Ephesians 2 The Mission of the Church

How is missions connected to the church? Here is a little bit of what I have been studying in preparation for a missions conference.

 In Ephesians 2 Paul reminds us that it was the power of the resurrection that gave us life out of death. We are united to Christ in his resurrection by grace through faith. He emphasizes that it was by grace and that God is the one who saved us not by anything that we have done to earn it but that God did it so that we could do good works. In other words, we were not saved by our works but we were saved by grace to do good works. We were not saved from our sin to sit back and be comfortable but we were saved to be incorporated into the work of the kingdom in building Christ’s body, which is His Church. Jesus Christ was raised up to all authority and given as “head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”(Ephesians 1:22) That is an amazing statement. God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to have authority and power and dominion above everything and gave him as head to the church. I think we often forget what the church is. So many times we look at the church in all of her weakness and think that it is just a dying institution with very little power to make any real change. We just keep trying to do what we can but have no real hope for lasting impact in the world around us. That is not the image that we get from Scripture. The Almighty Powerful God of the universe has exalted his Son Jesus Christ with all power and authority and has given him to the church as head. Then he tells us that the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. We as the church are the body of this powerful and amazing King. The end of chapter 2 tells us that not only are we incorporated into his body in being united together as the church but also we are being built together into a temple as the dwelling place of God. What an amazing God! He glorifies himself and demonstrates his fullness by dwelling in us as a community (not only in us as individuals) by His Spirit. He gave us peace, He made us family and He is building us into His church.