This week's sermon title "Regaining the Fullness," got me thinking about Thanksgiving, one of my favorite Holidays. The word fullness should probably bring to mind something spiritual and profound, but it was actually pie recipes that clouded my brain as I listened to one of the most powerful and honest sermons I've heard in a long time. What am I full of? Malarkey most of the time. Pie recipes sometimes. Stubbornness all the time. I digress.
Jeff and I have been fortunate to land with our kids at Arvada Covenant Church. The pastoral team isn't perfect, but they love their congregation and desperately want us to hear good, solid, grown up kinds of truth that will lead us to a deeper relationship with Jesus. It is very, very good to sit under their teaching. This week was no different as we stretched into Ephesians Ch. 4 and some challenges for believers. Just like we've seen in the Apostle Paul's other chapters and letters, he doesn't shy away from communicating his desperation for us to mature in our relationship with Jesus. Stagnation isn't just sitting still in our spiritual lives, it is a bankruptcy of epic proportions. It affects our spiritual, emotional and physical strength. We get stuck. So very stuck. And Paul doesn't take it easy on describing what that looks like:
Addiction
Depression
Anger
Loss
Immaturity
Inability to discern
Futile thinking.....
So this is fun. Well, it is not always fun but it is important, life saving information. We who were separate from Christ were "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming." (v. 14) But instead, because we know Him now, we trust Him, we are saved by Him, we are able to, "speak the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From Him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love. as each part does its work." (v. 16)
Just this very weekend in the country of France we have seen the most epic demonstration of cunning and craftiness. This is the definition of a group like ISIS. They bank on the idea that you'll want to belong to a community. Only this community defines itself through hate, murder, torture, and unspeakable crimes against Jesus' beloved creation. Paul is on it as they, "having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to every desire so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more." Christ available to us, is offering something very different.
This fullness, this truth, this baptism, this body, this Spirit, this Hope, this Lord, this Faith, this God is asking us to "be made new in the attitude of your mind" (v. 23), to "put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor" (v. 25) about the hope that you have.
If you are in Christ you have that kind of trans formative love in you. You and I are sealed, able be compassionate, full of grace, growing up into Christ, mature in our walk, able to step out of darkness and into the light. Ask anyone who has been in addiction, in shame, in an abusive relationship, in the depths of despair. I guarantee that they will tell you what darkness looks like. Let us who know the Fullness Paul is talking about share that light confidently and freely. Let us not be afraid in such terrifying days.
I see Him.
In the mountains.
In my children.
Glimpses of the hope in Worship.
He's on the other side of what feels too scary to us.
"Wake up of Sleeper, Rise from the Dead and Christ will shine on you." Eph 5:14