Please follow me closely as you read today’s article because most people have never heard a sermon on something that is clearly taught in the Bible. In fact, most preachers I have known have never preached on what I am calling “The University of Heaven” because they simply haven’t discovered this wonderful truth.
We are dealing today with two or three passages of scripture which are crucial to our Christian faith but are not employed often enough in sermons about the Christian life and its effects on the world around us. Jesus expected us to have a world-changing influence. Let me ask this question: How many Christians see themselves as part of a church which is spiritually dynamic and is changing the area around it through The Lord’s influence. Most churches are basically on their own agenda today. Everything is planned and executed in an effort to enhance the lives of a church’s people. We have come to believe that the main thing is for us to be “happy.” The idea that we are part of something far bigger and grander is a thought that travels fleetly through the mind. The truth is that the true church is an organism that is to starkly influence the world around us.
If we, the people, don’t have the right understanding of who we are and what the Church really is, then we will view the influence of the Church as something merely personal. It’s basically for us we will say. It is to make me complete, satisfied and happy. These things will be a byproduct of our proper understanding of the spiritual body of Christ but they are not the primary purpose for the Church. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we can simply feel good about ourselves. He did not die on the cross so that we can continue our lives as we did before confessing Him as our savior. Our study today will help people understand what we are really here for and it should inspire us to be more committed to the Lord than ever before.
The church of today is in trouble. It is distracted and confused by all that the world is throwing at it in order to get its eyes off its main purposes of saving the lost, edifying the Saints and caring for those who are in need. Those are our basic purposes and the churches are doing a less than a stellar job at all three tasks. Those three things come straight from the scripture and not my opinions. But, there is another endeavor that we are critically involved in and people don’t even know it. Let’s explore the Word and the teaching about what I am calling The University of Heaven.
If the churches could ever receive and internalize what I am writing about today, it would revolutionize the way we think of the church and how we are to function. It would cause us to be far more aware of how important it is for us to function as the Lord intended.
First, I want to bring up the subject of Angels and talk about them for a few minutes. Angels, we are told are created a little higher than man. They possess great power when it is delegated to them but they are primarily messengers to carry God’s will to the people. They also carry out God’s action on earth when He commands them to do so, (read Revelation). Yes, they are very powerful spiritual creatures but they do not possess the attributes of God. They are not omniscient. They do not know all things as God does. They are not omnipotent or all powerful. They are limited in power to what God allows them to have. Angels are also not omnipresent. They cannot be everywhere at the same time. Angels can be only in one place at any given moment. God is everywhere all the time.
So, angels are very special but they don’t know everything. They can never know the joy of being saved. That is an emotion that only humans can experience. They will never experience the weight of sin being lifted off because they have no sin to be forgiven. They can never experience the joy of entering heaven when one dies because they are already in heaven and, in addition, they will never die.
We could talk about angels for an extended amount of time but we need to move on to talking about the Church. It is more than an organization even though we treat it as such. One can attend an organization at will and drop out at will also but the Church (the body of Christians worldwide) demands more. Scripture says that the Church is the “spiritual body of Christ.” This has serious and overwhelming implications. It is like a physical body in that it has many functioning parts as we read in 1 Cor. 12:12-31.
When a person is genuinely saved, they are given a spiritual gift with which they are to function in the body of Christ…the Church. Most people in our churches are playing church most of the time and playing church is not found in the Bible. All the spiritual body parts must work properly or the church will not function right. Your physical body is he same way. If one gets a small grain in their eye, the whole body is negatively affected. All of us can attest to that. If even one finger gets broken, it limits what one can do. Just try to communicate if your ears start to fail. No one can survive without a properly functioning liver, pancreas and heart. All the body parts must work together, in unison, in order for life to exist and be effective. The Church is the same way. If our bodies tried to live the way most churches function, we would be in the hospital on life support. And, that is exactly where so many of our churches are today….on life support. Too many of the spiritual gifts are dormant and yet the church wonders why things are so dead. They want to know why no one seems interested in coming to their church. Who wants to go to any organization, or a church, that is essentially dead. The world can do what most churches are doing today except the world can do it better. They are not expected to have a spiritual dynamic that drives them but the church must have that spiritual dynamic to survive.
Now, let’s wed the Church and the angels together to discover what should be taking place. We have already established that the angels do not know everything. They are still learning about something in particular and that thing is God. They can never know everything about God for if they could, He would cease to be God. Now, look at Ephesians 3:9-12 and particularly verse 10. Here it is: “To the intent than now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places (the angels), might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God”. This passage tells us that “through the instrumentality of” the Church (by), God is teaching His angels about His manifold wisdom; His many variegated wisdom. And in 1 Peter 1:12 we learn that the “angels desire to look into” the things pertaining to the preaching of the Gospel and the practice of it. The angels don’t know everything, as stated earlier, and they are intently taking in all the many variegated things about the wisdom of God. When the bible says that they want to “look” into, it is saying that the angels are stooping down in order to inspect what they are seeing. They are intently interested in the subject of the manifold wisdom of God. They eagerly learn about Him.
So, here is the matter of the thing. God is using you and your church as a teaching tool to instruct the angels about Himself. This is a heavy burden that only true Christians will desire to carry. Your spiritual gift….your spiritual body part… must function properly for the angels to be able to learn by example the things about God that He wants to show them. Question: How well are you and your church doing as an instructive tool for the angels? I hate to say it folks, but most churches are too busy playing church for their own entertainment for them to be an effective teaching tool in the hands of God. What can God teach them about His Grace, love and mercy by observing you and your church. I say, “you and your church” because you, functioning properly with your spiritual body part, are suppose to be a part of a spiritual body which is living, and powerful. The church is suppose to be so strong spiritually and functionally that the “gates of hell cannot prevail against it.”
So, it is incumbent upon we Christians to take a good look at ourselves and discover exactly what is happening with our personal church (the local spiritual body of Christ) and to us individually. Your local church will not function as it should unless each particular body part is performing its task as assigned by God when he gave you a spiritual gift. Your liver cannot “pass the buck” to your heart and neither will passing the buck work where the spiritual body of Christ is involved. Don’t cause Christ’s spiritual body be sickly. Do your part to make it a strong, vital, body that is living and functioning as God intended it to be. Someone may say, “I don’t know what my spiritual gift is. If I did I would be sure to practice it.” My advice to this person is: “Get started somewhere, anywhere, and the Lord will take you to where He wants you to be. He will show you which spiritual gift He has given to you.”
Remember, you and your church are God’s teaching tool in Heaven to teach the angels about Himself. We must be functioning properly for us to be an effective in the University of Heaven.
WFH…6-20-2025
