UNITY WITH CHRIST, PART 3

Sermon Notes, August 5, 2018

Rev. Garry McGlinchy

            Pastor Garry continued his sermon series on Ephesians.  The first three chapters of Ephesians are about Unity with Christ.  Today’s sermon, “Unity with Christ, Part 3,” is based on Chapter 3, which starts out by kind of summing up all that Paul talked about in the first two chapters.

Paul was an educated Jew, and also a Roman citizen.  You could say he held dual citizenship.  We first meet Paul when he is persecuting followers of the Way. Jesus had died on the cross and been resurrected, telling His followers to spread the Good News.  The Jewish leaders told them they were not teaching properly, and they tried to stop them by persecuting the Church.  But the gospel spread.  The followers of Christ left their homes and went elsewhere, still obeying His command to tell the Good News of God’s love and salvation.  Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute other Christians when Jesus appeared to him, and his life was completely and radically changed. 

Because of that moment, we have a good portion of the New Testament.  A lot of the time Paul was isolated; he was arrested for preaching the Gospel.  When he was in prison, he wrote letters to the churches he loved, telling them how to correct things they were doing that were wrong.  Ephesians is one of those letters.

Paul is on house arrest in Rome, waiting for his trial.  He tells the Ephesians about his personal call from God, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.  He tells them—and us—that through Christ’s obedience, His dying on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin, they—and we—can now be adopted into the family of God.  Where there is sin, there are consequences.  Jesus paid the price, the consequence (death). God loved us, and sent His Son.  Jesus’ sacrifice reconciles us back to God.  If there’s any rejection, it is only on our part.

Paul talks a lot about the church being united.  The thing that blows my mind is that so many of those who claim to be followers of Christ are divided; over the right way to worship, or the meaning of a certain word, or what kind of music is used. . .  Can you imagine how strong the Church could be if the Church were united?  Evangelist Dan Bohi says that God commissioned Peter to start the Church, but somehow along the way, we’ve taken the dove of peace and we’ve ripped it in half.  I think there’s coming a time when we’re going to have to put that dove back together.  Paul is saying we need to be united with God individually, but we need to be united with God as a church also.  We are all part of the family of God.

Paul’s prayer in verses 14-21 talks about God’s love.  It stretches across every experience we could ever have.  His love is wide, covering the breadth of our experience.  His love is total in nature, leaving nothing out.  His love is long, stretching throughout the ages. His love is high, reaching the height of our celebration and elation and beyond. His love is deep, reaching down to the very depth of our being.  We can never be lost in God’s love. (Romans 8:38-39)  Our completion is found in the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  We have this fullness through faith in prayer.  We must take the opportunity to praise the Lord.  This is where we grow in God, where our relationship with him becomes united completely.  To have the Holy Spirit fill us through and through, we simply need to ask for it.

If we stand together, united, we can do great things.  God may have something for you to do that seems crazy to you.  Be obedient.  You just need to take the first step.