Ephesians 2: st February, 11.30a.m. WOEAIHF? Talk 3 You were Formed for God s Family

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Todd Green
5 years ago
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1 Ephesians 2: st February, 11.30a.m. WOEAIHF? Talk 3 You were Formed for God s Family So we are continuing our Lenten series in which we are trying to discover together what on Earth we are here for. The famous atheist, Bertrand Russell wrote, Unless you assume a God, the question of life s purpose is meaningless. Think about that for a minute that s tragic, isn t it? Someone who is famous for his non-belief, acknowledging that life without God is meaningless. But if we assume that there is a God, who is an intelligent being and who created the universe, then it follows logically that we were created by him for a specific purpose - we are not an accident. And if that is true, then we must either pursue God s purposes or ignore them. So we ve been looking together at what the Bible says our purposes in life are. Last week, we talked about the first purpose to worship God. A relationship is a two-way thing God has shown his love to us and our response to that, is what we call worship. We thought about how worship is not just what we do on a Sunday but rather is a lifestyle of focussing our attention on God and living for his glory. Or as Jesus put it: loving the Lord our God with

2 all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. (Mark 12:30). Today, we are looking at a second purpose God has for our lives we were made for belonging belonging to God, and to His wider family. Now let s face it.relationships are a big deal to all of us it s how we re wired. We are created for connection. God in all His creative wisdom has hardwired our bodies to desire relationships and if we try to live in isolation we go crazy. I wonder if any of you have watched Castaway the film staring Tom Hanks? Hanks is a guy who is stranded on a tropical island with no other human contact and he almost goes a bit doolally because he has no human interaction. In fact - a volleyball becomes his best buddy whom he personalizes and names Wilson. Worrying!! The point is though, humans struggle without relationships! The bible makes clear that there are 2 types of relationship for which we are specifically designed. A vertical relationship between each of us and God and a horizontal relationship between us and other people. You and I work best when we have a relationship with God and

3 relationships with others in that order. Now we can live life outside of this God s design for us - but we won t find fulfillment; we ll never be satisfied without both the vertical and horizontal relationships.because that s how God has made us. Ephesians 1:5 says: God s unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave Him great pleasure. Once we become a Christian when we open our heart and say - God, I ve lived my life my way and for my self and it doesn t work. I don t want to be the lord of my life any more. Forgive me and come and be central in my life. At that point, according to this verse, we are adopted into God s family and become His child. And God calls his family the church. Now if you asked most people, What do you think church is?, they d think of a building, or they d think it s something you go to - I m going to church. But church is not something you go to, it s something you belong to and are part of. It is not an event and it s not a location, it s our relationship together; it s family. And a key purpose of our life is to live close to God and in community connected

4 to this church family. We re not made to live out there on our own, like lone rangers! Think about it this way. When I was a wee lad, I loved Lego; it s probably the only game from my childhood which is still in vogue! But there s only one purpose for Lego bricks - they re designed to connect. If you connect Lego bricks together, you can build all kinds of really cool stuff. But if you don t connect the Lego it s pretty pointless it s just a pile of plastic bits. Well, if you re a believer in Christ you are God s Lego, if you like - you were designed for connection. We are made to fit together. We all have different gifts, different personalities, different roles, different things to do. But we belong to each other. And listen, you cannot be what God made you to be without being part of this greater whole part of a church family. You can t fulfill your purpose in life on your own. You have to be connected. If you want to know how this is meant to look, think back to the story of Adam and Eve in the first few chapters of Genesis. Before they rebelled and went their own disastrous way, Adam and Eve are described as living in close relationship to God, who walked with them and nurtured them; they were also living in close relationship

5 with each other and the rest of creation. This is what God s original intention for us was, and it still is. The word the bible uses for living in close relationship with other children of God is called fellowship. And fellowship is important because God is love and God wants us to become like Him. And it is only in fellowship - in committed relationship with others - that we learn what love means and that we really practice love. So to help us think through what fellowship looks like, I am going to briefly talk about 4 levels of fellowship God wants for us in our church family. The first level if you like - is membership or choosing to belong. Joining a church - a local family of believers - really is important. It s become quite trendy for people to say I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. I can download a talk, listen to a service on the God Channel why do I need to join a church? Well think of it this way. The difference between being a disconnected Christian or attending a church whenever we feel like and joining a church is like the difference between two people in a casual relationship and two people getting married. People in a casual relationship

6 nowadays can do pretty much everything married people do, but marriage brings a sense of ownership, a publicly recognized belonging that a casual relationship simply does not, and for many a new sense of trust, commitment and security. Paul writes in Romans 12: In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. If we are a Christian, we are members of church - part of the Body of Christ (as Paul puts it) - and we belong to all others who are parts of Christ body, here and around the globe. So connect, commit, belong! If you haven t really connected yet at St. John s, I encourage you to do that today, pick up one of the Get connected forms at the back of church, fill it in and give it back to one of the wardens and decide that this really is your family, and you re going to be part of it. So the first level is membership. The second level is friendship or learning to share. Do you know how to make friends? It s very simple, really.you make yourself vulnerable to somebody; you share who you are with others. The early church, which exploded with growth, was great at sharing. In the book of Acts we are told: All the believers met together constantly and shared everything with each other. Meeting together and sharing are two things that have to take place if we are

7 going to develop deep friendships in life. Now it s not easy being vulnerable and sometimes you will be let down and hurt but there is no other way. I think its indicative that for the first 300 years or so of the church, there were no church buildings. All worship services, all meetings of Christians, were held in homes. And bonds of friendship were built that were so strong that a Christian would rather die at the stake than to turn their back on their Church family. We need that strength today. So who are you growing closer to by meeting up and sharing your life with? I think this is why the writer to the Hebrews urges us: Do not give up the habit of meeting together, instead, let us encourage one another. Now I know life has other demands, but let s make it our habit to meet up with other Christians, on Sundays and on other days of the week. Someone here needs your smile of encouragement and your words of wisdom. And if you are not here, the whole church will be poorer because of your absence. You can do this through the church prayer group, the lent small groups, the Wednesday communion, the mid-week activities, coming over for a meal or organizing something

8 else yourself, but do start developing deeper friendships here, that is what God made you for. Once you are a member and you are developing friendships, a third level of fellowship is doing my part. This is about realizing that we each have a contribution to make and that the family of God needs you. And believe me - all of us have a role to play here. Fifty-eight times in the New Testament the Bible uses the phrase, one another. Serve one another, pray for one another, greet one another, help one another, etc. God has uniquely gifted you to do stuff which builds up the body, which supports the community here, which changes the world, in Jesus name. Don t discount yourself we need you to play your part. Don t say I m too old, I m too busy, I m too shy, I m too whatever. God has given you gifts so please play your part and if I can help you discern how you can best serve, I d love to help you with that. Have a chat with me, or again, use the Get connected forms at the back which outline different ways of playing your part here at St. Johns. Finally, a fourth level of fellowship is kinship and this really undergirds everything,.it s loving other believers like family. Think about how you love your biological family

9 what do you do to show that you love them? Remember the verse we looked at last week? Jesus instructs us to love the Lord your God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Well that s not how his teaching on the subject ends, he went on to say: And love your neighbour as yourself. The early church impressed people so much because they were like family to each other. In fact, a famous secular historian - not a believer - observed this about the Christians: Behold how they love each other. The love Christians showed each other proved to the world that they were disciples of Jesus. Wouldn't it be fantastic, if people observing us here at St Johns, concluded: Behold how they love each other. So I finish with this question. Would people looking at you from the outside be convinced that you love the people sitting around you? That you love them as much or even more than your blood family; this is what fellowship is all about. Let it become your strength and our strength together because this is what God made us for God has formed us for His family. Amen.

Video 1: Worldviews: Introduction. [Keith]

Video 1: Worldviews: Introduction Hi, I'm Keith Shull, the executive director of the Arizona Christian Worldview Institute in Phoenix Arizona. You may be wondering Why do I even need to bother with all