The Blue Church

How can the grand and glorious goal of seeing all things summed up in Christ ever be accomplished? Divisiveness, hidden agendas, and garden variety tribalism threaten unity at every turn. Christians are not immune to these things, and so the Lord graciously helps us see how WE have a part in making unity happen under the hand of God.                         However, we need to define or describe unity. It is not unanimity, as in everyone thinking the same, nor uniformity, as in everyone being the same. Rather, unity is the purposeful integration of all the parts of something working together in a fully functioning way, as a body.                 God’s command is not to create unity, but to preserve the true unity that exists in Christ. How is this done? First, by recognizing that unity, approaching it with humility, and then realizing and actualizing your place in it. If YOU do not do your part, the body, the unity, suffers.               “Diversity” today has become a political buzzword useful to divide us into tribes and competing victimhoods. But the God who created us and whose Creation is marked by purposeful diversity, has a better plan. And that is to gift His Church with the leadership and teaching necessary to avoid divisiveness and promote healthy growth in each part.

This week our church commemorates 80 years of cross-cultural missions, that is, the endeavor of leaving one’s own culture and comfort zone to take the gospel and its blessings to those who don’t know Jesus. Sara (Sally) Zurrell left Philadelphia for Bolivia in 1939.                       But why? Where does missions begin? The short answer is “in the heart of God,” who has been seeking sinners since Adam and Eve. The whole Bible is about this love story, and our church is a recipient of that love, and now exists to glorify Him by taking His love to others.              While the prophets knew that God was at work, none of them even suspected what was to come, that God would send His own Son to die for sinners and to bring  diverse and warring parties of sinners together to form one new Temple, where he would dwell forever.              In our text today, Paul lets us look “behind the curtain” into the very mind of God, who not only has revealed the Mystery through Jesus, but also ordains apostles to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Through that global gospel proclamation, the nations are shaken with a spiritual earthquake that reverberates into eternity. 

Remembrance: Recounting Our Resurrection Ephesians 2:1-10               Paul begins Ephesians with praise to God for His blessings to us in Christ, which are complete in every way (Ephesians 1:3-14). Our sins have been forgiven, as adopted children of God, and we are prime examples to all creatures in heaven and earth of God’s grace.                         All that is lacking is a full understanding of these blessings, the mystery now revealed, so that through the Spirit’s operation, we will know God, and be clear about our destiny, identity, and the power with which God has made us His inheritance (Ephesians 1:15-23).               Now he calls on us to recall what has happened in our own experience. But why? Jesus reminds us in his parable of the two debtors (Matthew 18:21-35) that our own experience of grace must move us to show grace to others, to forgive as we’ve been forgiven.               And then there is the lesson Jesus taught Simon the Pharisee when the “sinful woman” wept at Christ’s feet. Those who are forgiven much, love much (Luke 7:36-50). So our love for God and others is weighed and mobilized to the extent we remember from what and to what we have been saved. And all of it has come by His grace.