14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

In his book Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray traces the root of American Protestant liberalism to a tendency among Christians to seek seemingly supernatural results through entirely natural means. The First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s, Murray explains, was an example of genuine “revival.” God chose to supernaturally bless the ordinary means of grace: the preaching of the Word of God and prayer. As time went on, however, God stopped blessing those means of grace to the same degree. And so the so-called Second Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century attempted to produce revival-like results through entirely mechanistic means—what Murray calls “revivalism.” The book chronicles the destructive fruit of these tendencies in the American church; they are still alive and well today.

When we build gospel-plus community, we may get the inclusive relationships we’re looking for. But aside from an unusual act of God, we will not achieve the supernatural breadth and depth of community that makes the world sit up and take notice. We build a demographic phenomenon, not a gospel phenomenon. So how do we cultivate the type of community Paul describes in Ephesians?

Oddly enough, we cultivate this kind of community by not paying it too much attention. And this is hard work. It is hard work to not worry and get impatient. It is hard work not to get in the way of the supernatural. But fostering church community is like learning to ride a bicycle. If you focus too much on the mechanics of what you’re doing (left foot forward, right foot, quick! turn handles a little, lean to the right), you’ll crash. But eventually we all realize that as we focus on the goal ahead, the riding happens. In that sense, church community is the shadow, not the substance. It’s not the thing we should focus on. To be sure, it is important to cultivate community in a local church. As believers and members of the church, we must help our congregation become fertile ground for the kind of organic, sharing-life relationships that we all hope to see in our church.

Yet as we do this, we must remember that community isn’t the point. The point, the substance, is God. God is immortal. He “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16). So how do we learn about him? Through his Word. And how do we perceive his glory? Primarily, through the church. The body of Christ is the fullness of God (Eph. 1:23) and the most visible manifestation of God’s glory in this present age (Eph. 3:10).

And so describing community in the local church is like describing the light radiating from the heavenly throne. The point is not the community; the point is God. Community is merely the effect. Our new society of the church is not a mutual admiration society, but a shared admiration society. Our affection for each other is derivative. It derives from our worship of God—a God who saved us from a million different “communities” of this world to become his family.

Our identify no longer stems from our families of origin, our professions, or our interests and ambitions, but the fact that we are in Christ. We are Christians. And so as an urban American of the professional class, I have more in common with my working class, rural, Sudanese brother in Christ than with my own non-Christian blood brother. Thus the song of heaven is praise for this culmination of Christ’s exploits, that “by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). God and his glory in the church are the point, not the community we seek.

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

What is God’s plan for the local church? The apostle Paul lays it out in Ephesians chapters 2 and 3. It begins with the gospel, in 2:1–10. We were “dead in the trespasses and sins” (v. 1). But God “made us alive together with Christ” (v. 5). “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (vv. 8–9). But that gospel doesn’t end with our salvation; it leads to some very disruptive implications. We'll look at one today.

Unity.

As Paul writes of Jews and Gentiles at the end of chapter 2, God abolished the dividing wall of hostility “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (vv.  15–18). Note that the gospel alone creates this unity: the cross is how Christ put to death their hostility. After all, what else could ever bring together two peoples with such different history, ethnicity, religion, and culture?

Now, what is the purpose for this unity between Jews and Gentiles? Skip down to chapter 3, verse 10: God’s intent was “that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

Consider a group of Jews and Gentiles who share nothing in common except for a centuries-old loathing for one another. For a less extreme, modern-day parallel, think of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans in my own neighborhood. Or the disdain the Prada-shod fashionista feels for the Schlitz-swilling NASCAR crowd (multiplied many times over, of course). Bring them together into the local church where they rub shoulders on a regular basis, and things explode, right? No! Because of the one thing they do have in common—the bond of Christ—they live together in astonishing love and unity. Unity that is so unexpected, so contrary to how our world operates, that even the “rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” sit up and take notice. God’s plans are amazing, aren’t they!

Gospel-revealing community is notable along two dimensions. First, it’s notable for its breadth. That is, it stretches to include such peoples as divergent as Jew and Gentile. As Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” (Matt. 5:46). One way in which this community glorifies God is by reaching people who, apart from supernatural power, would never unite together. Remember Ephesians 2:18: “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Second, this community is notable for its depth. That is, it doesn’t merely bring people together to tolerate each other, but to be so tightly committed that Paul can call them a “new humanity” (2:15) and a new “household” (2:19, NIV). Paul reaches for the natural world’s deepest bonds—the bonds of ethnicity and family—to describe this new community in the local church. Supernatural depth and breadth of community make the glory of an invisible God to be visible. This is the ultimate purpose statement for community in the Ephesian church. This is the ultimate purpose statement for community in churches today.

Is it the ultimate purpose for community in our church?

Isaiah 60:1-5
1 Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
    and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will be seen upon you.
3 And nations shall come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your rising.

4 Lift up your eyes all around, and see;
    they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from afar,
    and your daughters shall be carried on the hip.
5 Then you shall see and be radiant;
    your heart shall thrill and exult,
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
    the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

Take a few minutes to observe the passage. What words or phrases stood out to you?

Why is God so eager to pour his eternal blessing on people like us?

It’s a question too many of us don’t really ask. Life often seems hard and stressful, and we grow blind to God’s present blessings and we tend to ignore God’s promises for our future. We lose sight of God’s kindness.

God’s people, stuck in Babylonian exile, faced this challenge on a grand scale. Their precious city, Jerusalem, was now a heap of smashed stones. Their temple, burned and trashed (Isaiah 64:11–12). In the rubble, the hopes and dreams of God’s exiled people probably never got much higher above imagining a return home for a chance to rebuild.

But into the crumbled-down world of God’s covenant people, Isaiah 60 paints a stunning picture of God’s promises and future blessing. Where God’s exiled people may have simply been happy with new walls around old Jerusalem, God promises a new creation.

The images of his promises are forceful. Just as the darkness once covering the formless earth was broken by light in the first creation (Genesis 1:1–2), so the darkness of sin fallen on the world, and felt deep in the bones of his exiled people, will be broken by the light of this new creation city (Isaiah 60:1–2).

Radiating from this light shine all the promises of Isaiah 60. Not only will the city be rebuilt, this New Jerusalem will become the 24/7, never sleeping, epicenter of world travel, global wealth, and cosmic praise to God. It will be a beautiful city filled with God’s people made beautiful.

There God’s people will be made majestic, and rejoice forever. They will become “a joy from age to age.” They will be fitted in gold. Adorned in beauty. Living in peace.

Behind all these promises was the most stunning and unimaginable promise of all: The sun will become obsolete as it gives way to the manifestation of the glory of God, his “everlasting light,” which will illuminate this city forever. In God’s radiant presence, all sorrow will cease. All sin will be done away with. All enemies will be vanquished. God’s people will possess this new land forever with no threat of exile. Nothing will threaten or hinder their joy.

These breathtaking promises blow the lid off all human expectations for exiled believers living in Babylon. None of them could have envisioned a remodeled Jerusalem coming close to the images of this New Jerusalem (images that all foreshadow the new creation in Revelation 21).

Isaiah 60 is compounded blessing upon compounded blessing cascading down in holistic human flourishing. It’s almost impossible to believe.

So this raises the question we asked at the beginning. Why? Why would God make such glorious promises to his exiled (or recently un-exiled) people? Why would he adorn them with wealth, and promise them eternal joy and peace forever?

The answer comes in Isaiah 60:21:
    Your people shall all be righteous;
        they shall possess the land forever,
    the branch of my planting, the work of my hands,
       that I might be glorified.

There’s the answer: “that I might be glorified.” Or, “for the display of my splendor” (NIV).

In the words of Jonathan Edwards, “All the preceding promises [of Isaiah 60] are plainly mentioned as so many parts or constituents of the great and exceeding happiness of God’s people; and God’s glory is mentioned rather as God’s end, or the sum of his design in this happiness.”

It all lands here. God loves to lavish his children with blessings beyond imagination because it magnifies his own worth. When God’s people are made eternally happy, God is shown to be eternally glorious. All his plans and promises are meant to ultimately spotlight his majesty.

Our eternal joy in God spotlights his beauty. Or to say it in a way we like to repeat: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. This is the sweet purpose for why we exist. This is why God is so eager to bless us beyond our wildest imagination, forever.

“Man was created ‘to glorify God and enjoy him forever,’” wrote C.S. Lewis of this one unified aim of our purpose in eternity. “Whether that is best pictured as being in love, or like being one of an orchestra who are playing a great work with perfect success, or like surf bathing, or like endlessly exploring a wonderful country or endlessly reading a glorious story — who knows?”

Yes. Who can catalog all the joys God has planned for us? Lewis was wise enough to leave it there, and anticipate an eternity of what Dante simply called the “intoxication of universal laughter.”

Whatever radiant blessings are to come, they will exceed our wildest imagination. Because God will have his glory.

Take a few minutes to reflect on Isaiah 60:1-5 and the devotional.

Hebrews 12:1-2
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Take a few minutes to observe the passage. What words or phrases stood out to you?

Hebrews 12:1–2 is an incredible couple of verses. It would take us hours to really dive into it, but get the whole picture in this couple of minutes. We are surrounded a cloud of witnesses, men and women of faith who’ve gone before us, who are beckoning us to run the race of faith, to throw aside sin that so easily entangles us, distractions that so easily, subtly keep us from living with all-out focus on Jesus.
 

Let’s look to him. Let’s see everything in our lives through the lens of who he is, the one who founded our faith, is perfecting our faith, who’s growing us in him. And with joy before him, let’s run the race marked out for us. In other words, let’s live this life of faith that he has called us to with joy, knowing it’s not always easy, but that’s the whole picture.

Jesus endured the cross, scorning, and shame. He sits at the right hand of the throne of God. He endured all kinds of suffering knowing the reward was coming. And so we, in a world of sin and suffering and evil, there’s all kinds of challenges, there’s all kinds of suffering that comes, but we know reward is coming.

May we look to Jesus and wage war on sin as we run the race set before us, longing to see Christ glorified in our lives.

Oh, I hope you find encouragement today in your faith to run with perseverance the race. I encourage you to throw aside sin. Ask God for an extra measure of grace to leave sin behind in your life. Leave anything that’s keeping you from all-out full obedience to Christ. Live with all-out, full obedience to Christ. Be cheered on in that kind of obedience, that kind of faith by men and women who have gone before us, who would testify it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Don’t waste your life on anything less than all-out faith, total obedience to Christ and God.

Oh, God we pray that these verses would characterize our lives. We want to run with perseverance the race marked out for us. God, I want to run this race with faith in you, trusting in you, focused on you in my life in every way. Help me to turn aside from sin. God, help me not to toy with sin, not to become entangled in sin, not to become entangled in other pursuits in this world. I want to make my life today count for your glory.

I want to make my life this week count for your glory, this year count for your glory. Help me not to do anything less than fix my eyes on you and live for you.

God, I pray for this in my life. I pray for this in those who are listening right now. God, help them. Amidst all kinds of sin that is trying to entangle them, help them turn aside from it by your grace. Give them power over it. Help them to leave it behind. God, help them to live with all out faith in you today. Help them to trust you, pursuing you, and share the gospel with those around them, living on mission for you. I pray that their day might count for your glory. I pray that their week might count for your glory. And I pray that this year might count for your glory in their lives.

God, help us surrounded by this hall of faith, men and women who have trusted you and followed you. God, help us to follow in their footsteps looking to Jesus. And oh, just as you founded our faith, Lord Jesus, perfect our faith, we pray. Help us to grow in faith today. Help us to do Hebrews 12:1–2. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Take a few minutes to reflect on Hebrews 12:1-2 and the devotional.

Romans 5:1-11
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Take a few minutes to observe the passage. What words or phrases stood out to you?

What an otherworldly picture of suffering pictured in Romans 5:3–5. I in no way want to take these verses lightly. Like verse three, “We rejoice in our sufferings.” That does not mean when we go through suffering, hurt, pain, we just kind of put a smile on our face, pretend the pain isn’t real and try to gloss over at all. No, that’s not at all what the Bible’s talking about here or anywhere else.

All throughout Scripture we see suffering men and women who are experiencing the effects of sin and hurt and pain in a fallen world, sometimes directly due to sin in their lives, sometimes not, in a Job-like away, not directly due to sin in our lives. And yet, we experience tragedy. We experience heartache. We experienced hurt. And we experienced pain. So how is it possible to have joy in that?

And the Bible says right before this that by faith we’ve been justified before God. Now we have peace with Him and we rejoice in Him. We’ve been reconciled to God and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in the hope that one day we will be with Him. So in light of that, verse three says, “Not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings.”

Why? Because we know that suffering produces endurance. Endurance. This is a picture we see all throughout the Bible. I think about Revelation, chapter one written to suffering brothers and sisters in the first century. The Bible calls them in Revelation chapter one to patient endurance. That’s a good way to describe life in a world of suffering.

It’s a call to endurance, but that endurance produces character. We grow in the midst of pain. We grow in the midst of hurt. And we grow to know the comfort of God like we’ve seen in 2 Corinthians, chapter one. We grow to know the grace of God like we’ve seen in 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, his strength in our weakness.

God forms our character even through the fire of suffering. And that character produces hope, and this is the word that was used back up in verse two. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. We have hope that suffering will not be the end of the story. And our hope does not put us to shame, verse five says. Our hope does not leave us empty.

You put your hope in a lot of things in this world, you’ll be put to shame. If you put your hope in a sports team, they’re going to let you down. You put your hope sometimes in people, they let you down. You put your hope in this or that in this world, and you will often find yourselves put to shame.

But if you put your hope in God, you will never find yourself put to shame because God has poured out is love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And that goes on in the next few verses to talk about God’s love in Christ, dying on a cross for us. And this is our hope, that sin will not have the last word, that suffering will not have their last word, that the affects of sin in a fallen world will not have the last word. Our hope is in the glory of God. He will have the last word.

Jesus has died on a cross in love for us. He has risen from the dead in victory over the grave and he has given you and me a hope that transcends the worst things that could happen to us in this world. Because one day these things will be over and we will be with God. Sin and suffering will be no more. He will wipe every tear from our eyes. So we pray, Oh God, in the midst of suffering, for joy, not for some trite put on a smile and pretend like everything’s okay.

God, an acknowledgement when everything’s not okay in this fallen world, but a joy in the fact that this fallen world will not have the last word, that suffering will not have the last word. That suffering is producing endurance and endurance is producing character, and character’s producing hope like Romans 5:3–5 describes. Oh God, produce all these things in us and cause a hope in us to rise, especially for those who are walking through suffering right now.

God, please give them hope. Remind them of your hope. Fuel them with your hope, a hope that will not put them to shame. A hope that one day suffering will be no more and life, eternal, abundant life, never ending life will be ours in Christ because he has died on a cross and risen from the grave for us. In this, we place our hope in him. We place our hope in your love. We place our hope and we praise you, oh God, that we will not be put to shame. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Take a few minutes to reflect on Romans 5:1-11 and the devotional.

From yesterday’s devotional, we saw that “boldness is acting, by the power of the Holy Spirit, on an urgent conviction in the face of some threat.”

The ingredients that are necessary for Christian boldness are Spirit-empowered:

• Conviction
• Courage
• Urgency

Pastor Jon Bloom reminds us that “if one of the ingredients is missing, we won’t act boldly. Without sufficient conviction that something ought to be said or done, what’s there to be bold about? Without sufficient courage, we don’t have enough fiber in our conviction to face opposition or threats. Without a sufficient sense of urgency, we lack the fire under our feet to get us moving.”

If we lack boldness apostle Paul reminds us that “we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith” to God our Father. (Ephesians 3:12 our theme verse!). And through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, we can now “with boldness draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) so who then should we fear? (Psalm 27:1)

Boldness is NOT a character trait. We are often tricked into thinking that some people are born bolder than others because of their personality, or what kind of family they have, or who they are associated with. But the Bible says that boldness is a CHOICE.

Joshua tells the people of Israel, “…choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.”

Joshua gave the Israelites TWO CHOICES because in a battle there is no neutral ground. You either advance or retreat. Being the leader of the Israelites, he did not force them to go one way or another when it came to who they worshiped. It was their choice who they would serve.

We often think that we do not have a choice in our spiritual growth or spiritual decline. We look at our circumstances when it comes to our spiritual decline because we cannot attend Sunday service due to a job or difficult family situations. But in the Bible, we see that obstacles are what allows people’s resolve to become stronger and bolder despite the loss they would incur in the world.

You too have a choice.

“Boldness, in the biblical sense, is not a personality trait. A typically soft-spoken, introverted, calm person can be bold at a time when a typically driven, outspoken, brash person shrinks back. Boldness is acting, by the power of the Holy Spirit, on an urgent conviction in the face of some threat.” - Jon Bloom, “Lord Make Me More Bold”