If you remember, it was not just in the letter to the Ephesians that Paul was wholly concerned with this principle. We find it not only in the Ephesian letter, but also in the Colossian letter, the Thessalonian letters, and quite a few others.
We tend to think that the first three chapters of Ephesians constitute all Paul had to say. We forget that the last three chapters of Ephesians are about the practical experience of the first three chapters. It is in the measure in which we know, in practical experience, some of those master-truths in Ephesians that we are really experiencing something of the Person.
This morning we said that there are all the tremendous truths set forth in this letter—the great foundation laid down and exposed for what it really is. Then salvation is developed and realised in three realms.
When we see something of that, we understand one of the most fundamental principles in the Bible. That principle is this: God brings everything that we call spiritual down to flesh-and-blood terms.
It is very common among those of us who love and know the Lord Jesus to talk about a kind of spirituality that is ethereal and theoretical. It is almost wholly a question of doctrine. Some people just love it. It is all to do with ministry, all to do with teaching, all to do with what the Bible defines.
But if we are really walking with the Lord, we shall find that everything is being brought down to tangible form. Nothing is left in the air, nothing is left purely in the invisible. In the end, God ties it all down to something tangible, something visible.
This is one of the most important things for those who know and love the Lord Jesus, and for any who want to find the Lord Jesus. If you mean business with the Lord, and if the Lord means business with you, it will not be that alone. For all salvation is brought right down to flesh-and-blood terms.
It will be a question, as we said this morning, of time—time, your portion of time, what you do with your time, your attitude toward your time. The Lord is not so much concerned with what you sing, or what you say, or your knowledge, or everything else. He will bring down the whole matter of your salvation to your time: your attitude toward it, what you do with it, where you spend it, and who decides where you are.
It is the same with money. In the end, we shall find that the Lord comes down to the question of ourselves. He will come down right to the question of our very bodies—what we are doing with them, where we go, and so on.
Our salvation, you see, is brought down by the Holy Spirit to very small and practical details. Some of us can be held up for a lifetime over a small, practical thing—the way we use our time. We can learn, learn, learn in our knowledge of the Bible. We can go on in our activity in Christian work, yet be absolutely shattered in it because we have never come to a real understanding that our salvation belongs to God. We are not our own; we are bought with a price.
Paul speaks of three realms. The first is the church, the second is the home, and the third is the place of employment. In these three zones, our salvation is brought right down to flesh-and-blood terms.
This morning we pointed out that Paul begins the last three chapters of his letter by talking about unity. He tells us that, in lowliness of mind and forbearing with one another, we should maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Then he goes on to say that there is one body, one Spirit, and so on.
There is a realm on earth in which we have got to discover the salvation of the Lord, and in which everything about us is going to be exposed. That realm is the church in our locality.
There we discover truth. There we discover reality. There we are stripped of everything that is pure humbug and hypocrisy, everything superficial. However good it may appear, it will be stripped. The Lord will use circumstances, situations, brothers and sisters, and all kinds of things to deal with that. But the end is that we are brought right down to reality.
It is easy to talk about being one with people when we do not have to live with them. But when you have to live with people, then it is either real or it is not real. It either proves to be of God or it proves not to be of God. It is there that we discover whether it is a real thing.
Once we have taken the ground of the church, once we have really come on to what we call church ground, we cannot leave. We cannot leave. We are thrown together with each other. We may discover the most terrible things about each other. We may find all kinds of things that somehow become very difficult. But it will be entirely the way in which we live and the way in which we get through that will determine the measure of the Lord Jesus in us in the end.
Sooner or later, someone will let the truth out. It may be true; it may not be true. But it will be your reaction that determines whether you go on with the Lord or not. Someone may say something to you that is not really true, and you may react in the wrong way. That is true. It is absolutely true.
We shall never cure people of their tongues. The only way we can show people their tongues is by getting rid of reaction in our own hearts. That is the only way. We have got to let the Lord deal with the tongues of others.
Surely, once we have become the butt of other people’s tongues, we shall learn not to speak about others. We shall learn the pain of repetition and gossip. All kinds of things happen in the church; that is not an excuse for people’s tongues. Every man will have to give account for what he has said in this world of the church. We cannot get away with it.
I want to go one step further this evening. All the glory of predestination, all the glory of the election of God, all the glory of His salvation, is going to be proved and manifested in the realm of the church in our locality.
You may get a congregation and wonderful ministry, but as far as the real dealing of God goes, it is in the local church that everything is brought down to the ultimate issue.
If you look at 1 Timothy 3:15, you read these remarkable words:
That thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.
The house of God, the church of the living God, is the pillar and ground of truth. Now, truth does not just mean doctrine, or written truth. Truth is strictly reality.
The church, the house of God as it is expressed on earth, is the place which the Holy Spirit describes as the pillar of reality. It is the place that is a testimony to all around. It is the place where men and women ought to encounter reality. There they should be able to find life as it really is exposed.
Light exposes. When light shines, then it exposes something; you see it for what it is. The church of God, as expressed on earth, ought to be the place where men and women find out what is really wrong with life, and find some answer to that.
Step away from it and you are in a world of unreality. For many people, the world seems to be reality. But the more they get into it, the more they know in their hearts that it is unreal. It is a deception. The things that they believed were alive prove to be a terrible lie. We believe it, we live on it, and then we discover that our lives are in a terrible state.
But the church is the place of reality. There men and women ought to find out the truth about everything: the truth about themselves, the truth about God, the truth about natural life, the truth about this universe—the truth about everything.
How will they find out the truth? They will find it out because the people who constitute the church of God have themselves been so brought down to reality, stripped of all those things that are merely the product of their own personality.
Paul says that the church is the realm where everything of our salvation is brought right down to flesh and blood. Many of us have discovered that. You have discovered one simple thing about the church of God: when you come into it, you come into a sphere where you do not get away with anything—not anything.
The Lord will use a brother or a sister, and He will, in every way possible, try to get us out of that profession which is not reality. Sometimes God has to work hard to bring us to reality. If, in the end, He can preserve something for the eternal purpose, He will do the most amazing thing.
Paul says, “Keep to this ground. You must not move off it. You have got to maintain its unity, whatever the attitude of others, whatever their spirit. You have got to get through on this ground.” Everything depends upon it.
It may take a devastating, shattering experience before some of us come to a right recognition of what we are. But the church is the place where the Lord brings us to that recognition.
It is a terrible thing to be what your brothers and sisters call the house of God. It is a wonderful thing, but it is a solemn thing. Jacob, when he saw the house of God, said:
How dreadful is this place!
This is none other but the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.
The Lord never leaves us. If the Lord gets in motion something in us, He will pursue us and fulfil His purpose in us. “Whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.” The only place in which we can get through is where the Lord has placed us. We cannot simply leave and expect to escape God’s dealings.
There is another realm, and that realm is the home.
If we could only see something of the real nature of the home in the eyes of God, what a difference it would make. Paul sees the home quite clearly as part of the church. He does not look upon it as simply something separate. He looks upon the home as part of the ministry of Christ.
If we read the letters of Paul, we discover one amazing thing: he is always talking about husbands and wives, parents and children. After speaking of all the marvellous things God is doing in His eternal purpose, and of all the heights of salvation, he brings it all down to husbands loving their wives, wives being subject to their husbands, children honouring their parents, and fathers caring for their children and not provoking them to anger.
Why does Paul bring us down to that level? Because that is the level at which our salvation will be proved true.
In God’s plan, every Christian home is part of the ministry of Christ. The first thing for which it ought to exist is to be rightly related to the church. The tabernacle was at the centre, and all the homes of Israel were placed around the tabernacle.
You can often tell, as soon as you enter a Christian home, whether the Lord is really central or not. There is either an atmosphere of peace, or there is not. The testimony of a Christian home ought to be the presence of the Lord Jesus.
There is no greater contradiction of salvation than a husband and wife who are always at each other. The tragedy is that there are thousands of Christian homes that ought to have been among the best witnesses for God, but they are suffering from this contradiction.
Paul really understood the ministry of a Christian home. He did not look upon the man and the woman as having differing measures of importance. He looked upon them as partners in life—absolutely equal in worth, though with completely different functions.
All the trouble comes when husbands try to make their wives what God never intended them to be, or when wives try to make their husbands what God never intended them to be. Then people speak about submission as if one person were a master and the other a servile slave. Amazing! This is not found in the description of Christian life.
There must be completely different functions, but they are described as a partnership. The home comes to rest on a proper equality, worked out through a complete difference of function.
The relationship of husband and wife is a very beautiful relationship. It is a delicate relationship. It is not something to be treated carelessly. It carries a serious responsibility before God.
Then Paul comes right down to children. No man is qualified for responsibility in the house of God who has not learned how to govern his own household and has not a right relationship with his wife. In other words, that would rule out a very large number of modern-day Christians from official position.
Then Paul speaks about children honouring their parents. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” He tells us to honour our father and mother. The question of being a Christian comes down to relationships. It comes down to the whole relationship within a home.
Our salvation is proved in the church in our locality, and it is proved in our home. These are two great testing places. We may appear very successful and lovely outside, but that cannot say anything if there is no reality in these realms.
Your home will never, ever come into right order until you have given the Lord His rightful place in the midst of it. Christ ought to be central in our homes. We shall never come into the health God means for us until the Lord Jesus is recognised in the midst of these relationships.
There is another realm which touches every one of us rather hard: the place of employment.
Paul takes everything that we do in our everyday job and brings it under the lordship of Christ. He says, in effect, “Do not get too occupied with your boss, your supervisor, or your manager. Look beyond them to the Lord. The Lord has put you in that job, and the Lord is your Employer.”
Do everything as unto the Lord. Every single job to which you put your hand, let it be done all the way for Him. Salvation is brought right down to the question of our employment and our attitude toward those around us.
For any who manage others or have responsibility for other lives, it comes down to their attitude toward those under their care. Becoming a child of God, becoming a member of the body of Christ, comes right down to practical flesh-and-blood issues.
The people with whom we work see more of us than anybody else. They may see us in a gathering for half an hour, an hour, or at a service. But those with whom we work are with us for hours each day. That is why it is such a tragedy when Christians are known in their employment as bad workers, difficult people, or dishonest people. It is a terrible thing.
Our office should be a sphere of the ministry of Christ, just as our home is a sphere of the ministry of Christ. It is part of the ministry of life. Ministry is not simply standing on a platform.
Many of us think that we are only the church when we gather together. That is the tragedy. Do you know that you are the church in your office? You do not stop being the church when you leave the gathering. You are the church. You are a member of the church, a member of Christ Himself.
Therefore, what you do, and how you do it, is very, very important to the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
There are these three realms in which our salvation is proved: the church, the home, and our employment. This proof is not merely something for the outside world; it is among ourselves.
We cannot take the world to a wrecked home and say that Christ is the answer if there is no practical reality of His salvation in that home. We cannot go to the world and speak about Christ as the answer if we do not know how to live in right relationship with one another.
We have to have something of the Lord Jesus and His salvation in practical reality. That is very, very important.
Lord, help us to understand something of that. Make us all to be truly living epistles of Christ.
We will all sit together in the name of our Lord Jesus.