Category: Band

Christ is the head of the church.

And we are each members of his body.

First and foremost, it is important to get that right. We don’t always understand or practice that relationship very well. Instead of Christ at the head, we have people in leadership roles that will attempt to step into the headship role. In the same way, instead of being part of the body, we have people who will maneuver to take a position, or will work against the body instead of work to build it up.

Paul spends a lot of words in chapter 4 in his letter to the Ephesians to emphasize these points, that Christ is the head and we are each members of his body. The members of the body work together to build one another up. The members of the body have the other parts of the body in mind. As each part works, it works for the good of the rest of the body, and always to lift up, respond to, and do the work of, the head, which is Christ.

Paul says that, while we are one body, we are not necessarily all the same. Christ gave gifts to each of the people within the body. In this chapter, he lists five:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13

The five are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

And these five have a purpose. The purpose of these five is to equip the people for works of service. Christ gives the gifts to the church so that the church will be built up. Not necessarily just that each of us would use our gifts individually so that we are individually glorified. No, instead, it is so that the body will be built up.

But why build up the body? The head of the body is concerned about the health and growth of the body. The head of the body wants to see that the body comes to full maturity. Christ does not want to we remain infants. Instead, he wants that we become mature.

How would these gifts make us mature? Let’s think about the gifts themselves for a moment:

Apostles are the people that see where the kingdom of God is not yet and helps to lead and organize us to reach out to those who do not yet know Christ. This brings the body to greater maturity by teaching the rest of us to see those around us who need to know Christ and do what is necessary to reach out to them.

Prophets call us to greater clarity and truth in alignment to the word of God. Prophets help us to know when we are out of alignment and are straying away from the calling of Christ on our lives. Instead, they point us back to the way of God and keep us pointed in the direction that Christ has called each of us to go.

Evangelists teach us to tell others. We need to know how to share the Gospel. We need to know when to share the Gospel. We need to know the best ways to share the Gospel given the diversity of the people and their backgrounds all around us. Evangelists build us up by showing and leading the rest of us to do these things.

Pastors, or sometimes translated Shepherds, care for the flock. Jesus said that he is the Good Shepherd, but he has also placed shepherds amongst us. They take care of the people within body of Christ and teach each us to do the same with those who are around us.

Teachers continue to take us deeper into the word of God, helping us to understand its meaning and applying it to our lives. They help us to see what it is that the word is saying and teaching us also how we can teach others. They can multiply their gift by teaching others the meaning of certain sections of scripture, but they can also multiply their gift by teaching others to teach.

In these ways, we can see that the body of Christ will be built up. It will continue to grow until it reaches maturity, attaining to the full measure of Christ.

In some ways, it seems sacrilegious to say that there is a mystery of Christ. We should seek to know him. We should look for the answers. God himself came to present himself in the form of a man, and one of the reasons that he did that was so that we could see him, understand him, and know him.

Yet the difficulty is that the more that we know him, the more that we learn how much we don’t know.

It seems so simple. Christ came and died. He gave himself as a sacrifice so that all might live because he himself overcame death and was resurrected three days later. And that is true. But it isn’t enough. Once we understand this, we begin to ask other questions. For example, why would God do all of this? Or Who was this for? Was this for everyone in the world? For the “good people” only? Or also for the “bad” people?

Well, in fact, Paul explains to us that this mystery of Christ is that everyone – not just the Jews – are invited to be God’s people through Jesus. Christ gave himself so that all people, all nations, would be able to come to God. God would be their God, and everyone would have the opportunity to be his people through Christ.

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This 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.

Ephesians 3:2-6

We are no longer separate peoples, but we are one. We have been made to be one people, one nation, one body in Christ. We have all been made to be God’s people, if we will follow Christ. In him, we can know God, we can be reconciled back to God. In him, and only in him. There is no other way to be reconciled with God. Without Christ, we are not a people. But with him, and in him, we are one.

Jesus told the Jewish people of this mystery. He said that he has “other sheep”, the Gentiles, who will be brought into the sheep fold, into the flock. He is the shepherd who will bring all of the sheep together. He is the shepherd who will keep them together and lay down his life for all of them. He is the one who will lead them in an out of the sheep pen. He will call them and his sheep will hear his voice and follow him.

This is the mystery of Christ. He is for all people. He calls all people. And all people may put their faith in Christ to be able to return to God and to know him.

We do not want the wrath of God. God’s wrath is more than we can begin to imagine. More than we could possibly bear.

The earth and nearly all of its people experienced God’s wrath previously in Noah’s time. God saw the wickedness on the earth and brought his wrath upon the earth and all of its people:

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them. ”

Genesis 6:5-7

God wiped nearly every human off of the earth. Nearly. Thankfully Noah found favor in God’s eyes and was saved.

The Israelite people experienced God’s wrath. They had been warned over and over that their ongoing betrayal and wandering from God, worshiping other gods and forgetting about the God who had already saved them, would bring God’s wrath upon them. But they persisted, so God brought the nations around them to destroy them and scattered the Israelites across the face of the earth.

And Jesus also experienced God’s wrath. It wasn’t just the Jews. It wasn’t just the Romans. In fact, it was God’s plan to kill Jesus, to make him experience God’s wrath in our place. God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus and he was ripped to shreds and nailed to the cross so that I wouldn’t have to experience that same punishment, that same wrath.

When we say that we are saved, we should be clear about what it is that we mean. We are saved from the wrath. The Bible doesn’t speak about God snapping his fingers and removing us from existence. Neither does it say that we are simply separated from God and his presence if we are punished and are judged to sent to Hell. No, it is clear in that we will experience God’s wrath. Yes, we are separated. Yes, we will actually wish that we never existed, but in reality, we will experience God’s wrath forever.

This is what Paul is referring to when he says that we were dead in our sins and were objects of God’s wrath:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Ephesians 2:1-3

Let’s be clear about what we understand when we talk about our salvation. We are saved from this wrath, and instead we are made alive in Christ! It is an incredible gift that God has given us. He saves us to receive glory and honor for his great mercy and love that he has shown for us, and we are to give him that glory and honor in return. May we live our lives doing exactly this, orienting all of our lives around God and his glory for having saved each of us from his coming judgment and wrath.

There are several different ways in which people try to create unity. Politics is one of the main ways. We say that we want to create unity by rallying around a particular political leader. Sadly, each time that we do this, we subsequently see a degradation of the unity toward stark diversity.

Other ways might be in racial differences. In a particular race, we seek to achieve unity. But even if we achieve unity within a race, we ultimately do nothing more than highlight the diversity and pit one group against another.

There is one way, and really only one way in which unity will be achieved. We can see that unity on display in the book of Revelation. We can see it based on worship that is given to one lamb, the Lamb of God. We see unity because we find that there are people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation who are worshiping the Lamb, who is himself Jesus, around the throne of God. That is true unity. Through worship of Christ, we see unity achieved.

But that is one day in the future. What about now? Is there any chance for unity now? Yes, there is, although the the way that unity is achieved, in reality, hasn’t changed.

Paul writes to the Ephesian church and says that he has been praying that they would truly understand the hope that comes by the power of God that raised Christ and created one body, in unity. Here is what he says:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Ephesians 1:18-23

Paul explains that God’s power is incomparable. It is the same power that placed Christ at God’s right hand. It is the same power that gave him authority and dominion to rule over all things and all peoples. And it is the same power that made the people One. Those people that will believe and place their hope and faith in Christ will worship him as part of his body. In his body, they will be unified here on the earth. In eternity, they will continue to be his body, worshiping Christ as one, in unity, forever.

They were all mixed up. The Jews were no longer just the Jews. They were now mixed with the Gentiles. The death of Christ ripped the curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies to all else. Now, God and his presence are available to all.

But when they said “all”, we don’t just mean all of the Jews. We mean all. So now all can come to God. The God that had originally only been the God of the Jews is now also the God of the Gentiles as well through Jesus Christ.

So they were mixed up. All together. Different cultures and different races that didn’t normally come together around one person, the person of Christ. God who showed himself in the flesh as a human, named Jesus Christ. This one person brings everyone together, regardless of their background, their race, their culture. They come together in one hope, the hope that they will be saved from the wrath of God as he brings judgment upon the world.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Paul writes this to the church in Rome in the hope that the God of hope will give them all that they need. They need joy and peace in the midst of the turbulent world, the turbulent life that they are living. God is the God of hope, a hope that we receive by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us and reveals to us the hope that God provides.

This is the same hope that we have today. We place our faith in Christ because our God has come to earth to rescue us, to give himself for us, so that we can enter into his kingdom, so that we can live for him, so that he will receive the glory forever. May we continue to have hope in our God that he will fulfill his promises!

It sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Yes, I live in a debt of love… It almost sounds like poetry that some French painter thought up and would mindlessly recite to passersby.

Except it is anything but that. Paul tells the Roman church that they shouldn’t have a debt of anything to anyone, except a debt of love.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:8-10

What in the world is he talking about? Paul is saying that as followers of Christ, we should love one another just as God first loved us. In Christ, God came to give himself for us. In Christ, God sacrificed himself so that we could live. In Christ, God purchased us into his kingdom so that we would be his people – forever.

What a payment that has been made for us! It is a payment that can never be repaid. We never deserved that kind of love. We were rebels, actively working against the kingdom of God. In our sin, we protested God. Yet God came in the form of Christ to give himself for us.

So we have a debt that is ongoing, a debt that will continue forever. But it isn’t a debt like other debts. Other debts weigh us down, but this debt of love back to Christ is one that we should love to continue to pay back. Yet our payment for this isn’t just back to Christ, it is a payment that moves forward to others. We pay the debt by giving ourselves to other people so that they too may know the love of Christ. Even if they are not believers – maybe especially if they are not believers, so that they may also believe – we show love to them because even while we were God’s enemies, he came for us. In the same way, we show love for others while they are our enemies, or in reality, while they also are God’s enemies.

If we do this, we not only fulfill the law, but we continue to pay the ongoing debt of love to Christ.

I think it is common to most people that we struggle to know what God wants us to do. Sometimes it seems difficult to understand which direction we should go. Sometimes it seems like it would just be better if God were to appear and say do this or do that.

Except… He did.

In fact, this is exactly what he did. He didn’t show up in front of me necessarily, but God did show up here on the earth and he did tell us what he wanted us to do.

Now we need to do it.

Except something gets in the way. My own self. And now we have arrived at the real problem. The issue isn’t that I can’t know what it is that God wants me to do. The issue isn’t that I don’t know how I can know his will. No, instead, the issue is that I don’t actually want to do what he wants me to do. I want another instruction. I want the instruction that I want. It isn’t God’s will that I’m looking to receive. It is my will that I am wanting to hear from God. If only God would tell me what I want to hear, then I could approve it and do it. Then I would confirm that God is speaking, because what he is saying is what I want him to say.

Except it doesn’t work like that. God has his will and his plans, and we have ours. Our job, instead of getting God to do what I want him to do, is to learn to align myself with what God is doing.

This is what Paul is saying as he tells the Romans that they must renew their minds and be transformed. Here is what he says:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

The difficulty in this situation is that we are trying to understand God’s will for our lives, or for a particular situation, but we are doing it with a mind that is conformed to the world. We are thinking in the way that the world thinks and we don’t even realize it. We are thinking with solutions that involve money, power, fame, or pleasure, and yet these are exactly the opposite of how God thinks. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

God will not change. We must. We must renew our minds by praying, by reading the scripture, by asking God for his help in understanding. Then, and only then, will we be able to test and approve God’s will for our lives. Then, and only then, will we see what it is that he is telling us and begin to do it because we understand that he has already told us what to do and it is the right way for us to go.

Living here in Sicily, we have had the opportunity to see the process of grafting in action several times. Whether on orange trees, olive trees, lemon trees, or others, each time that we have been around any farmer that is working with trees, they are almost always in a process of grafting or talking about what they are doing with it?

First, what does it mean to graft? If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a concept that seems quite strange. You take one tree and you connect it to another tree and they grow together.

Why do that? Why graft? There has been enough cross-pollination, either through natural processes or through man-made processes, that you may not get a particular kind of fruit by planting a seed from that fruit. For example, imagine that you are a farmer who grows and sells Granny Smith apples. You are known for that apple and people buy from you because you sell that apple. Now you decide that you want to expand your business. If you take the seeds from some of your apples, buy new land, and plant the seeds, you may get some Granny Smith apples, but you may not. You don’t really know.

However, on the other hand, if you cut a branch off of a tree that you know produces Granny Smith apples and you graft it to an existing tree that is compatible, they will grow together and you can now produce more Granny Smith apples.

Paul used this example to explain what God himself had done with the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews were removed from the tree so that the Gentiles could be “grafted” into the tree:

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

Romans 11:17-18

What exactly is Paul talking about here? How can the Gentiles be grafted in? What tree is Paul referring to?

Paul is saying that, because of their unbelief, God removed the Jews from the “tree”. The tree, in this case, is a metaphor for those who are God’s people. They are grown up in God and are one as his people. The Jews are the people of Israel who were chosen as God’s people, but at a certain point, as a result of their unbelief and unwillingness to listen to God, their unbelief and unwillingness to hear, understand, and do what he is saying, God cut the Jews off of the tree so as to allow the others, the Gentiles, to be grafted in to the tree and be God’s people.

Paul uses this metaphor of grafting because it is an example of a process that intervenes to get the planned and desired outcome. God planned, even throughout the Old Testament, that all of the nations would know him. God planned that they would be blessed and have a relationship with him. We see this as far back as God telling Abraham that he would bless him so that all of the nations on the earth would be blessed, and we see the fulfillment in Christ in that Jesus opened the way for all people, through faith, to come to know God in Christ.

So the non-Jews, the Gentiles, are grafted into the people of God through Christ. Grafting is an interventionist practice, both in agriculture, but also in what God has done. Jesus brought and embodied both justice and mercy in that he received the justice from God for the sins that had been committed, but also demonstrated the love, grace, and mercy of God, being sacrificed, killed so that others would live. God intervened on behalf of all people, but he calls each of us to believe and understand what he has done so that we can be grafted into his family. And that is what God has done for us. Through our faith in Christ, like the farmer, he has grafted us into his family so that we can produce the fruit that he desires.

I can recognize what Paul is telling the Romans when he says that his fellow Israelites’ zeal isn’t based on knowledge. They don’t know. They are ignorant. And yet they are zealous. They didn’t understand what the scriptures were saying. They didn’t understand where they were pointing. They didn’t know that the Law and Prophets told of Jesus. They didn’t know that Jesus had fulfilled what the Law and Prophets foretold.

And yet they were zealous.

This is the same type of situation that we see even today. Religions wrap people up in a lot of zeal because it ties them to their lifestyle. That religion that we grew up with is what we knew, is what we saw with our parents, is what we saw with our grandparents. We are Catholic. We are Muslim. We are evangelical Christian. This is who we are.

Yet that religion is frequently more tied to the geography of where they are from and the culture of that particular place rather than the actual truth of what is being understood and being practiced. Many times, people have told me: We are from west Africa and in west Africa, we are Muslim. Or they might say: We are from Catania and in Catania we are Catholics that celebrate Sant’Agata.

This attitude is the same type of attitude that Paul is referring to. He is talking, in his case, about the Jews. The Jews don’t truly understand, and yet they are zealous. They will continue in their traditions because those traditions are closely connected to their religion and has created a culture for them that has told them who they are. Those tradition, that culture, is actually what it is that they are zealous for because it has defined them as a people. Their identity is wrapped up in these traditions, in their culture, and that creates and continues to drive their zeal for it.

But Paul says:

I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

Romans 10:2

So it is critical that our zeal is based not on our own understanding, nor upon what our culture or traditions tell us, but that it is based on what God says. If we’re zealous for God, we should understand who he is. We should understand what he is doing. And through this, our zealousness – which we definitely should have! – can be based on knowledge. Our knowledge of who God is and what he is doing will produce a zeal that goes well beyond our connection to our traditions or to our culture. In fact, each of these things will pale in comparison. Instead, our zeal will be for the glory of Christ as we zealously live for our king!

Paul makes a pretty provocative statement when he talks about the people of Israel. He says that not all of Israel is Israel. Wait, what?

The nation of Israel are the people of God. They were the ones that were chosen, that from Abraham and his son Isaac came Jacob whom God renamed Israel. These were the people, that for whatever God’s reasons were, were the ones that God had chosen.

But now, many centuries and millenia later, Paul makes the statement that not all of these people are actually God’s people. But why would Paul say that? Isn’t he going against God’s plan?

For these same centuries that had past, the Israelite people would frequently trace their lineage back to Jacob, to Isaac, and Abraham, showing that they and their families were part of the people of God. Their intent was to show that they were truly part of the nation of Israel, part of a particular tribe, and therefore belonged to the one and only true God, Yahweh.

But now Paul is pointing out that it isn’t just a matter of your physical lineage. It isn’t whether or not you have the right genealogy that determines whether or not you are part of the people of God. No, what determines this is whether you find yourself within the promise of God.

God told Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky, but then Abraham had to wait for 25 years to have a child. God had given Abraham a promise, but it was a promise that hadn’t come true just yet. About 10 years into the initial giving of the promise, God again confirmed his promise to Abraham, and the scriptures say that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

It was Abraham’s faith that God would keep his promise that allowed him to enter into right relationship with God. God was going to do the work to keep the promise, even if Sarah and Abraham tried to force the matter with Hagar to have Ishmael.

This is the legacy of Abraham, that his faith allowed him to enter into the proper relationship with God. He believed God would keep his promises. He believed that what God said he would do, he would actually do.

Paul is pointing out, therefore, that everything is now different. Jesus is for everyone, not just for the Jews. Jesus opened the door that all might enter into the kingdom of God. Not just the Jews. Salvation and the Spirit of God is available to all. No longer is God available only to a certain people that have the right physical lineage. No longer is God available to a people that perform the right religious acts. What distinguishes God’s people from the other people are those that believe God and have faith in him and the promise that he has given.

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Romans 9:25-26

Those that believe that Jesus is the Christ, that believe that he has reestablished his kingdom, and that believe and have faith that, through Christ’s blood, they also can be brought into the kingdom…these are the people of Israel. Jesus is God incarnate who can save. Jesus is Yeshua who has come to us in the flesh. He is God and he came to us in the flesh so that we can know him and to give himself for us so that we can enter his kingdom and give him glory forever.

Those that have faith in this promise are the ones who are God’s people. These are the people of Israel. This is the true Israel, the ones that God will call “my people”.