Ephesians 2:4-7(NKJV) 4But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
In our study of the body of Christ, we have concluded that without the whole body functioning as God intended, we will never fulfill our corporate purpose in the earth. As Paul prays in Ephesians 3, we need “each joint” to supply what God created it for so that we can see the fullness of God manifest in the earth. God has given the fivefold ministry to the church in order to accomplish this goal.
Today I want to ask a question. The answer to this question will have a bearing on how you fill your role in the church. What is the purpose of the Body of Christ? Before we answer this question, it is necessary to answer a second question. What is your personal purpose? What were you made for?
I believe that one of the most important things we have to offer the world is the simple fact that every person was given a divine purpose by God. Psalm 139 is a classic declaration of this powerful truth.
Psalms 139:16(NKJV) 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
God saw each one of us in our mother’s womb. He created us with a plan and purpose and equipped us to fulfill that plan. Many people are born in difficult circumstances. Millions are born unwanted by their parents, but none is born unwanted or unknown by God. If a person never comes to know Jesus as savior, he will never fulfill the purpose God created him for, but that does not mean he or she does not have one. Every person is born with a purpose from God.
The purpose I have been speaking about to this point is our purpose on the earth. God has given you something to contribute. He has equipped and gifted you to be a member of the body of Christ and it is important that you fulfill that call. However, there is another purpose that also comes from God and is even more important than that which you will fulfill on earth. You have an eternal purpose.
To live a victorious Christian life, we must realize how the eternal and the temporal relate. How long will you live on planet earth. From our perspective it seems that the short time we exist in this life is all there is. It is the only perspective we have and all we have ever known.
To a Christian, it is essential to understand that this is not true. How can we really believe that? How can we ever come to the place that our earthly life, our earthly wealth, our earthly accomplishments and our earthly happiness is not the most important thing in our existence? We must come to it by faith.
If you have received Jesus as your Lord and savior, the basis of what you say you believe is that a man was raised from the dead. Jesus is now at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. You believed that the sacrifice he made was for your sin and you received the forgiveness that sacrifice bought. You received a “dead alive” man as the Lord of your life. Paul said, “if Christ is not raised from the dead we are of all men most miserable.”
His conclusion is that if Jesus was not raised there is not afterlife. If there is no afterlife, no eternal home with God, we would be wiser to “eat, drink and be merry” because when we die there is nothing else. However, we do believe in an afterlife.
The early church had a present sense of this truth. This may be so because they lived in constant threat of persecution and death. Even in the face of this threat, they continued to preach the gospel and live for Jesus. Today, especially in places like America, our physical life is relatively comfortable. We are not threatened. Thank God, we can be a practicing Christians and not worry about being severely persecuted or even martyred for the cause of Christ. Although I thank God for this, it is possible that it has made the church in America too focused on temporal things and not aware enough of the blessing of heaven.
We have all heard the saying, “He was so heavenly minded he was no earthly good.” However, the bible does not really support the idea you can be too heavenly minded. It actually says just the opposite.
Romans 8:18(NKJV) 18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Colossians 3:1-3(NKJV) 1If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
These verses tell us that it is our eternal home that is the most important. How long will you live on earth. How long will either the pleasure or the pain of this life be with you? Will you live 50, 70 or even 100 years? What is that in the scale that measures eternity. When you leave this life, time ceases to be a factor. I like to tell the people I minister to that in 10,000 years you will not care what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in or what the quality of your earthly life was. None of that will matter in the face of eternity. You will be very happy that you made Jesus the Lord of your life. You will be extremely happy for the things you accomplished that had eternal ramifications.
What were you made for? You were made for an earthly purpose, and that is important. You have an earthly life and God is concerned about your wellbeing while you are here. However, what were you made for eternally? The answer to that question can change everything in life. The answer to that question and the degree to which you believe it can affect your whole perspective of earthly success and failure, pleasure and pain and possession or lack. What was I made to do for all eternity? What purpose of life will begin when I leave this earth?
The answer, or a beginning of it is in today’s scripture. We were made to be the recipients of the eternal love of God. Look at verse 7 again. God did what he did in verses 4-6 to get to verse 7. This is your eternal purpose.
7that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
God wants to spend eternity fellowshipping with you. He wants to show you around heaven and answer questions you do not yet know you will have. His love for you is so great that he is orchestrating all of history so he can spend eternity with you. What earthly trial can compare with that. What earthly possession or relationship will compare with that. I can tell you with absolute assurance that nothing can.
When we see this truth, we will realize that our earthly purpose is connected to our eternal purpose. What must be my desire for this life? It must be to introduce as many people as possible to the wonders of eternity with God. It must be to rescues as many as possible from a fate worse than any earthly torment. That fate is an eternity separated from the presence of God, where Jesus says there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is what matters. This is our true purpose.
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