WE ARE THE CHURCH: THE HOPE OF THE WORLD

Transformed Life – Part 6

“There is nothing like the local church when it’s working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused.

It provides resources to those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden and the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addiction, frees the oppressed, and offers belonging to the marginalised of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering,

the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness. Still to this day the potential of the local church is almost more than I can grasp. No other organisation on the earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.”

Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership

‘you are… fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household… And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’

Ephesians 2:19b, 22 NIV

1. We are fellow citizens with God’s people

‘At that time you did not know about Christ. You were foreigners to the people of Israel, and you had no part in the promises that God had made to them. You were living in this world without hope and without God’

Ephesians 2:12 CEV

‘But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ…Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people…’

Ephesians 2:13,19 NIV

2. We are members of God’s family

‘For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.’

Ephesians 2:14-16 NIV

‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’

Galatians 3:28 NIV

‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’

Ephesians 4:3 NIV

3. We are part of God’s temple

‘In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’

Ephesians 2:21-22 NIV