Good morning, y'all. It'd be great if you could grab a copy of the sermon outline today
with the Bible text on it. And also, it's on the St. Paul's app. So if you want to get
it down, the St. Paul's app takes a while. It would be fantastic. So I wonder why are
you here? I wonder why you're not down at the cinemas. I wonder why you're not winding
down in front of the television at home. Iron Chef America is on after all. I wonder why
you're not at the beach. I wonder why you're not even just down shopping at Westfield.
Why are you not at the gym, visiting friends, family? I wonder if maybe you're just here
because, well, there isn't anything else to do. There's no other pressing needs. There's
no parties on. The kids' sports not on right now. I wonder if, for instance, your thinking
is, well, it is only church after all. And so when something more pressing does come up,
then, well, that just takes precedence. I wonder if you're comfortable with the way those words
run together. Only church. I do wonder whether church fits in and around everything else that's
on. Certainly statistics of church attendance would certainly indicate that. And even those
who regard themselves as mature Christians think that two out of four is called regular nowadays.
Maybe it's not an afterthought. But maybe it's just something that you've done. It's not so much,
you know, you're actually here regularly, but it's just something that you have always done. You have
just come to church. You've grown up just coming to church. And so you don't give any thought to it.
You don't give any preference. You just do it like a habit, like you clean your teeth. Same kind of thing.
For various conversations I've had with parents, I've noticed that parents struggle to answer the
question when their kids ask them, why do we go to church? Haven't actually thought about it.
Haven't got a biblical answer to it. So if you're comfortable with the words, it's only church,
or comfortable just making it a daily habit or a weekly habit and not really thinking it's,
or you're just in that phase of life where there's potentially a creeping cynicism, confusion, apathy,
then I want you to see something wonderful today. While your experience of church might have been
disappointment, boring, confusing, or relationships that have been less than what they could be,
today we are catching a glimpse of God's intention for his church. And if you've got the sermon outline,
you'll see that I've got three ideas. We're a new family, we're a united family, and then
some practical application on being a brilliant family.
Last week, we saw the incredible scope of God's plan for the universe through time and eternity of the
Lord Jesus. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has redeemed us from sin,
from death and captivity to selfishness and the ego. And no religious duty, no moral effort on our
behalf contributes to it. We are liberated from slavery to sin to be who God has made us to be
in the first place. We're being set free to praise and serve. And you may recall that at the end of
chapter 1, Paul prays that people would see the evidence of God's mighty sovereign grace at work in
the world. He prays that people would see that evidence in the world. And now in these verses,
we see one of the major, if not the major evidence of God's work in his world.
inside the church, there are people living together in peace and harmony and deep relationship
who outside the church could never get along.
God's plan of salvation in Jesus doesn't just bring us back into relationship with God,
God's plan of salvation in Jesus. And it brings us back together.
I see what the saving work of Jesus accomplished. Chapter 2, verse 14,
for he himself, this is Jesus, is our peace who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the
barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Now the word hostility is used twice in these verses.
And it's a word that means hate. And the test case, if you like, the case study that Paul uses
is the deep historical hatred between Jew and Gentiles, which is basically Jews and everyone else.
not only has the death of Jesus brought down the dividing wall of hostility and hatred between us and God,
but also the dividing wall of hostility and hatred between people.
Even centuries of deep hatred.
But it goes a step further. It's not just the dividing wall has been ripped down.
Halfway through verse 15, we read,
His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two,
thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross,
by which he put to death their hostility.
God's purpose in salvation is to create a new humanity in Jesus.
A new family in Jesus.
We are not a club.
A club is where you share one or two common interests with other people.
So, for instance, if you're a tennis club, you share the interest of tennis.
Or you share the interest of wearing white.
Whatever it is.
But you share one or two connected things.
Points of connection.
As part of an ethnic group,
you have a much more profound connection with people of the same ethnic group
than you do if you're a member of a club.
There are possibly hundreds of points of connection that you would have
and history that you would have with an affinity group as an ethnic group.
And Paul is saying here that when you become a Christian,
the connection points are even deeper and more profound than ethnicity.
This connection is more deeper, more extensive than any other connection point.
So much so that as an Anglo-Australian,
I have a greater connection with other Christians of other cultures
than I do with people who are of my own ethnic group who are not Christian.
What the gospel of Jesus does when he rescues us from selfishness and the ego,
Jesus reshuffles the layers in our ego deck or identity decks.
My and your cultural heritages do not get obliterated in the Lord Jesus.
They are just put in their right place.
I am still an Anglo-Australian male from rural northwest New South Wales.
The only place on the planet where the English language is spoken without an accent.
There is irony in that statement in case you haven't picked it up.
And you are who you are with your cultural identity markers.
That doesn't change.
But our connection and our unity with Jesus trumps it all.
It all.
The church is a new humanity, a new family with a new identity.
In Jesus, God has made it possible for us to get over the horrible, horrible divisions of the human race.
God displays the wisdom and the worth and the saving power of Jesus to the world through his new family.
You may have noticed that the church, the word church is mentioned twice in chapter 3, verses 10 and 21.
I want you to notice the wording.
First of all, in verse 10.
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
Manifold, the word manifold in verse 10 means literally many colored.
Many, multifaceted wisdom of God.
And it's the same word that's used in the Old Testament for Joseph and his many colored cloak.
The church is God's many colored, diverse church.
The church is his brightly colored neon sign to the universe.
The church is the public advertisement of the glorious wisdom of God.
God's plan is devastatingly simple and disarmingly beautiful.
His eternal plan is to bring a new family together under Christ from all kinds of people who are bound together in love,
who outside the church are opposed to one another.
That's his plan.
Secondly, we're a united family.
The emphasis in chapter 2, verses 19 and 22 is we are not just together in the same sort of area,
but that we're in fact united.
Verse 19 says that we are his household.
We are his children.
We are his family.
We are his eternal family.
It also says that we are his temple.
You see, what happens in the move from household to temple,
the intensity builds to the final image.
In verses 21 to 22, we are his temple being built together for his spirit to dwell in for his glory.
A king lives in a country with his subjects,
but there may be no relationship between the king and the subjects.
A father lives under the same roof with his children.
If you're a citizen of a country, you might live next door to each other.
You may live long way from each other.
You may have no connection with each other at all.
But if you're a child growing up with siblings,
you are living in very close proximity to one another.
That's what happens with family.
Of course, however, as you move the metaphors to temple,
if you are stones in a building, you're cemented to each other.
The image here at the end of chapter 2 is of our unity, our connectedness,
our togetherness in Jesus.
And this theme of togetherness and unity flows over into chapter 3,
where Paul prays that the church will be a beacon of unity and love to the world.
Ephesians 3 is one of those chapters that's very messy.
You might have picked that up as you read to us just a moment ago.
So Paul begins chapter 3 with,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles.
And then he stops.
It's like he breaks his thought halfway through and goes on a detour.
You know how frustrating that is when people do that and you're talking to them
and you're trying to work out how is this connected with what,
you know, you've started the sentence but you haven't kind of finished it?
And this little detour of Paul's lasts until verse 14,
where he says,
For this reason I knew before the Father.
And so what you've got to do is you've got to hold his train of thought
while he travels on this detour from verses 2 to 13.
And the detour, he's like, this is kind of his idea of the detour.
Let me remind you of God's plan.
Let me remind you of why I'm here in prison
and why Gentiles like you find yourself part of God's family.
It's all because of the mystery.
That's no longer a mystery.
It's all because of the plan that finally came together.
And as you run your eye down verses 2 to 13,
you'll see he makes the same point over and over and over again.
The plan that wasn't known before is now clear.
And verse 6 is what has been made known.
The mystery is that through the gospel,
the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel,
members together of one body,
and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
Together, together, together.
And there's nothing that Paul wants to see more
than the Ephesians living out their togetherness.
As he comes back from the detour in verse 14,
that's the thing that he is moved to pray for.
Verses 14 to 21 is a long and complex thought.
But in the end, it breaks down to a very simple prayer.
A prayer to the Father that the Ephesian church
might really be a diverse and a united family.
A prayer that boils down to this in verse 17.
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love.
He prays that Jesus may so fill their hearts
that they'll know what real love looks like.
Paul says, middle of verse 17,
I'm praying that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, you Gentiles together with the saints,
to comprehend what is the breadth and the length
and the height and the depth of the love of Christ
and to know the love of Christ
that goes way beyond all knowledge.
That's what we looked at last week.
It's what we see in his many blessings
that he's poured out to us.
Every spiritual blessing in Jesus.
And the more we grapple with every spiritual blessing in Jesus,
the more the layers of our identity deck gets reshuffled
till he sits at the top, always.
Paul says here, it doesn't make sense,
but the love of Christ encompasses all kinds of people.
Paul's praying that we will together catch on
how big the love of Jesus is
and be so filled with the fullness of God.
He prays for it because when the church does it,
they become God's great advertising campaign to the world.
Over 20 years ago, there was a war raging in Kosovo
between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
That war came on the back of a cultural hatred
that had run for over a thousand years
from both sides.
And it resulted in terrible crimes against humanity.
There were Christian churches
on both sides of that divide.
And right in the middle of the conflict
where ethnic cleansing is happening,
one pastor of an Albanian Baptist church in Pristina
crossed over the racial divide
and preached in a Serbian church
on the opposite side of the conflict,
filled with Serbians.
Against the background of all the hate,
the pastor of the church in Belgrade
took this man into his home
and put him in his pulpit.
And the pastor said,
we don't have much in common
apart from Christ.
And that's the point.
If you really catch on the breadth
and the depth and the height
and the width of the love of Christ,
then you've started down
the path of loving one another
and a shared discomfort when we meet.
Against the odds,
against the generations,
against the cultural dividing lines
in a way that not only astounds
the world around us
when they see the way we love one another,
but the spiritual powers as well.
Did you see that?
It's enough to make the angels rejoice
and the demons hang their heads in shame.
Paul says God's intent,
God's design,
God's plan,
verse 10,
is that through the church,
the manifold wisdom of God
might be made known to the rulers
and authorities in the heavenly places.
Imagine that.
Imagine the angels
looking down on St. Paul's Chatswood
and marveling
at God's eternal purposes
being worked out in monsters.
Marveling at the glory of the gospel
as the boundaries the world puts up
come down between us.
We're here to be part of God's church.
We're here to actively love one another.
We're here to demonstrate to this world
and the angels in the heavenly realms
the wonders of God's plan
being worked out in the Lord Jesus.
We're here to reveal to the world
that alienation and self-centeredness
and hatred and division
don't have the final word.
We're here to work together
to display Christ's love
in real ways to the world.
So if you're a parent
and your kid asks you,
why are we going to church?
Oh, kiddo,
we're going to demonstrate to the world
and to the angels in the heavenly realms
the wonders of God's plan of salvation.
The world's plan of salvation
worked out in Jesus Christ.
The beach is not inviting.
It can wait.
It'll be better in heaven anyway.
So how do we work it out?
How do we be God's brilliant family?
It's passages like this
and many others in the New Testament
behind our purpose statement
which normally is on the wall behind me.
You can find this in our vision booklet
for this year,
the stuff I'm about to say now.
Behind our purpose statement,
that is,
our purpose statement is the reason
we exist as a church
and our one says
that we treasure Jesus together
for God's glory
and the joy of all people.
See the connection with what I just said
from Ephesians 2 and 3?
That's why we exist.
This passage also lies behind
what we're seeking to do together.
Our vision as a church here in Chatswood
is to be a church
that unites our diverse community
in the good news of Jesus Christ
so that more and more and more people
through the gospel
have the layers of their identity
and we're going to be
shuffled by Jesus.
And passages like this
lie behind our strategy
how we're going to achieve our vision
to unite our diverse community in Jesus.
We will achieve our vision
by being a transcultural church,
not a multicultural church,
a transcultural church,
displaying the manifold wisdom of God
to our livelihood.
That means that we reflect,
we embrace,
and we enjoy
all the diversity
of the context of our neighborhood,
all the ways that God has made us
while in the power of the gospel
having our identity decks reshuffled,
rising above all the cultural differences
that are amongst us
and being united together
as a community,
as a family under Jesus.
He becomes supreme.
He's the one who connects us.
We do not try and find cultural connection.
We rise above it
and find connection and unity in Jesus.
Therefore,
what that means in practice,
we develop united congregations
like this one
that reflect the ethnic,
generational, social,
economic diversity of our neighborhood
and we deliberately,
deliberately work against
the homogenous unit principle
that wants to segregate people
into affinity groups.
We will use the unifying language
of our neighborhood
in all our corporate gatherings
and communications.
We develop mature disciples
of the Lord Jesus
who are equipped with skills
and cultural intelligence
to serve across cultures.
So there is deeper appreciation
of our differences
and we develop culturally diverse
leadership teams
across all layers of decision making.
Now there's work to do
to make that reality measure up
here at St. Paul's
and sin will always
get in the way.
But we must fight for it.
I'm glad that Nick and John
are at this morning
at a church called Parkside Church
down near Fairfield,
a church of about 700, 800 people
where 50 different nationalities
are gathered together
in these kinds of congregations.
just learning about
how to do it better.
Now no church
can be totally inclusive
but how do we stretch
to be more ethnically
and culturally
and socially inclusive?
How do we work hard
to have a shared discomfort
when we meet?
That's to keep the gospel
in front of us
Sunday by Sunday by Sunday
before we come,
after we've been,
while we're here.
How do we work,
sacrifice and serve
to be who we are?
See if you're a Christian
you've been called
into God's new family
and you have been called
into deep relationships
and deep involvement
in the Christian family.
You cannot love and serve
in shallow relationships.
How deep?
I hear you ask.
That's a silly question
to ask at this time of the day
but I'm going to go
into it anyway.
Deep enough
for personal accountability.
I've got three things
to say in this.
Deep enough
for personal accountability.
We are the same family.
One thing you'll know
about growing up
in a family
is transparency.
That is,
your family knows
who you are
and you know
who they are.
There's,
they wipe your nose,
they change your nappies.
Your facades
don't work
in a family
when you grow up
and you're going to fit.
They know
who you are.
On occasion
while growing up
when I got ahead
of myself
in self-importance,
my dad would say
to me,
don't forget
I wiped your bottom.
that's just a,
you know,
put me back down there.
No facades
in a family.
Transparency
is essential.
So I want to ask you
in this church family,
transparency
is essential.
Are there people
who know
your habitual sins
because you've told them
and then given them
a hunting license
to come after you
if they see
that you're indulging
in them?
Our family relationships
also need to be
as deep
as whole life hospitality.
A family lives together.
In a family
you share each other's
space and things.
You eat,
you play,
you work together.
Hospitality is letting people
into your whole life.
It's not just putting on
a meal for people.
It's letting them
into your whole life.
It's not just about
showing up to church events.
Like we are colleagues.
It's not about turning up
as students
to study
or
club to play tennis.
We are brothers
and sisters.
We also need
to deepen our relationships
to the point
of corporate spirituality.
God
comes to us
as a gathered
people.
He inhabits us
as a gathered
people.
We need to talk
about our prayer life,
what it's like.
We need to talk
about how real God
is in our heart,
what God is teaching
us through the Bible.
The reason why
we don't do that
is either because
we are chronically,
chronically
shy,
which the Spirit
of God can get over,
or because
those things
are actually
not happening.
They're actually
not happening.
In his book,
The Four Loves,
C.S. Lewis
has a chapter
on friendship.
It's a great book.
I'd encourage
you everyone
to read it.
Lewis,
as he was
over a long period
of time,
was one of three
friends.
They were,
if you like,
co-BFFs.
There was Lewis,
there was
Ronald,
and Charles,
three of them,
three of them
co-best friends.
Tragically,
Charles died.
As great
as Lewis
was
about the death
of Charles,
he thought
to himself,
at least
I've got
Ronald.
He assumed
he would
now be
closer to
Ronald
because
there's
just the
two of
them
now.
And
therefore,
he would
get more
of Ronald.
He doesn't
have to
share
Ronald
anymore.
As the
weeks and
the months
went by
after Charles
died,
Lewis
discovered
that this
in fact
wasn't the
case.
He
discovered
he actually
got
less
of
Ronald.
And
he finally
realized
that there
was a
side,
a part
of
Ronald,
a personality
bit of
Ronald,
that he
could not
bring out
of Ronald.
And that
that bit
was now
lost to
him.
He goes
on to
say,
it takes
a community
to really
know a
person.
because
any
individual
is not
enough
to draw
the whole
person
out.
People
are complex,
people are
deep,
and we
cannot know
someone by
ourselves.
We need
a community
to know
them.
And
friends,
it's
the same
with
Jesus.
We
get to
know
Jesus
better
together.
The
deeper you
get into
the spiritual
life of
friends,
the deeper
you get
into
Jesus.
And if
you're not
getting deep
in Jesus,
there's
a connection
there between
how deep
you are
getting into
the spiritual
life of
others.
Jesus.
And the
deeper you
get into
Jesus,
the deeper
your unity
and your
love as a
family.
If you
want to
experience the
surpassing
power of
God in
your life
as Paul
prays for,
you need
to plunge
yourself into
his new
family.
To the
degree that
you serve
your new
family is
the degree
of depth
you will
get into
Jesus and
embrace your
eternal
identity as
members of
his family.
And so as
we look to
the year
ahead and
throw ourselves
into God's
family in
service of
one another,
may Paul's
prayer in
verse 20 be
our prayer.
Now to
him who
is able to
do immeasurably
more than
all we ask
or imagine
according to
his power
that is work
in us.
Amen.