Paul states an interesting metaphor in Ephesians
chapter 5 when he begins to talk about husband and
wife becoming one and then compares that to the
church and Christ. Ephesians 5:32 says, “This is
a profound mystery…but I am talking about Christ
and the church.” The word mystery is musterios in
the Greek and speaks of something previously hidden,
but now revealed. It is used 27 times in the New
Testament and all of those mysteries are being
unfolded to us so they will no longer be hidden.
It is the desire of the Lord that we receive full
revelation in all areas of the scripture.

When I mention that the church is a mystery, I am
sure you are thinking what is he talking about
since we are well aware of what the church is all
about. However, we must keep in mind that this
period of time that we are living in called the
church age or the time of grace was not mentioned
in the Old Testament. There were certainly some
symbolic references (like the life of David) that
pointed to the church age, but it took the writings
of Paul to paint the complete picture. We are a
blessed generation since we have the opportunity
to live during this Age of Grace or Church Age or
The Age of the Gentiles. Whatever the name, it is
a blessed time in the history of mankind. This
puts a responsibility on all of us to understand
the heart of God for the church age, so we can be
walking in agreement with Him. We want to access
the fullness of this time so we can be a blessing
to the nations of the world. As in all periods of
time, the reason for the blessings we enjoy is so
we can share with others.

As we read the New Testament, we are constantly
reading where the disciples want to know when the
Lord is going to establish His kingdom on the
earth. In Matthew 20:21, James and John want a
place of prominence in the coming kingdom; it is
easy to see they expected this kingdom to be
established in their life time.  We sometimes
are impatient with the disciples not understanding
that the Lord was setting up a spiritual kingdom
and not an earthly kingdom. We should not be
surprised by the disciples’ excitement because
the Old Testament is very clear about the Lord
ruling for 1000 years during the millennium and
bringing peace and prosperity to this earth. I
am excited about the millennium reign myself.
Imagine having our Loving Savior as our ruler,
which should really bring excitement to your
heart just like it did to the disciples. This
is commonly called the Second Advent, and all
of us who believe in Christ as our personal
Savior will be a part of this great time period.
In Daniel chapter 9 there is a description of
what is called Daniel’s 70 weeks. There is a
gap between the 69th week and the 70th week and
that is where we are living right now, I am sure
you always knew that you were living in the gap.
This “hole” is the age of the Gentiles or the
Church Age. The 70th week will come at the close
of our time period and the millennium will begin.
Paul was the one who began to bring revelation of
this through his writings, but the disciples did
not have this revelation and expected the 69th
week to end and the 70th week to start. They
anticipated that Jesus would lead them right into
this 70th week period and were disappointed beyond
words when He was crucified. In the natural, it
looked like all hope was gone of ever being moved
into the millennial reign.

Paul began to teach on grace and the heart of God
for all to be saved and come into a full
knowledge of Jesus Christ. This could not be done
under the law, so grace had to be taught and
allowed to grow into a full crop. Therefore, all
could see and experience the love and forgiveness
of a good God. It is by grace that we are
delivered from the hold of the devil and not by
keeping rules or piling up good works. After we
are transferred into the kingdom of God, we get
to operate by faith, which is a confidence in
God’s power. This allows all of the promises to
be by grace so the Lord can guarantee His results.
This time of grace has been granted us so that we
can experience and share the goodness of the Lord
with a dying world that has no hope. We have the
opportunity to share the kingdom good news because
we are still in a time period of grace. This time
period is coming to a rapid end, but we still have
the time and power to preach on the goodness of
God to all that will listen.

The purpose for the church age is for the Body of
Christ to be the reflection of Christ to this
world. When the Lord was here in the flesh, He
showed all that saw Him what the Father was like
and now we have that same opportunity.
Matthew 16:19 states that the authority of hell
will not overcome the church, but the Body of
Christ will continue to grow stronger and push
back the influence of hell any place it is found.
There is no force of hellish nature that can keep
the good news from being spread! We can boldly
declare that it is the will of God to work in our
lives and bring us salvation for spirit, soul, and
body. We can see the release of His love and power
in the lives of anyone who wants to experience the
impossible in their lives. The Lord’s heart is for
us the “Body of Christ” to re-present Him to this
world. Jesus is seated at the right hand side of
the Father right now, but you and I are His body
here on the earth to be a channel for His love and
power to flow through. The Lord’s heart is to use
the church as a vehicle that will carry His love
to every nation and share with every ethnic group.
Just as Jesus was anointed, we as a body carry
that same anointing. Together we can do great and
mighty things. Making disciples, healing,
deliverance, miracles, teaching, preaching,
prosperity, and hope should be commonplace in a
healthy body of believers, because that is what
Jesus was all about. The Church now carries the
mandate of showing what the Father’s will is by
showing the fruit of the Father’s nature. What
an awesome privilege to live in this time period
and to have the very spirit of God indwelling us
so that we can decrease and the Lord in us can
increase. This is why our hearts desire should
be to walk in unity. As we walk in unity then
there is a focus on the body and not on the
individuals of the body. There should not be
any part of the body that is so out of proportion
that it becomes the whole focus. We want the
whole body to be the focus.

Let me finish this part by going back to that
word mystery that I mentioned earlier. This
mystery was hidden in the Old Testament but
revealed to us. Let me list a few of these
mysteries so you can get an idea of what I am
trying to say.  Salvation is in Christ
(Romans 16:25, Romans 10:9, 10; Ephesians 2:8, 9)
and revealed in us. The rapture of the Church
(I Corinthians 15:23, 51-58;
I Thessalonians 4:13-16) was not revealed until
Paul explained it. We now call it the great hope
of the church. Christ living in me was brought
to light in the epistles (Colossians 1:26, 27).
Every believer should now be aware that our true
hope of victory is because the Spirit of God is
living inside us. The spirit of lawlessness
(II Thessalonians 2:7) is exposed in the New
Testament. We now can begin to see why there
is so much evil and brokenness in the world,
and we can have some understanding of how to
deal with all of the evil. The last one I will
mention is the church (Ephesians 3:1-9;
Ephesians 5:32; II Corinthians 12). We see our
job description is to share the love of a
loving Father to a dying world. The church
through the spirit is also to disciple the
church until we all reach a full maturity.

I am confident that the church has a three-fold
calling. One is to be a place to disciple
believers into a fullness of Christ. We are
commanded to go into the entire world and make
disciples of all nations. We, as the church,
need to teach, be accountable to grow and be the
people who really reflect His nature. Second, we
as the church, are a hospital for the sick to be
healed. We receive broken people and they need
an atmosphere that encourages healing and then
encourages them to turn and be a healing agent
for others. Sick people need to be healed by the
power of God and then be around healthy people
to have a model of a full life. Last, we are a
place that reaches out to the community to make
a difference. This means the church needs to be
a vital part of the community, showing that the
life of Christ is tangible and will make a
difference in our everyday life. Jesus wants to
make a difference in the market places of our
lives. Our neighbor is anyone we see hurting and
we need to pour on the oil and wine and then
take them to the inn (the church) and see
them restored. 

Old Testament Types:

1. Genesis 3:8
2. Genesis 32:22-32
3. Exodus 19:10-25
4. Exodus 20:18-25
5. Exodus 34:29-32
6. Leviticus 21:16-24
7. Deuteronomy 12:4-7
8. Deuteronomy14:2
9. II Samuel 6:12-23
10. I Chronicles 16:1-6
11. II Chronicles 5:10-14
12. II Chronicles 7:1-3
13. Ezra 7:25,26
14. Psalms 23:6
15. Psalms 27:4
16. Psalms 99:13
17. Isaiah 6:1-4
18. Ezekiel 37
19. Zechariah 2:8
20. Zechariah 9:16
21. Malachi 3:17

New Testament Scriptures:

1. Matthew 9:15-17

2. Matthew 16:19

3. Mark 11:12-26

4. Mark 16:15-20

5. John 1:15-18

6. Acts 2:40-47

7. Acts 4:4, 23-36

8. Acts 5:12-16, 20

9. Acts 6:1-7

10. Acts 7:38

11. Acts 8:1-8

12. Acts 9:1-19

13. Acts 11:21,22,30

14. Acts 12:1-5

15. Acts 13:1-4

16. Acts 14:1

17. Acts 14:23,27

18. Acts 15:2,3,4,22

19. Acts 16:5

20. Acts 17:4

21. Acts 18:8,22

22. Acts 20:17, 28, 31

23. Romans 7:4

24. Romans 12:1-5   

25. Romans 16:1,5,23

26. I Corinthians 1:2,11

27. I Corinthians 6:13-20

28. I Corinthians 10:16,17,32

29. I Corinthians 11:18-22

30. I Corinthians 12:12-28

31. I Corinthians 14:4,5

32. I Corinthians 14:12,19,22,28,35

33. II Corinthians 7:2

34. II Corinthians 11:2

35. II Corinthians 12:30

36. Ephesians 1:22,23

37. Ephesians 2:19

38. Ephesians 3:6,5

39. Ephesians 4:1-17

40. Ephesians 5:23-32

41. Philippians 4:15

42. Colossians 1:18,24

43. Colossians 2:19

44. Colossians 4:15,16

45. II Thessalonians 3:10 

46. I Timothy 3:1,5,15

47. I Timothy 5:16,17

48. Titus 3:1,8 

49. Hebrews 2:11,12

50. Hebrews 12:23

51. James 5:14

52. I Peter 5:1

53. Revelation 1:4,11,20

54. Revelation 2:7,11,17,29

55. Revelation 3:6,13,22

56. Revelation 19:7

57. Revelation 21:2,17


Summary:
I believe the Lord reinforces in your life the
basic truth about the Church Age, and that the
Lord has given us the opportunity to represent
Him to the nations. I am an ambassador for
Christ. We get to be His “epistles” that are to
be read by all men. We are to preach, teach,
lay hands on the sick, and cast out the devil.
He will work with us with the power to cause
people’s lives to be changed. The church takes
on the image of people and not a building. It
is a group of diverse people in unity that are
moving in His name and performing His will
under His anointing. Scripture is very clear
about the individual priesthood of every
believer and that all of us are sons of God;
but, it also encourages us to come together so
we can experience a corporate anointing. When
two or three are gathered in His name, there
He is in the midst of us. I think that verse
alone would encourage us to want to get
together to experience the manifest presence
of the Lord. There is something very dynamic
about God’s people gathering together to
worship and praise the Lord. This gathering
of the “saints” presents a place for the
Holy Spirit to come and help us experience
Jesus. It also is an atmosphere of family,
which allows all the giftedness of the family
to manifest so everyone can be blessed. This
family atmosphere allows everyone to grow.
Ephesians 4 shares that each of us has something
to offer that will help us all grow. It is like
a toddler learning to walk in a loving family
and that family is there to pick him up after
every fall. This is what the Body of Christ is
able to do as we learn to express our gifts;
they enjoy the good fruit and pick us up when
a mistake is made and growth takes place.

The “Body of Christ” which is the Church of
the first born, is a family of love. That
love allows each of its members to become
all that God has for them. Since it is a
time period of grace, His grace is liberally
given and we can receive blessing after
blessing. These blessings are so I can be a
distributor of His good news to all who are
a part of my world. I am blessed so I can
be a blessing. I am able to love others
because I am so loved by the Lord and the
other members of my family. How exciting to
be a “called out one”. The Lord called me
out of the crowd to be an instrument in His
hands to distribute His love to others.

Action Point:
Take time in your small group to encourage
each other to express their giftedness.
Write down how your giftedness will benefit
the church. Look at all the gifts in your
group and see the Lord’s wisdom in bringing
your group together. Discuss how your
fellowship with the Lord and the friendship
with each other have helped you be a more
productive member in the “Body of Christ”.