Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning and Happy Fathers Day!

We are in a sermon series entitled Engage…

Over the last few weeks we have have talking about Engaging — Joining God on mission… becoming a contagious community… Engaging in friendship through neighboring…This morning we are going to be looking at how we can intentionally engage --- Through belonging…

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO Pam and I helped this guy with his dead battery.

We took out our jumper cables… and connected it to his car battery and nothing happened...

After a few attempts there was still nothing… then on closer inspection - we discovered that the problem was not the jump leads but the connection on his battery terminal that was loose.

So it didn’t matter how many times applied the jump leads…to the battery nothing worked.…

Nothing would work or could work because that is not how it was designed… It had to be connected to the terminal to work.

When it comes to the local Church… you can have all the correct elements… a nice building… Leadership.... various ministries operating … Biblical teaching....But.... unless there is a connection to Christ (vertical) and the (horizontal) connection to the Community….. something is going to be lacking…Simply going to be lacking in power...

One of the Great metaphors of the Church in the Bible is that of the Household or Family the family of God…

The idea of family is derived from the Fatherhood of God… Fatherhood speaks of God’s paternal relationship to Jesus Christ, and his relationship to his creation God’s fatherly relationship to his creation, and especially to believers as the “children of God.”

In Ephesians 3:14 ---tells us that all things flow from his Fatherhood...

The “whole family of believers … derives its name” (3:14) from God the Father.

That name is “family,” and from God’s name as Father we learn that we are children together.

We are brothers and sisters now in the loving, intimate context of a home.

One of the ways that we can intentionally engage in the local church is through membership…

Now we have to clarify membership… because we have this wrong mental picture of membership.. membership often brings to mind images of privilege of joining a club.

Costco members get access to deals… If you pay your membership dues you get something…

The Bible does not directly deal with Church Membership… There is no verse of scripture that is going to tell you to go through membership class or to join a church… just like there is no verse that God as a trinity…

Membership is not stated in scripture but implicitly implied ... For example… in the book of Acts where the church is growing…We are told that believers were “added” to the church.

Believers were numbered and accounted for.

They belonged to the community of the Church that is invisible but also to a local body.

In the book of Ephesians Paul talks about a mystery that was previously hidden and has now been revealed …God’s plan to reconcile all things to himself..

That is to reconcile people to God and to reconcile people to people…God relates to this new group of people as a household....

T/s Why is it important to belong to the local Church...

1. Experience the Miracle of God in Community

Paul has been talking about the expansion of New Community of Faith through the inclusion of the Gentile Believers.. Paul tells the Ephesians that that at one time as Gentiles they were outside of Covenant… They were Separated from Christ and alienated from the common wealth of Israel… Strangers to Covenant and the Promise..

Paul Sums it up… that before Christ… the Gentile world had“ no hope and without God in the world”… but this is no longer the case because we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.... and he himself became our peace… who took down the wall of Separation…

We now access through Faith in Christ into the grace of God… no longer aliens but members of the house hold of God…

Paul says that BC the Gentile world was without God in the world; now they have God in the world.

And so the reconciliation has not only impacted their relationship to Israel and to Jews, it’s impacted their relationship to God.

When you think about the church in the first Century… it was a radical idea… You have different cultures and ethnic groups that would never normally socialize with each other… Jews, Romans, Greeks, Samaritans…

The Greeks despised those who lived outside of their cities, calling them ethnē (pagans),.... likewise the Jews called the Gentiles the uncircumcision those who did not have the mark of Covenant...

It is something that we can easily over look…is the diversity of the early church..

It is a misconception to think that the church needs to look like us..

The miracle in the early Church is the transformation that happened in these people that changed the way they related to one another.

God brought together people who formerly were estranged from one another and could not get along… into a new community.

What brings us to Together is the Fatherhood of God… Through Christ we have access to One Spirit and to the Father.

Christ made a way for us to access through the Spirit to the Father.

Access - prŏsagōgē a way of approach to someone…it’s an introduction to the Father.

Christs death removed all the barriers so that a believer can draw near by the HS to the throne of grace with Confidence.

This is important… because at the moment of conversion… what happens is that se receive the spirit of God… Romans 8 tells us that we received the spirit of Adoption as sons, “ by whom we cry, “Abba!

Father!”

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”

Because of Christ our relationship to Him and his people has changed.. we have gone from

a.

No longer Separated but an Joined together..

There should be no such thing as a stranger and an alien in the body of Christ… Church is the place of Community — where we know and are known…

Now joining - simply means - we are going to join hands together… with what God is already doing among and through this community of Faith…

We are Partaker together in

Share in Citizenship - America has been called the great melting pot… you have representation of every culture in the world… The process of Citizenship in the US takes about 10 years -it isn’t an easy process and is costly … If you have US citizenship you are envy of the rest of the World… Pauls audience understood Citizen ship… Paul himself had pulled the Citizen card when he was being flogged in Ephesus....

In Christ we have Fellow Citizenship… there are no second class citizenship… whether you are American, British, Asian, African… We are Fellow Citizen..

Members of God’s family.. household can mean one big building and it can mean several smaller rooms… Church is made up of many Ethnic groups and churches - But we are all part of the Fathers House...

Just like any family We all share the same History — we have the same story… Church is built upon Foundation Apostles and traced all the way back to Christ --- And we are all being build into Spiritual temple..

A few years ago we travelled to New York City and got the opportunity to go down to Ground Zero… When I was in college I had the opportunity to go to the top of the twin towers… feelings of emotions as looked at the two cavities that reminded us of that fateful day… The Milennial building is the most beautiful building I have ever seen… It is amazing tribute to the those who fallen...

Paul points to this spiritual building… Christ destroyed the walls that brought separation… and he built another building .... in its stead a spiritual temple...

to be built upon v. — to be or become further constructed (upon something which is already somewhat established)....

This idea of a household of FAITH can be traced back to the apostle and to Christ... the cornerstone of the building...

In Christ the whole structure -- Peter talks about living stones... this building is Alive...being joined into a spiritual building a dwelling place for God.

T/S the revelation mystery of the Mirracle of this New community leads PaU.K. into prayer and praise for the Church...

T/s Why is it important to belong to the local Church...?

1. Experience the miracle of God in Community

2. Experience the Power of God in Community.

Prayer expresses our desires and hopes.. Paul pours out his soul to God… what his hope is for this New Community of Faith..

Paul’s prays that God would open the eyes the believers that they might be enlightened by the Holy Spirit to know the implications of God’s call to them, the wealth of his inheritance (Riches of His Glory) which awaits them in heaven and above all the surpassing greatness of his power which is available for them meanwhile.

Again it is this tension that comes up in scripture… the “Now and Not yet.”

This is where prayer in a church is so important… You can point someone where there is living water… you can point them to the bread of life… but only the Spirit can enlighten their eyes...

1. Strengthened in the inner Being..

2. Grow in their Faith - Christ dwell in their hearts through faith (saving faith) and continuing in the journey of being rooted and grounded in love.

Theologian John Stott describes Pauls prayer as staircase by which he climbs higher and higher in his aspiration for his readers.

His prayer-staircase has four steps, whose key words are ‘strength’, ‘love’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘fullness

apostle’s petition as a staircase by which he climbs higher and higher in his aspiration for his readers.

His prayer-staircase has four steps, whose key words are ‘strength’, ‘love’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘fullness

Paul is not praying for individuals… He is praying for the community… Because God works through Community of Faith.. look at verse 18 that you might comprehend (grasp intellectually) with all the Saints...

The verb “grasp” (katalambanō) is a military term used for attaining and capturing a goal.

It refers to the complex process of overcoming obstacles to reach an objective and achieve victory.

Paul wants the Ephesians to grasp.

The four dimensions of Divine love..

Length of Christs love

Hight of Christs love

Depth of Christs love

Width of Christ’s love

We might know the fulness of God love that surpasses knowledge!

Paul’s point is that we must continue to expand our understanding and our experience (true knowledge includes experience) so that we may more deeply live out that love every day of our earthly existence

How does this happen?

How does that happen… Paul gives us a clue…

18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints

How do we Understand Divine love more fully… it is through The community of Saints..

The community of Saints are those who have been joined together and in the process of being built up into a spiritual house..

Optimal growth occurs when we join with others -

The isolated Christian can know something of the love of Jesus.

But his grasp of it is bound to be limited by his limited experience.

It needs the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God, all the saints together, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, black and white, with all their varied backgrounds and experiences…

The heart of Christian development has long been a relationship between someone who has something to learn and someone who has something to share.

In the context of such a relationship, a synergy develops that accelerates and enhances growth.

Synergy is the energy or force that is generated through the working together of various parts or processes.

For example, two horses can pull about nine thousand pounds, but through the power created by adding more horses, four horses can pull more than thirty thousand pounds.

This is the essence of synergy.

In his classic economics text, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote that ten people working individually can produce twenty pins a day, but ten people working together can produce forty-eight thousand pins a day.

The point is simple: When we start developing key relationships in our lives or add people to help us in life, the impact is phenomenal...