From Isolation to Belonging

ONE With Christ, ONE With Each Other ~ Ephesians • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

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For us to more fully understand who we are (or who we could be) in Christ, Paul shows the contrast of who we were (are) without Christ to who we are now (could be) in Christ.

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Introduction

We all seek a place / a community in which to belong.

There can be a sense of isolation when new, not fitting in, or wrestling with matters not understood by others.

This can lead to problems as one who feels isolated feels desperate to belong … hence the appeal of gangs, Islam, terrorism, promiscuity, drugs and alcohol, acting out … all to fit in / to belong.

God offers a place / a family to belong.

Do we find belonging in the family of God?

How do we extend this belonging to others (especially to those who do not appear to fit)? How are we living it out?

In what way do we cling to our belonging in Christ even when feeling isolated?

We are studying the book of Ephesians, which focuses on unity - being ONE With Christ and ONE With One Another.

A side topic of gender identification and sexuality preferences is playing in this discussion … as it is so before us within our society and especially with the changes to our school curriculum. We conversed around this subject last Sunday in the adult Sunday School class.

Chapters 1-3 focus on our identity in Christ … with chapters 4-6 focusing on how we live that out.

Thanksgiving is a season where this sense of belonging is expected … but when you do not belong, the isolation can be daunting.

This is intended as a season of recognition / of giving thanks for the ways in which the Lord has provided.

Thankfulness is found much easier in belonging than in isolation.

All three of these collide on us this morning.

Collisions are not neat and tidy.

There is not necessarily a neat solution to these three … but, whether we have trusted Christ or not, our Bible passage offers the solution.

It continues to clarify who we are in Christ ...

… but also who we are together as the people of God.

There is a movement in our passage from isolation to belonging.

is a movement in our passage from isolation to belonging.

We are being called to consider who we are or were without Christ.

We are being shown who we are or could be with Christ.

The Practice of Remembering (11-12)

Our passage opens with a call to “remember” … read .

Thanksgiving can bring on memories … both pleasant ones and difficult.

Farmer friends give thanks at Thanksgiving whether the harvest is in or not … while acknowledging the struggle when it is not yet in, recalling past harvests (both when it was in and when it was not).

Being a season when we often get together with family, we remember those not with us, particularly mourning those no longer with us.

Here we are called to remember.

Last week Derek said the original word used for “all” actually meant “all”. It is the same here … the original word for “remember” actually means “remember”.

It is a verb / an action.

We are to call to mind / to hold in our memory.

We are to “make mention of” / to tell our memories and experiences.

In the way we are called to give thanks in all things, we are called here to remember not only who we are in Christ but also who we were and will be.

Outside the Family of God (11)

I was pointed to a recent article in Christianity Today … a screen shot is on the screen if you want to be able to find it.

It is a testimonial account of a lady who came to Christ while living a lesbian lifestyle.

She had a significant God-experience in which she saw who she was apart from God while being given an understanding of who God was calling her to be.

She gained a fresh understanding of God’s love for her (even from within her life apart from God).

She was being given a sense / a reality check of the love and belonging God offered her … which surpassed what she was experiencing in her lesbian relationship.

She was outside the family of God and was being invited in.

Part of our Sunday School discussion last week was over how we respond / how we should respond to a lesbian or transgender or someone who wears clothes that (in our opinion) does not suit their gender.

Our tendency is to judge the person by our presumptions of their sin.

This is what the 1st c. Jews did to the Gentiles (which simply means “other than Jewish”).

They focused on physical differences (particularly circumcision).

They focused on keeping the Gentiles out rather than on bringing them in to Christ.

We must also remember the contrast of who we are now with who we used to be.

We were outside the family of God but have been invited and adopted in by God’s grace as expressed in the person and work of Christ and by our faith.

If we are still outside the family of God, we are being invited in … we need only to receive and believe.

Separated From God (12)

Paul offers further description in v.12.

Some translations repeat the word “remember” to show Paul’s emphasis on this.

For us to understand who we are in Christ, we must know who we were without Him.

To grasp who we are in the family of God, we must recall who we were when separated from Him.

He uses three key pictures here to remind us.

Without Christ we are separated from Him.

Without Christ we are alienated from God’s people.

Without Christ we are strangers to the promise and hope of God.

There is a sense / a picture / a reality of isolation here.

Paul himself, in his isolation, had filled the gap with a violent and destructive opposition to Christ … and yet Christ met him uniquely and clearly on the Damascus road in .

In the article I referred to earlier, Jackie Hill Perry tells her own story of just such an experience - a very personal encounter with God, a coming to faith out of an opposite lifestyle.

In our isolation from God, we turn to other things to fill the void.

We work or exercise, busying ourselves with tasks.

We allow temptations / sins / addictions to take over.

We become idle or a meddler.

What is it we tend to turn to instead of God?

In many movies there is a canyon or river or danger where safety is on the other side but the bridge is missing or unsafe.

What will bridge us from separation to the hope and promise He offers / from isolation to belonging?

He has provided the bridge, but we must step out in faith.

Are we remembering?

Do we know the isolation we face without Christ?

Are we testifying to the hope and promise of belonging to Christ?

Embracing Who We Are in Christ (13-22)

V.13 opens with the words, “But now ...”

If we are a Christ-follower, we are clearly called in passages like to live like one.

When we get married, we no longer get to live like a single person.

When we move to a new home or community, it does not work to re-create our former way of living.

As we age, we are best off to accept the changes; it does not work to live like when we were younger.

“But now ...” we are no longer isolated, we belong; we are no longer unsaved, we are saved; we are no longer lost, we are found.

We are called here to embrace who we are and where we are at.

Let us embrace our identity in Christ.

Let us fully accept it / fully live it out.

Let us engage with enthusiasm.

Read .

As Individual Believers (13-18)

There are two aspects to who we are in Christ.

It is both an individual and corporate reality.

Paul addresses both and both are an essential part to our identity in Christ; to fully be ONE With Christ, we must be ONE With One Another.

Let us embrace who we individually are in Christ.

This means putting aside our sin and living holy lives.

It means putting aside false realities and misconceptions and former ways … not allowing them to define us any longer.

It means being who we are in Christ.

As Ryan ...

As a child of God ...

“brought near by the blood of Christ” (13)

Once I was visiting friends at Thanksgiving and ended up at their family gathering.

I was welcomed in as one of them.

I felt awkward going at first but was very warmly made to feel at home.

It is this way with Christ.

We are brought in / brought near by the blood of Christ.

With no ability to earn or deserve this, we are invited into His life.

There is no longer division amongst peoples … Jew or Gentile, man or woman, slave or free.

We do not come as idolater, divorced, liar, homosexual, tempter, lone ranger, failure, or any other label we put on ourselves.

We come as the child of God we are … welcomed in and brought near.

No matter my sin or temptation, I am ONE With Christ.

“peace” (14a)

There are places or activities that often help us relax by freeing us from the stresses of life.

One sews, another rides; one fishes, another lays on a beach; one gardens, another reads.

But sometimes they do not work.

broken down the wall of hostility - 14b

Our mind still races.

Our problems do not go away.

Christ is our “peace”. (repeated for emphasis)

uniting God’s people with one another and with Him - 15-16

Peace is a sense of well-being and security.

It is not only a lack of conflict but also confidence and safety.

Brought to those likely and unlikely / near and far - we may not feel deserving but it is still available.

God’s peace breaks down walls of hostility, uniting those who seem impossible (removing the barriers of sin).

Replacing hostility and brokenness with unity and oneness.

He is our peace!

This is part of being in Christ.

He brings calm to our storms and state in life.

“[joint] access in one Spirit to the Father” (18)

In Christ, we also all gain access to the Father by the Holy Spirit.

This is unique to Christ.

We are filled with and empowered by the Spirit of God.

This does not make us God (as other cults and religions proclaim) ...

… but it gives us the ability and freedom to pray / to walk and converse with God.

As we embrace who we are in Christ / as we access the Father, we take on the heart and mission of God.

His love not only envelopes but also flows through us.

The Great Commission / His heart for the lost resonates with us to the point we value them and extend the call of God on their lives.

Embracing who we are in Christ requires both the character and purpose of God to have a hold on our lives.

As the People of God (19-22)

We must also embrace who we are corporately as the people of God.

It is not merely personal … as many Christians want to make it.

We are joined to the family of God.

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (, ESV)

All through scripture God’s people lived and functioned together … where there individual choices and actions affected the whole.

We see this through the nation of Israel and the disciples.

We see this in the early church in and then through each NT church.

We are to embrace being the people of God.

as citizens and family rather than strangers and aliens (19)

Being Canadian brings in interesting challenges.

We welcome in immigrants but then judge them (even though most of our families were immigrants at some point).

We are part of Canada but then allow discussion of sovereignty (both in Quebec and the western provinces)

Let us come together as Canadians to be a proud and strong nation!

Closer to home, we have and continue to wrestle with this right here at NCC.

We have struggled in different seasons to function as a family.

We are working towards greater unity and cohesion (sharing purpose and identity rather than focusing on differences and disagreements).

Our work on governance and guidelines is for this reason.

The subject of women in ministry remains an issue below the surface and yet needs to be worked out further.

Working to be a place of belonging and unity.

Instead of being nervous to come in or wondering if we will be accepted, we seek to be a place of joint identity and purpose.

a reliable identity (20)

A welcoming place.

An accepting and loving people.

While membership is our chosen method for functioning, it is not the focus … being a community in which we can each find belonging and value is.

a reliable identity (20)

We are the “household of God” (as per verse 20) built on a foundation and cornerstone reliable and true.

This describes our desire to be Christ-centred.

cornerstone

We maintain the Bible as our source of God’s truth and words.

These are what keep us centred together in Christ.

We embrace who we are in Christ by continually coming back to these.

They maintain our holiness and relationship with God.

They are what identifies who we are in Christ.

We can count on Christ.

He keeps us squarely in truth and righteousness.

He carries us when we struggle or stumble.

He enables us to be present and available to one another.

“being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (21-22)

As God worked in and through Israel, He works in and through the Church (locally and universally).

We are the temple of God (in us He dwells).

We are being built / sanctified into a most holy and glorious temple.

Conclusion

As we remember who we were without Christ, we are reminded most clearly of who we are in Christ.

We each are the children of God.

We together are the hand and temple of God.

Let us live as those who belong with Christ.

Communion

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