The church goes on the move during the week – Campus Pastor Simon Gibbes, Hillsong London Bermondsey.
On my way to my Home yesterday, I wrote this …
Ephesians 2:17-22
•Preached peace
Jesus came to preach peace and the arrival of the Kingdom of God
Peace doesn’t mean that Christians will not be persecuted or that life will go smoothly. But peace means that we will have a stillness in our hearts and a confidence that anchors our souls – that everything will work out.
Jesus gave us peace, but not as the world defines it. In the context of Ephesians 2:17, peace is defined as the harmonized relationships between God and man, accomplished through the gospel.
Harmony between man and God occurs when we stand firm on His word and obey the primary commandments ‘love The Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. And love your neighbour as yourself’.
Jesus tells us that the person who hears His commands and obeys them is like a man who built his house upon a rock. The storms came and the wind blew, but the house stood firm.
•Those who are far away and those who are near
The gospel is not exclusive but inclusive. Jesus taught in the synagogues and spoke to the masses on the sides of hills and from a fishing boat.
As His church, we should reach out to those who have already heard the Gospel and seek to make the Gospel known to those who haven’t heard it before. Just because someone has heard the name of Jesus and has a vague idea of what Christianity is – we shouldn’t assume that they’ve heard the Gospel…the good news that Jesus came and died for their sins so that they can have a personal relationship with God, our Father.
•Through Him
There are no shortcuts to God. There’s no other way to have a relationship with God – apart from accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour. The veil that separated man and God was broken – that veil was the flesh of Jesus. (Hebrews 10:20)
•Access
We can freely access the King of kings and Lord of lords through calling on the name of Jesus.
The Bible tells us that God hears the prayers of the righteous and inclines His ears to us. No longer do we need to go through a rabbi or a priest but we have direct access to Him.
•Fellow citizens
There is no exclusivity in Christianity, contrary to popular belief the church is a place of unity. God made us to be united and true unity can only come about if we are connected to the Vine. When we abide in the love of Jesus, we will have the strength and the grace to extend love to one another.
There is no competition in God’s house, we are created uniquely for a specific purpose.
•Members
We are all different members of the same body.
Paul gives an excellent illustration:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14-27 ESV)
•Chief cornerstone
Like the church, our lives must be hinged on Jesus or else we are fooling ourselves. Nothing and no one can support our human weaknesses, wants and desires apart from Jesus. We can only get our identity, purpose and worth from Jesus. We can only make sense of a senseless world when we look to Jesus. He is the strongest and most stable person I know.
When the character of Jesus is distorted – lives and communities become fractured.
•In Him
In Him we find the fullness of God the Father. The gospels show us Jesus the Servant, Jesus the King, Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Non- Conformist, Jesus the Son of Man.
•Joined
We are interconnected because we are apart of God’s family.
This became a stark truth to me last year when I was studying sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul explains that sexual immorality of one person defiles the church as we are all connected! That hit me like a tonne of bricks and allowed me to see the church as a living and breathing organism.
•Rises
We are called to the body of Christ so that we can grow and reach the higher heavenly places. The church shouldn’t be stagnant in society but we should be the pioneers of society, ahead of the curve.
•In Him you too are built
It’s easy to sit back and think that the pastors, the elders, the worship team, the production team, the kids church team and others are the only ones who will be built up in the Kingdom of God but the apostle Paul tells us that we too are being built.
We are being built in Christ whilst we go to our schools, universities and workplaces.
•To become
The purpose of living as the members of the church Sunday to Sunday is so that we become more like Jesus – compassionate, confident, passionate, loving, caring, patient, self-controlled and gentle.
•Lives by His spirit
We can do all this through the Holy Spirit.
The Catwalk of Faith 