I preached in our West congregation last Sunday as part of our “Letter to London” series, were we’re stepping through the book of Ephesians. Sunday we looked at Ephesians 2:11-32 and how God’s plan is to:
- Bring us near – to him AND to one another
- Build us together so that we
- Become something amazing – a dwelling place for His Spirit
- In Christ
If you want a listen you can download the audio, slides, or group discussion notes from our website.
Here’s a few ‘big ideas’ that came through:
Church is supposed to be a group of diverse, unique individuals who are built together in Christ. God made a creative, diverse, creation and intends that to be expressed through the church. Church isn’t supposed to be about my preferences. It’s not supposed to be a group of homogeneous people – or a bunch of clones. It’s supposed to be people of different races, backgrounds, social class, status etc. all being built together and being one in Christ.
You only find what your part is in the context of the whole. We often talk about how we are God’s workmanship and how he has a great plan for our lives (see v.10 and last week’s message for more) but we also don’t really discover that part outside of the context of the other parts we’re supposed to complement.
That means I discover my uniqueness – who I am and what my place is – as I get involved in His church. It doesn’t happen if I fly solo.
Anything we built has to have it’s full weight on Christ. The only things that survive the storms of life are those which are built on the correct foundation. If we want to build something great we’d better make sure our lives – and our churches – rely on Christ as our “chief cornerstone”, and we don’t put our trust in anything else.
If you’ve got any comments or questions from Sunday, post them below.
