What's your big question this Christmas?

The Price of Unity

This month we remembered the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back on the 9th November 1989
the wall, a symbol of the great divide that separated, physically and ideologically, the people of East and West Germany, was broken and the people were united as one nation.

Thanks to YouTube we can look back at the wall being broken down, and enjoy(!) David Hasselhoff taking us on a whistle-stop tour of what it meant for the German people. Thanks to the Bible we can look back even further to see another great barrier that was broken down in the name of unity, and the enormous price that was paid to secure it. Our guide, rather than The Hoff, is the Apostle Paul.

In Ephesians 2, Paul asks us remember what we were. The original recipients of this letter were about as divided as they could be. The Jews had a fantastic heritage as God's chosen people with the hope of a glorious inheritance and a visible physical sign that they were part of that special community. The Gentiles had none of that. Half of the Church felt superior, the other half inferior. But Paul is keen to remind them that the barrier, the "dividing wall of hostility", has been destroyed. What's made the change? What's the great leveller in the Church of 2000 years ago with the same power to unite us as one today?

Jesus' death on the cross. There is no other way - we all need it as much as each other - we're powerless to save ourselves.

The cross deals with everything that keeps us apart from God, and apart from each other. Our unity is precious - it cost the blood of Jesus to secure it, and we need to treasure it, promote it, and protect it.

Deep down, Paul needed to write to the Ephesians because they hadn't quite grasped this. The message of unity hadn't quite embedded itself in the Church. Do we grasp this in the Church today, or are we just as guilty of harbouring attitudes of superiority and inferiority?

The Temple in Jerusalem was a glorious place where the best of everything was used and displayed. Paul says this is what we are today, as the Church that's built on the blood of Christ and nothing else. We have everything we need to be the people God wants us to be.

In Christ we have peace with God and each other. Let's not create barriers and division in the way we behave towards one another. Let's unite to be the people of God, where his glory dwells, and shines out to the world.

Face the fear and act in faith

Some choices in life appear easier than others. When we're faced with a jump into the unknown it's only natural that there's an element of fear.

Becoming a Christian is like that too. Accepting Jesus as Saviour and Lord is actually pretty simple, but there's no denying it's an act of faith.

 

If you're a Christian, you might be wondering exactly what it is that's happened to you. Maybe you've found this blog because someone you know has become a Christian and you are wondering what on earth is going on with them. Perhaps you're standing on the edge, about to take that leap of faith, and you're wondering what will happen to you if you leap.

 

In Ephesians 2, Paul tries to tell us a bit more about the unknown.

 

We find out what we're like:

•  We're 'dead in transgressions'. We fall short of the mark, and to be out of step with our creator makes us as good as dead.
• We're also dominated. None of us can claim to be completely free of influence, and Paul warns us that we're all followers - we need to be aware of who or what we're following.
• We're destined for destruction. God's wrath is right and fair, and entirely predictable. It's a uncompromising refusal to accept sin and evil.

This is us, but God...

 

The good news, or gospel, is that while that might be what we were like, we've been transformed. v5-6 - God made us alive in Christ. Paul writes that we have been saved. Theologically, we were saved before the beginning of time, because God has chosen us. Logically, we were saved when Jesus breathed his last and said "it is finished". Experientially we were saved when we received the Holy Spirit.

 

Whether you want to think about salvation theologically, logically or experientially, there's no doubt in Ephesians 2 it's absolutely a work of God - not of us. He's saved us because he loves us (v4-5) and is merciful in not giving us what we deserve.

 

Still teetering on the brink?

 

Becoming a Christian, being saved, is all from God and not something we can earn or deserve.

 

So in the words of Van Halen, might as well jump.

 

 

 

Half-hearted Discipleship

A depressingly familiar problem

On Sunday morning, during a break from our studies in Ephesians, we looked at the first two chapters from the book of Judges, back in the Old Testament.  Judges looks at the events that unfolded as the Israelites got to grips with living in the Promised Land and the other peoples who dwelt in the area.

Sadly we saw that the Israelites are much like us - half hearted disciples, all too easily turning away from God to chase after the tempting attractions of the world around us.  We identified 3 ways in which they (and we) are half-hearted:

(1) They’re Crisis-driven. Most of the time they’re content doing their own thing, and God only gets a look-in when things go wrong.  Even then, normal service is resumed as soon as the crisis passes.  You can’t grow as a Christian if you’re crisis-driven.

 

(2) They’re people of compromise, content to follow God up to a point, but after that choosing to do things their own way, thinking it makes more sense.   All too often, compromise is done out of fear of the reactions of other people.

 

(3) They’re short-sighted.  Instead of teaching their children and new believers about what it means to be God’s people, they neglected their spiritual legacy.  As a result, the next generation fell away into disaster.

 

All in all, it was quite uncomfortable to see how closely we resemble the Israelites at times.

 

But if there is one thing more powerful in Judges 1 and 2 than the foolishness of the Israelites, it’s God’s mercy towards his people.  Again and again he moves to help them, giving them every chance to embrace him as they should, live with him as they should, receive the blessings and joys that he longs to give them.

 

Will we do that, or will we keep up our half-hearted lives of discipleship: crisis-driven, compromising and short-sighted?  And miss out on so very much?

 

 

You had me at hello.

The Greeting - To whom it may concern

The words 'grace and peace' in Ephesians 1:2 might feel like the equivalent to today's ‘Dear . . . .’, but with Paul's words here Spirit inspired, and very quickly bring us to the heart of this letter.

Grace is God's free saving initiative. Peace is what God has taken the initiative to do.

God in grace takes the initiative to build his new community, by bringing to himself those who are
totally incompatible with him. Have you experienced God’s grace?

The peace of God is knowing we are now compatible with God. A peace from the guilt of sin, a peace from the anxiety of the future, and a peace from the righteous wrath of God, a peace from everlasting separation from the love and favour of God. Do you know peace with God?

If not hear these words of Jesus from Matthew 11:28-30:

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’

Letter from...? Who wrote Ephesians?

About the Author

Paul is writing as an Apostle, someone who was commissioned and sent to preach the gospel. Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Christians who was converted when he had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, is called an apostle. Many today refer to him as the Apostle Paul.

That means this letter to the Ephesians isn’t a first century tweet or blog by someone who has a half-baked opinion on something vaguely topical.

It’s also not a straightforward historical account of the “horrid Ephesians” for us to pore over at our leisure to learn about a different time and culture, then to put down and forget about.

Paul did not volunteer to be an Apostle. He wasn’t appointed by a church or religious organisation. 
The Apostleship of Paul has its authority in the will of God; he was chosen and commissioned by
Jesus Christ himself.

“This is no private individual venting his personal opinions, this isn’t even a gifted but fallible t
eacher or speaker, nor is it even the memoirs of the churches greatest missionary hero. But an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and therefore as a teacher whose authority is precisely the authority
of Jesus Christ himself, in whose name and by whose inspiration he writes”.

So as we read, we sit up, listen, take note and take action.

Knowing, Showing and Sharing.

Knowing God, Showing God, Sharing God - the truth behind the motto

At RBC, every now and then we might have a theme we explore over a number of Sundays, or even a one-off study on a passage of the Bible that's struck a member of our teaching team.

However, most Sundays you'll find us studying through a book of the Bible together. Just before the Summer holiday season kicked in we finished a year-long journey through the book of Jeremiah together, and in September 2014 we started out with Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where we'll be finding out how God's word sits squarely behind our new Church motto: Knowing God, Showing God and Sharing God.

The recipients

We don’t know for sure where these Christians were from. We call the letter ‘Ephesians’ however many bibles have a footnote which says “some early manuscripts do not have 'In Ephesus'”.

The original destination of this letter is one of the great unsolved puzzles. Various explanations exist, all are at best guesses. The letter could have been a circular and therefore had no designated recipient at first, withPaul adding the personalisation information to the church dear to him.

Paul twice refers to the recipients as  "you Gentiles" (2:11 & 3:1).

These were not Jews who had now come to know Jesus. They were pagans, Greeks, Romans, any non-Jew who had come to faith in Jesus Christ.  This is important because what a Jew and non-Jew experience in coming to know Jesus is different.

For a Jewish Christian the scriptures and the language were familiar, through Jesus they beautifully find their fulfilment.

For the Gentile it was all new, and must have wondered at times “What on earth are they going on about? My friends tell me I’ve got caught up in some little new sect and I’ll grow out of it before long. What am I doing here? Who am I?”

Many of us relate to that when our friends and relatives say:

• You’re not serious about being part of those Evangelical Christians are you?
• They are fundamentalists, they believe the whole bible and they try and convert people.
• They’re so narrow and you have to give them your money and time.
• I do hope you will grow out of it into a broader perspective on life.”

If this Christianity stuff seems weird and you just don’t get it, then this letter is for you.

Do we still plough the fields and scatter? 

This Sunday like many churches across the UK we celebrated Harvest. 

The thought of Harvest might conjure up images of fresh produce piled high, but there were no corn dollies in sight as we thought about how God provides for us today.

We began by looking at Psalm 104, which made us take a step back in awe at the almighty God we worship! It was a great reminder of the way God sustains the world he created and how we should respond to him.

But how does God provide for each of us every day? Usually at Harvest we remind ourselves with fruit and veg, but because so few of us are farmers sometimes it's hard to make that link that to God’s provision for us on a daily basis. Instead, we all brought items that represented our work - a real mix from hairdryers to lesson plans and from scale models to stab vests! These things reminded us of the varied ways God provides for each of us, and that those of us who work should value our jobs and work hard, in honour of these good gifts from God.

Of course, if we're really thankful to God for what he's given us, we won't waste or ruin it. We thought about how we need to be good stewards of what God has given to us and how we should use these gifts to share with others (1Pet 4:7-10). For example is our home our own private possession or something we use to serve others?

Finally we looked at the way Harvest is used as an image in the New Testament to encourage us to share the message of Christ with the world, to grow in our own righteousness and to make sure we are prepared for the return of Jesus – big challenges for how we live day to day!

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate Harvest with us, and for all of the food you generously donated to Medway Food Bank.