Do you believe in the Church? (Part 1) - Rev Allister Lane

READING: EPHESIANS 2:11-22

Sermon on 4 July 2021

Today we start a series about the Church. I was inspired by talking with our Youth Group about this topic.

Perhaps the Church seems a familiar topic to us, but we are still growing in what it means to live as the Church. 2000 years on… there’s still much for us to discover about living as the Church!

To help us, today’s Bible passage offers three metaphors of the Church.

1. The first metaphor is: Citizens with the saints (God’s people) v19.
We belong within the community where God rules, and is trusted.

2. The second metaphor is: Members of the household of God  v19.
This says the Church is a family. We are adopted. God is no longer just our ruler, but is our Father. And with those who also have God as their Father, we are brothers and sisters.

3. The third metaphor is: A whole structure joined together growing into a holy temple… a dwelling-place for God.  vv21-22
God inhabits us as people in the way God’s Spirit used to inhabit the holy temple.

Do you notice how each of these metaphors is more relationally intense with God…? A king lives in the same country as his citizen, but a father lives in the same home with his daughters and sons.

The metaphor of the temple suggests that God lives IN YOU – not just with you, but in you. These are intriguing metaphors, offering rich meaning about the Church. And I could reflect on these metaphors much more(!)

But what do these mean for us in practical terms?

I want to show how in the Church we get the pattern and the power (ability) of how to get along with people who are very different. Isn’t this one of the major problems with our world today? (Conflict, fragmentation, people polarised by race and politics). In the Church we get the pattern and power to get along with people who are different.

We went to Fiji for our honeymoon, and stayed at a resort on Plantation Island. On the Sunday morning we went to the little shack of a church on the island. Gathered there for worship were the locals, workers from the resort (cooks, bartenders, cleaners) …and foreign tourists. They didn’t know us.  We didn’t know them, or the language. But we all worshipped alongside one another – like lost sisters and brothers  …because we were.

Maybe you’ve had an experience like this…

When we believe in Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit in us that unites us to Jesus AND unites us to all other people who believe in Jesus. So, you will discover with any other Christian around the planet that you have a very significant spiritual bond.

But we also know there are real differences between people that can still divide us. This is where the Church gives us the pattern and the power to get along with people who are very different.

Do you hear how Paul describes how ‘difference’ can cause a problem? He describes this as hostility. He’s talking specifically about the hostility between Jews VS Gentiles, but I think in this specific example there is a general principle for us.

The Jews were given God’s Law (a good thing) and were meant to be the light to the Gentiles – what went wrong is that the Jews became proud of the Law and saw the Gentiles as ‘unclean’. And the Gentiles felt the Jews were proud – and they came to despise one another.

A good thing (a VERY good thing – God’s Law) became the cause of hostility.

The principle is: the things that divide us can be the best things about us.

There is something that is your pride and joy, or your culture’s pride and joy. But sin in our human hearts take the best things of us (our culture) and uses those to bolster our self-esteem, by despising anyone who doesn’t value what we have.

C.S.Lewis describes how human pride is comparative. People aren’t proud of being rich – they are proud of being richer than others. People aren’t proud of being beautiful/smart/talented – only proud of being more than other people with those (good) things.

This pride (of having more of something good than others) featured in the story we heard with the children about the Wemmicks. We know about this don’t we…?

Our identity is formed comparatively – I feel my life has meaning because I’m better than others – better career, better family, better marriage, better address, better car, …better lawn!  (If you think I’m joking you should come to my neighbourhood!)

Our identity operates comparatively through superiority to the different.

I remember being at a Presbyterian youth conference, and we broke up into groups for a Bible Study. A number of these small groups sat around tables in the camp dining hall. One group of our Pasifika brothers and sisters were laughing heaps – they were shrieking and wailing – clearly having a tremendous time!

Our small group of Palangi found their noise deafening, and we were struggling to hear one another across the table. We were trying to diligently get through the study material, and were irritated by all the raucous. The Pasifika group saw we were irritated.

Instead of each group recognising ‘Oh, the other group is different’, we reinforced the differences and the identify-factor we had.

We moralise our differences. We don’t just say others are different, we say others are worse. “These people are disrespectful of the Bible study, they aren’t taking it seriously.”

And the others say something like: “These people are cold, not relational; they are missing the point; they are supressing the joy and delight of this moment.”

The strength of our identity becomes the diving wall of hostility.

Our identity operates comparatively through superiority to the different.

So what do we do about it? Thankfully, the Church gives us the pattern and the power. We have the Gospel, which transforms our identity in two ways:

1. Firstly, the Gospel shows us we are all in need. Paul explains

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. (v17)

This ‘peace’ is the Gospel.  And God brings it to the ‘far off and near’. Both are lost – and are therefore spiritually equal.  The Gospel tells us that we are not better than anyone else.

2. And, the Gospel doesn’t just humble us, it affirms us.

[all of us are reconciled to God] through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. (v16)

What does that mean? The only thing that was put to death on the cross was who…?   …Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us:

God made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus became sin. Jesus became hostility.

And God treated Jesus as sin is meant to be treated. Jesus stood in our place and received what our sin deserves. Listen carefully to the ‘Wonderful exchange’:

God treated Jesus as we deserve;
so that when you believe in Jesus
God treats you as Jesus deserves.

When God looks at us, God sees the righteousness of His own precious Son.

Friends, our identity is not achieved, it is received. When we understand the love that does this – that dies in our place – and that this is done for you, as well as every single person on the planet, you’ll not be able to look down at anyone.

The hostility you have in your heart toward any others will be destroyed by the love Jesus gives. And if you still have hostility in your heart, you need to let more of Jesus’ love into your life; to let the power of the Gospel conform you; change your heart!

Practically…what does this mean?

Finally, let me quickly offer some suggestions…Inside the Church… find another Christian brother or sister who has a radically different culture/ethnicity/background/education and really be their friend. Trust each other, challenge each other.

That’s how you become a person of wisdom and insight into your own cultural identity. You can do that inside the Church.

Outside the Church… we should be agents of reconciliation (not just inside the Church) but also outside the Church; in the world. When we have an identity that is not achieved but received, we can get critical distance on our own culture, and affirm the difference of others.

Because of the Gospel at work in us.

Let’s pray…