. So that's why the exhortation that we not lose reward, right? He desires, he is motivated to reward us to the max. He wants that. He is not motivated to say, you know, Vern, you really blew it. I'm really going to let you have it for about the first 10,000 years. Without the understanding of condition and position, that's pretty oxymoron. Yes.

And that's one of the things that people not understanding position and condition start drawing all sorts of conclusions that are not correct. So understanding what is our position, and what is then our condition, and then that impacts eternal rewards. Am I being rewarded eternally? with the things that are not rewardable burned away, or am I being punished eternally with it taking forever to burn? Yes. In other words, if you don't get your condition, You're kicking against the goads.

Yes, there we go. Well, except one of the things I would say is that Paul's kicking against the goads was prior to the time he became a believer, and particularly with that. So just a distinction that I would make. But on the other hand, in reference to believers, the believers in Corinth, were their judgments before they ever got to heaven were their judgments sometimes severe. Chapter 11, some of them died. Some of them got sick and died. Some of them just got sick. Some of them were given over to Satan.

Can you imagine? And by the way, that seems to be an apostolic prerogative. I don't see the authority given to me, for example, to give somebody over to Satan. That seems to be an apostolic prerogative. I don't have any instruction or direction for anyone else in the church body to do that, as far as we can tell.

And that's really good to know. Anyway, so when we look at this household of God teaching, it is a position that we all have as believers. We are in the household of God, and in the household, does God have any grandchildren? So that's one thing, we are all sons, if you will, all children, but not grandchildren, not nephews.

I think whether you find some reference to being ashamed but but I think also that will be gone it won't be I'm going through eternity thing oh man I think it's a momentary thing. It shouldn't be completely dismissed, but on the other hand, it shouldn't be something that's carried on and talked about as if this is going to go on forever. You're going to be kicking yourself in the rear for eternity because you lost this reward or didn't Yes, yes, it's gone.

And so I think that's something for us to look at. That's a part of the way the Lord is both just and gracious, that He deals with things realistically. The things that I have done, do, will do, they're not in the Lord's doing for me, those things He will burn away. I will, for the time, recognize that that was a loss. At the same time, I'm not going to go through all eternity kicking myself because of that loss. It's to be forward motivating for us not backwards condemning, backwards punishing and kicking ourselves in the rear, so to speak.

Yeah. And one of the reasons for that would probably be the realization and then the acceptance of the fact that he's a righteous judge. And so what he does and what he says and where you end up in that position is a righteous decision. And being there, you would probably accept that and say, oh, OK. Now here, when somebody makes a judgment, a lot of times it's not with the righteous thought in mind. One of the things we're going to look at next year, and this will be next Sunday, the church's one new man. This may in fact be somewhat surprising a discovery as we look at it. But nonetheless, we'll take a look at it. So that will be next week.

There is an implication that there will be differences of authority in the kingdom. But this will not be as subjects of the kingdom. So there is an implication there. It may in fact refer to other things. What's interesting is that it talks about crowns. What does that mean?

We lay our crowns at his feet. So certainly I would say one of the things that it points to is we all have different, well, will have different capacities to glorify the Lord. But we all glorify the Lord with 100% of our capacity. So I think that's one of the ways to look at it. It's not, you know, my crown's better than your crown. It's none of this, but it's rather a greater capacity to glorify the Lord for eternity.

Remember, we're not going to have that old sin nature. Yeah, it won't be that to look at. It won't be the sin nature to deal with. We will no longer be in a place of looking at rewards. That's one thing that has stumbled some people. They go, I don't want to have rewards, that sounds selfish. Well, wait a minute, you're talking about a reward that's not connected to the sin nature. So this is a reward that doesn't have sin nature motivation and all the backsides that a reward can have now. It's kind of like the pastor who got a button for being humble as soon as he wore it, they took it away.

So anyway, let's pray and we'll get on to this next time. Thank you Lord for what you have revealed. Thank you for loving us and caring for us so much that for the joy set before us you endured the cross. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for all the things you've brought about and designed, your choosing of us in eternity past. We just credit you with all these wonderful blessings, these unfathomable riches. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.