Points to Ponder:

• Is it true that one must possess good virtue to qualify for faith in the Lord? Do you agree with this statement?

• Is a good church necessarily one with a large membership?

• In your opinion, what constitutes a good church?

God's Promise: Who Can Receive It?

What is it that the Israelites can boast about? Circumcision? No, it is God's promise. And what is God's promise? Do you remember? 'I will make you a great nation; I will make your name great; I will set you above all nations; I will be with you.' This is God's promise. So, what question is Paul addressing now? Because of Jesus Christ, we inherit this promise. Is this promise given to the Jews only, or to whom? It is given to those who believe in Him.

Establishing a Church Requires a Complete System

Paul was a church builder. Someone who builds a church must have a complete system. Without a complete system, doing things in a haphazard way will not build a church. In fact, if you want to build a business empire in this world, you also need a complete system. Take McDonald's today, for example. If you want to be its store manager, you must first be sent to the United States for a month of training.

Do you know how much training material there is? Printed out, it's several thousand pages. This store manager training is no small matter. If the entire McDonald's operating system were to be printed out, it would fill more than ten cabinets, each taller than a person and more than a meter wide. What I am saying is that if you want to build a business empire, or a church, or do anything, you need a complete system.

As I look back on the path we have taken over the past few years, do you notice that we are beginning to form something that feels somewhat complete? In the past, we didn't know how to lead small groups or how to study the Bible. We just moved forward according to God's guidance. As we walked, the details became clearer and clearer. If you listen to my Sunday sermons, they basically won't fall outside of my system. Frankly speaking, I don't really like inviting outside speakers. Why don't I like inviting outside speakers? Because it's not systematic. And if it's not systematic, it will be very chaotic.

You will slowly discover that a system is very important. In the future, I hope that our church's brothers and sisters will not have any confusion in their faith. Why are many Christians confused? It's because they have many systems inside them, from who knows where. They take a little from the Methodist Church, a little from the Presbyterian Church, a little from the Charismatic movement. When they talk, they mix and match different systems. You know that they are Christians with confused beliefs. Paul, on the other hand, was a person with a very clear faith system and a very clear church-building system.

The Household of God, Moved by the Same Spirit, Shares the Same Mission and the Same Promise

When Paul wrote the Book of Ephesians, his theme never changed. If you remove his theme, you won't be able to read it. This theme is building the church. So, how is the church built? How is this church built? In fact, the ending part of Chapter 2 points out that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Apostles and prophets are actually gifts.

What is an apostle? An apostle is someone who builds a church with God's mission. A prophet is someone who brings God's word down. In other words, a church is built by mission and the word of God. With a mission, what is the mission? It is that you have people to evangelize to and a group of people to serve. When Paul talks about building the church, he must have something called inheritance.

He is saying that the church he is building does indeed have Jews and so-called Gentiles, but now there are no more Gentiles. All are members of God's household. To someone who often listens to Paul preach, they will immediately understand that all are members of God's household. So, our church has a characteristic: we don't have guests among us, only family members. If you become a family member, what is our system? We will put you in a small group. Those who are in small groups are family members; those who are not in small groups are not family members. We are also not sure if you have the same mission as us. You need to know that building a church requires people with the same mission.

Pastor Zhou said something: A church should be like taking a plane. If you want to go to Beijing, you get on this plane. Once you get on this plane, you can't go anywhere else. A church cannot be like a train, with people getting on and off, getting on and off. What we used to build was a train, with many people getting on and off to freeload a meal and then leave.

Now, we need to have the same destination, which is to build a glorious church. Whoever wants to build a glorious church, come here. We need to have the same mission, to go to the same place. Then, we need to have the same vision. According to the Bible here, we are moved by the same Spirit. If you are not moved by the same Spirit, you will not have the same vision and the same mission. Paul's church-building system, although his language was understood by people of that time, needs a little explanation for people of this era. All are moved by one Spirit, and then they come together.

In fact, the church that Paul built is probably like the church we are building today, not like those huge churches with thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people, who don't even know what they are doing there. Some people come to church to find a girlfriend, to have some romantic encounters; some people come to find a boyfriend; some people come to freeload. Can this build a church? The church in Paul's time was full of glory, not the glory of how many people there were, packed full of people. For example, a concert has a lot of people, but it doesn't have God's glory.

Paul mentioned all the important concepts of building a church, but he didn't mention the issue of numbers. He only mentioned unity, being moved by the same Spirit, having the same mission, and inheriting the same promise. Whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, it doesn't matter to Paul anymore. Because of Jesus Christ, all have become members of the household. So, you can vaguely see a problem that existed in the church in that era: I am a Jew, I have God's covenant, I have God's promise; you are a Gentile, or a Greek, a Roman, an Ephesian, you are a second-class citizen.

Paul wanted to argue a point: there are no first-class, second-class, or third-class people in the church. All are members of the household. You immediately see this through this passage. So, what is Paul's argument? When we become members of God's household, we become the place where God's Spirit dwells, and the inherited covenant and promise are what Paul cares about most. When I talk about this matter, I think that the Ephesians of that time understood what I was talking about when they read this letter.

Why? Because after they received God's promise, it was a very personal feeling, not just something they knew rationally. This personal feeling—receiving God's promise—means that we are no longer Gentiles in the covenant. This is a name that the Israelites gave, but actually it didn't exist in the first place.

The Fulfillment of the Covenant: Those Who Believe in Jesus Will Be Raised from the Dead and Freely Receive Grace Through Faith

In the Bible's Book of Genesis, the covenants that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all the way to the later ones, refer to the church today, not just to the Israelites, but to the church. In other words, when Paul argues this point, he actually mentions it in other epistles as well.

When he mentions it, how does he mention it? He is a descendant of Abraham. When looking at the Hebrew Bible, Paul found a key point, which is that the descendant is one person, not many people. In other words, it does not refer to Abraham's thousands upon thousands of descendants, but there is one descendant of Abraham who will do such and such things. Later, in the time of David, it also refers to a descendant, and this refers to Jesus. In other words, all things will be united in Jesus Christ.

All the promises and covenants are passed down through Jesus Christ. Before Jesus came, before He was crucified and resurrected, this covenant was just a piece of writing to the Jews. But after Jesus Christ resurrected, the entire promise entered the stage of fulfillment:

Even when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.(Ephesians 2:5-7)

Can you understand this sentence? Now that we've talked about this, you should understand, right? Even when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. We were all dead people, walking corpses, but now we are alive.

Brothers and sisters, you need to know that this is great grace. Those who read the Book of Ephesians know what this means. But when we read it today, it seems like we don't quite understand it, because we have been polluted by this era. The faith of this generation is very polluted, seeming like we are alive but also seeming like we are not alive. Now I want to ask everyone, have you come alive? If you have come alive in Jesus Christ, you will no longer follow the customs of this world.

If you still follow the customs of this world, submitting to the ruler of the air, have you come alive? Or are you still dead, still a walking corpse? In other words, when this group of us comes alive, you will find that you look at those people as if they are walking corpses. You look at them strangely: how can they live like that? They even live with relish. We can't quite understand it. They look at us like monsters, and we look at them like monsters. It's very strange.

In other words, we are people who have come alive in Jesus Christ. Then, God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms. Are we sitting in the heavenly realms now? We are sitting in the heavenly realms, because the kingdom of God is among us. Many people just read this and pass over it, but you can't just pass over it like that. We Christians are like we are in heaven when we have Jesus on earth.

Today, in the days you are on earth, you are resurrected with Jesus and living in heaven. What will happen as a result? You will receive the gifts that Jesus Christ has bestowed upon us. I tell you, in our entire system of faith, we are getting closer and closer to Paul. The kindness that God wants to bestow upon us will far exceed what we can receive today. That kindness is what we cherish and value the most. If we still value these things of the world, we will suffer a great loss.

What Paul is talking about actually refers to Christians living out the resurrected life on earth. This is not what you have done. This is what God has done for you. God gave birth to you, God made you reborn. In other words, you are beginning to see that the gospel that Paul preaches is a gospel of rebirth, which is in line with what Jesus Christ preached. Jesus said, if you are not born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. If you are not born again, you will be dazzled and you won't understand what the church is doing, and you will find it very strange.

Today, we all know what the church is doing, because we have all been born of God's Spirit in the Spirit. For those who come among us and have not yet been reborn by God's Spirit, don't be anxious. When it comes to being born of the Spirit, let me ask everyone a question: what can you do? The Holy Spirit gives birth to you. Or, for example, when you are born in your mother's womb, what can you do? You can't do anything, just wait to be born. So, when Jesus says this, we slowly understand it ourselves, and it is all God's work.

Everyone must remember that this is Paul's gospel, and it is all God's work in you. God has chosen you, and you can't do anything. Later, we slowly see this system, we see this level, and it is all God's work. Therefore, Paul says that it is not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:9-10).

When you are reborn, Jesus says, the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. When we read this, we find it strange that Jesus said this. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. Then, this gust of wind blows, and you are reborn. That's how it is with being born of the Spirit.

We have found that we have a characteristic: when you come among us, I will lead you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Once you are filled with the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit will begin to work in you. It's not what you have done, it's what God is doing in you. This immediately reverses our worldly concepts. What is reversed? The worldly faith is all about what you have done. The faith of Jesus Christ is about what God has done in you. This is immediately clarified.

What can we do? Verse 8 says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. This immediately writes out how God chose Abraham in the days of Abraham, all the way to Isaac, Jacob, and then to Joseph.

Paul vehemently argues one thing: not 0.00001% of works, none at all. It is 100% faith. Even if there are infinitesimally small works, there are none. It has nothing to do with works. Then, the works that are produced by that faith are what God wants. The works that are produced through faith are prepared by God for you to do. In other words, works are done because of your faith, not used to boast before God. So, to this day, we must always be able to maintain the purity of Paul's gospel.

When you go out, don't preach the gospel based on works. I have good works, so I will preach the gospel to you. No, it's because I am a sinner, and I have been redeemed because of God's grace. It's so great. Such a great sinner, such a rotten person, God has mercy on. You are much better than me, so it's easier to preach. It must be easier. You see, I am better than you, and then God chooses me. You can't say that. You immediately slander people.

You can't boast. There's nothing to boast about. Even if you have done these things, there's nothing to boast about. You must be humble. Because all of this, including this way of doing things, you have this inspiration to do this thing, it is all God's Spirit working in you, so what are you boasting about? There's nothing to boast about. We should boast about faith. I have this faith, so God has been so gracious to me. You can't even have this faith? How stupid can you be? At this time, you can preach the gospel louder.

Do Not Live a Life of Confusion, But Live a Life on Earth as it is in Heaven

Paul made this matter very clear. If we do not have this covenant, this promise, we have nothing, and we do not know what the future holds. People live like walking corpses; we used to live like that too! Paul also said that we used to be among them, like them, acting according to the desires of the flesh and the heart, relying on ourselves to do and do and do, but in fact, there was no hope.

I recently saw a news item online about the Central Academy of Fine Arts, which is the most prestigious art academy in China. A professor there named Yu Hong painted a picture that I couldn't understand, but it won a world-renowned award. After winning the award, a reporter interviewed Yu Hong and asked, Yu Hong, now that you've won the award, what were you thinking at the time? He said, Actually, the purpose of my painting is that I think many people in this world do not know why they are alive. He was telling the truth. If you are engaged in artistic creation, then painting people's confusion will surely win awards.

I myself do not know how I am living. He himself said, I do not know why I am alive; I am just living like this. He said that is how he won the award. But later you will find that novels written by Mo Yan, or Ernest Hemingway, basically win awards because they touch on the most confusing space for people, which is that people have no promise, no covenant, nothing, and just act according to the desires of their hearts – that is the state.

Many novels, including The Old Man and the Sea, which depicts an old man dragging a large fish, but only the skeleton remains when he returns, win awards. But if the fish had a body full of meat, it would not win the award. So we understand that anything that portrays people as very, very empty, with no purpose, that creation begins to resonate in people's hearts. Of course, this does not resonate in my heart because I have God's promise and God's covenant; I am not an outsider, but a member of God's family. Therefore, brothers and sisters, never pursue that thing; even if he wins an award, it is still not much use, and he still does not know why he is alive.