Come people of the risen king who delight to bring Him praise;
Come all and tune your hearts to sing to the Morning Star of grace.
From the shifting shadows of the earth we will lift our eyes to Him,
Where steady arms of mercy reach to gather children in.
Rejoice, Rejoice! Let every tongue rejoice!
One heart, one voice; O Church of Christ, rejoice!
(Keith & Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend © 2007 Thankyou Music)
Thank God for his love and care.
We return to our journey through Paul’s letter to the Ephesian. For the first 3 chapters of his letter Paul has been writing about God’s goodness and the marvellous salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus. These chapters have been full of marvellous truths, but now there is a change of emphasis in this letter as Paul starts to write about how all this Good News should affect the way in which we live our lives.
Read: Ephesians 4: 1-6
So, having told us about the many wonderful things our amazing God has done for us, we now start to read about how this gospel should result in us living differently from those who live their lives without faith in Christ.
Today’s bible reading begins to introduce us to what our response should be to the love God has revealed to us through Jesus Christ. Paul wants us to think about how we can show God that we not only enjoy his love for us but want to respond to his love – by loving him
Paul starts by telling us that our lives should show (v.2) humility, gentleness, patience, love and he is going to explain how this can become a reality in our lives. This opening statement also shows us the starting point for living such a life - each other! ‘Bearing with each another in love.’
We cannot have Christ to ourselves, the Christian faith is relational. We cannot mature as Christians by ourselves, because we cannot give ourselves everything we need for a life of faith. God could supply all our needs to us directly but instead chooses to meet our needs through other believers – each other.
So, for us to fully enter into the life God wants us to live - for us to grow strong in our faith - and gain a greater understanding our relationship with God we must choose to get on with each other, to have fellowship with other people who also name Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Paul tries to help us understand this by referring to us collectively as a body – not just any body, but the body of Christ – he is our head. Paul has used this illustration before and he’ll use it again, so he must feel that it is a good example of how we as Christians should relate to each other.
Then in verse 6, we are reminded that we all have one God, more specifically we all have one God who is father of us all. We learnt earlier in the letter that because of our faith in Jesus as our Saviour, God chooses to adopt us as his heirs - we are all brothers and sisters. He is our individual Father God, but he is also ‘OUR father who art in heaven’ the father of all of us who have Jesus as our saviour.
All of us who know God as our father become related - there is a phrase that gets used when brothers and sisters aren’t seeing things in the same way, when they aren’t united: ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ This phrase says that we value the bond we have through being brothers and sisters more highly that the differences and disagreements which could dis-unite us. How much more should the blood of Jesus unite us so that anything we disagree upon should not separate us from each other.
Christians don’t need to agree on everything to have unity - If you have siblings you know that as brothers and sisters you don’t agree on everything – perhaps don’t agree on much at all, but that doesn’t stop you being one family. Every Christian who puts their faith in Jesus as Saviour has been adopted as a child of God, so everything else which may divide us is of less importance than what unites us.
Most Sunday we pray together for ‘God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven’ One of the ways in which God answers that prayer is through equipping us individually to work together to build up our joint expression of the body of Christ. Pray ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ a prayer which unites us.
Use the words of this hymn as a prayer asking God to show his love both to you and let it shine through you. Also pray that together, as church God will show us how we can effectively display his love in these unique times:
O breath of Life come sweeping though us, revive Your Church with life and power;
O breath of Life, come, cleanse, renew us and fit Your Church to meet this hour.
Elizabeth A P Head 1850-1936