Citizens and Family Members

Main idea: Christ-followers! By God’s grace you belong together.

1. You belong together (Ephesians 2:19a).
2. You belong together in God's kingdom (Ephesians 2:19b).
3. You belong together in God's family (Ephesians 2:19c). 

• Automated Transcription
• 0:21
  Well, good morning, church family. It is really good to see you. If you are visitors with us, regular attenders now on the way to joining us or checking us out, so glad. If you're new for the first time, I want to welcome you. We we try to say it often enough here that all of us remember, but our hope for you, if you are newer with us, is that you would connect to Jesus, find Jesus from His Word, and that you'd you'd be doing that not only as we gather here, but on your own. That you would find your people. We say find a growth group, find a discipling group, some place where you can be interpersonally known and cared for, and you can care for others, and that you find your purpose. One of the the great things about a local church is you have an opportunity to do something that's eternal in the gathering, and you have something to take eternally with you to draw other people. So we would love for you to get involved in that. Today we're in the letter to Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and he is going to be talking about our citizenship, our family, us as a temple together, and that idea of loving community. This is one of those verses that this built on, and we're going to talk about that today. And it's a it's a remarkable thing that's going on by the the massive grace of God. Please stand with me for the reading of God's word. I'm going to read Ephesians 219 through 22. I'm just going to cover verse 19, and we'll talk about the other parts next week. But I want to read it for just a little bit of context. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is the Word of the Lord. God, we thank you this morning. We we say that every week because you have spoken to us in your Word. Your Spirit still opens our eyes to it, so Holy Spirit, we pray that you would help us understand and apply, appreciate, sense the fullness of of what we're covering today, what we're looking at. May our love for you and our worship of you grow. May our love for each other grow in more deeper sacrificial ways that we would really display your glory to a watching world as we interact and care. That we would bring the life-changing gospel to friends, neighbors, and in some ways, that's carried by the transformation that happens in a local church. So we we pray for that. We we pray for the ministry of the of our our men who are out preaching. Keith Stolzfus is back up in Republic. Help him and encourage him as he's preaching and teaching up there. We pray for Grace Bible Fellowship that you would help them navigate present and future. Give us wisdom about counseling that church, we pray for Brian Alkire down at Spangle Community Church, and that you would help him. And as he faithfully seeks to bring your word to them, as they are in a search process for a pastor, pray for local churches much closer. Carrie Hughes at Christ the Redeemer, John Smith, their Their teams, these are brothers and sisters, sister churches, and we want to be faithful. We want them to be faithful. Give them encouragement and strength, Father. There are some suffering in our midst. James Payton and Rebecca James's dad passed away a couple of weeks ago, and it was a surprise. Pray that you would help him, his family, help them in the grieving process, help his mom in business transition, and I pray that you would give them lots of encouragement and a sense of your nearness. There are others who are under chemo, under various medical treatments that are really serious, and we pray that you would be at work and strengthening. Help us as is your household to show care, like every person in here is eternal family.
  
  4:57
  We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. 1992, Tim Widmer led a short-term team to Venezuela. Short-term mission trip. Lynn and I were on it. We served at Christianson Academy, where Dave and Lois Belch were serving at the time, and Tim was on furlough at that time, and he brought us back to his school. We did a youth retreat in the Indies Mountains on a coffee plantation before a third wave coffee was a thing. So we were getting like the best coffee in the world, not your your average Folgers of that day. At the end of the retreat, it was a marvelous time, except for the food poisoning. But let's not talk about that. Let's not talk about the fact that I couldn't eat a sausage for about five years. On our way back, we flew out of Caracas, and as sort of a reward for a lot of work, they let us stay at a hotel down on the beach, which is just outside of the city, which was delightful. The caravan of taxis show up to take us to the airport, which is also on the beach, a few miles away. We get in. It's a Spanish-speaking driver, as we would expect. We know very little, so the conversation was small. We get to the airport, and there's 100 armed militiamen, 100 armed military with the machine guns, the bulletproof vests, and we're trying to figure out what's going on. Something about the president and the city, which we think, oh, the president's coming in and out, so they're trying to keep it secure. We all pile out of our successive lines of taxis, and Tim tells us there's a coup attempt. Chavez is his first coup attempt, trying to take over. There's rocket fire in the city, and the airport is shut down. We were, it was a little bit tense. We get into the airport. We're trying to navigate. Tim figures out that there's four planes from the night before that are still on the tarmac, and one of ours got to go. So our we got we loaded up, we got on. When we landed in Miami, we were so glad to be citizens of our country in a safe place. So grateful. Citizenship is a big deal. It's a big deal. There are privileges. There's rights, responsibilities. There's safety. You have a country where you belong, a city where you belong, and the point Paul is making in our passage today is this: all who have saving faith in Jesus Christ are fellow citizens in His kingdom and family in God's household. This would have been a revolutionary thought in the Roman world in Ephesus, in which something like 5% of the citizenry, more in Philippi because it was a soldier's town, less in Ephesus, but citizens made up something between five and 10% So that means 90 90% 95% of the people were not Roman citizens, did not have the rights and privileges of Roman citizens. They might have been citizens of a city, but citizens of a city were those who could go to the assembly and those who could vote or contribute to matters, which was another small percentage. Let alone how many people were slaves, how many people were we would call them foreign workers working in various places. So to be told that you have fellow citizenship with the saints, members of God's household, would have been a revolutionary thought-a wonder they couldn't have imagined. We have been looking at Ephesians chapter two and looking at the scope of salvation, starting in chapter one. Those of us outside of Christ, we were dead in our sin, and God made us alive through Christ by His death, by his resurrection, God lavished grace and mercy and kindness, opening our eyes to see the glory of Christ. We repented and trusted. God made us alive, and we have a heavenly Father, a glorious older brother, and the Spirit living in us, that's the one through 10. That's the dimensions of vertical, and then 11 through 22. What we're in now is the dimensions of the horizontal, the relationship, because there's more to it than me and God or you and God. There is a whole community. Paul is. Expanding our understanding of the saving work of Jesus Christ, we do not only receive peace with God; we receive peace with each other.
  
  10:08
  The big idea goes something like this today: Christ followers, if you are a Christ follower, this is yours. By God's grace, you belong together. By God's grace, you belong together. Whether you grew up in church, hearing the gospel, being taught the scriptures, or you grew up in an anti-church environment-maybe ex-con parents, addicts, embezzling embezzlers, corporate execs-whatever your background, whatever your body art story tells, because everybody, a lot of people have body art. It tells a story. There's only one way to enter the kingdom of God. That's by faith in Jesus Christ, and with faith in Jesus Christ, you are now citizens and family members in the family of God. You have God as your Father, Jesus, who is your Lord, is your older brother. The Holy Spirit is your comforter and counseling counselor. So you could be Nez Perce or Nepali, male, female, white collar, blue collar. If you're in Christ, you're a new creation together in the church, the body of Christ, the one new man. Everyone in Christ has equal status, equal access to God, to this marvelous grace, and God demonstrates His glorious wisdom to the world by taking all these diverse people and making them one as his children, as his sons, younger brothers, and sisters. The world is often stratified and hostile. The Roman world was especially that way. It's difficult not to bring prejudices into a local church, but the work of Christ on the cross, the power of the Holy Spirit within, produced peace, unity, self-sacrifice, and love in ever increasing qualities. The issue of disunity in the church was rampant right at the formation of it. You have Gentile backgrounds, Jewish backgrounds. There are different political backgrounds, and now all these people are together. If you just took a survey of what was going on in the letters alone, Romans, Paul had to deal extensively with the Jew-Gentile divisions that were existing. He had to do the same thing to the churches that were in Galatia. Here in Ephesians, there's no evidence that there was a war, but he did need to lay down principles of our unity together. The Apostle James, writing James, had to deal with the economic problems. The the rich looked down at the poor. That was true in Corinth. The wealthy thought themselves superior to the poor. The intellectually well trained, the philosophers looked down at the stable boys or the the poor, the unintellectual. What Paul is doing for us is setting a foundation from which we pursue unity, peace, love, kindness within the body of Christ. It sets the foundation, and they're crucial. They're realities. There's not a lot of do this and do that in this section, is there? But these realities are what launch you to the do thises and do thats of the Christian life. Paul's going to expand on those in future chapters. So I want to explore three realities here. One is you belong together; you're no longer strangers and aliens. You belong in God's kingdom together, citizens with the saints. You belong in God's household, His family together. As we unpack these, we're going to take and look at these realities. Look at the glory of the saving work of God and His grace in what He's doing. The wisdom of God, and that sets in motion how we seek to love. This idea of loving community, making disciples of Jesus Christ. We want you to find your people here. It's it's based on realities like this that help us move that way. So first, let's let's look at this. Christ follower, you belong. You belong together. If God has given you new life in Christ, you belong together with God's people. Verse 19 says, "So then, so then, you are no." Longer strangers and aliens, and the so then is emphatic. He could have said so or then, like here's the results of everything I've been talking about. So then, like I really want you to know, here's where we're going. Everybody saved by faith alone, Christ's death alone, by God's grace alone, are now incorporated into God's people. You belong. The cross of Jesus, where He bled and died, where His side side flowed with blood from the spear; those those things and the new creation work say to you: You are no longer strangers and aliens. You are beloved.
  
  15:53
  the The terms strangers and aliens, when when they're used separately, they're pretty much synonyms, but when they're used together, there's a nuance that's really worth noting. A stranger-another word we use for a stranger-is a sojourner. That's somebody passing through. There's lots of versions of that. There definitely were versions of it in Paul's day. Traveling merchants. In our day, we have-they're called digital nomads-people who work in the tech industry and they can make their home anywhere in the world. And so they move to this place. I'm going to spend three months working in Greece. Oh, how you suffer! Three months working in Italy. Oh, how you don't suffer! But they really don't belong anywhere. A version of that is as a tourist. You know, if you if you go to another country, you realize you don't have the same rights and privileges as everybody else. You're not even loved by everybody else. We we got a delightful sabbatical in London. I did a bunch of research there. The first night, as we're shaking off the jet lag, we we walk through Islington. I am going to be a committed Arsenal fan, and we're trying to find a place to eat. And this African woman, she she is from one of the Commonwealth countries, says, "Are are you two Americans? And we were like, "Yeah, I hate your country. Linda got immediately defensive, like, but but like, something happened in her country. America did something to her country, and she was mad at us. And we're like, we're gonna get two months of this. This sounds so fun. Are we supposed to say we're from south south of Canada? Like, what what are we? I mean, we weren't citizens. We're tourists. We're visitors. Not always loved everywhere we go. That's true for lots of tourists from lots of places wherever they go, they don't have the same. They don't have the same rights and privileges and responsibilities. A sojourner, a wanderer, a stranger. Alien does not refer to people from outer space. I know most of you should know that, but just in case, it just refers to a foreigner who's taken up residence but doesn't have citizenship. So they live in a place, but they're they're not considered citizens. Most of our missionaries are aliens in that sense. They're tolerated by the governments. They have permission by the governments, and the country they serve. They don't have all the rights and privileges and protections of a citizen. In many cases, some will treat them like they don't belong. Strangers, aliens, from Moses to Jesus, the only way to become a citizens of God's kingdom, more or less, was to become Jewish, and if you didn't, you didn't belong. Jesus' death provided salvation for both. His death fulfilled the law for both. His death credited both with his righteousness, and now both belong together. They are they are no longer strangers and aliens. Churches definitely have their cultures. If you're new to church, we might to Faith Bible Church. We might do a lot of different things than you're used to. I remember one of these wonderful moments. We had this friend who is on her way to becoming a Christian. She starts sitting in the seats right back in the middle. One of the things she says in a side comment, because our girls were in school together, she said, "Everybody in your church knows the words to the songs." I've never heard these songs before. Like singing songs to a screen is kind of new for people. They're not used to that. Singing songs with their favorite rock band, sure. There's a lot of different things, and we might value a lot of things differently than you if you're visiting, and and that's because Jesus is our King. The church is a different country with different rules and customs, so to speak. But Jesus is calling you to Himself. If you're here today, and church is a new thing for you, or you haven't turned to Jesus. Jesus is calling you to Himself. Jesus' first message in, let's say, the Gospel of Mark was to start telling all the people, Jews, Gentiles alike, repent. That is, turn away from your sin. Believe the gospel. The kingdom of God is at hand. There's a new kingdom.
  
  21:03
  Jesus preached the same message to outsiders, non-Jews, as to insiders, and so that that is the invitation here for you. You may not yet follow Jesus. You need to repent from your sin, your false worship, functional saviors. You need to put your faith in Him who will forgive you and restore you. And whatever you were before doesn't define you. You can belong to a new country, a new family. I was reflecting on the baptisms today, which was such a joy. Billy Carter volunteered at Willard Elementary. We still have volunteers at Willard Elementary after nearly two decades. She cut out box tops, and she had us cut out box tops, and we collected those box tops, and she raised money for the school. She had a little poster. Here's how our box tops are doing. And Billy is very meticulously organized. It was a really special place. But she's going every week. She runs into Amber Fox, who is a volunteer, and then pretty soon a playground worker, and pretty soon an aide, and she and Ron, her husband, start inviting them to come to church. She comes to the women's tea, and she starts to get to know people. And pretty soon, Amber and Anton are joining us. Pretty soon, they're realizing their need for the gospel, and they trust Christ, and they get baptized, and they've been raising their kids, and we see Otto get baptized today. She got connected. It doesn't matter what your background is; it's the same gospel bringing you into the same family. Whatever you were before doesn't define you. What you are now in Christ defines you. So if you don't have Christ, we'd urge you: you're welcome. You're welcome. Come to Him. We have a whole ministry, hospitality ministry, where what we want to communicate to is, you're welcome here. Jesus is calling you. As we think about this, the believer has two things that she's got to flush from her mind: looking around at fellow believers, thinking that she doesn't belong or he doesn't belong. They're married. I'm single. I don't know if I belong. They're a different color than me. Maybe I don't belong. I don't measure up. I don't do the same things. My kids get in trouble. I'm not as spiritual as all these other people. I don't have the same politics. Listen, belonging is not based on race, nationality, priors, a GPA, a trade, or a degree. Belonging is based on who Christ is, what He has done on the cross, and what He's making in the church. You've got to flush this idea because there are differences in other people. Some people, one person wears a tie. Lots of you wear flannel. When everybody starts wearing flannel, that's when I wear a tie. If everybody starts wearing a tie, I'm going to start wearing flannel. It's just a little contrarian, little contrarian. I had somebody ask me, Lance asked me, can can I wear my what was the team that cannot be named? San Francisco, Jersey next week. Sure, that's great. I mean, we'll feel bad for you when you lose. But come on in, brother. Sports teams don't define us. Those things don't define us. There might be differences. The thing that defines us is the one who died for us, rose for us, binds us together in Christ. The second thing we have to flush from our mind is that someone else doesn't belong. You could think I don't belong. You could look around and say they don't belong for the same kinds of reasons. Belonging is based on Christ, His work, the power of the Holy Spirit. There are things that we need to say to each person. If you're not a follower of Christ yet, you're welcome here. There's a place here for you. We want you to know and love our King, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who died and rose for our sins-you're welcome here, and to the believer of of any background, any background, any diversity-you belong to Christ. So you belong here. You belong in any local church in Spokane that promotes and believes the gospel, you belong. Christ follower, you belong together. You belong here. Number two, you belong in God's kingdom. You belong in God's kingdom. The God the Father is merciful.
  
  26:39
  Like one one of the things you should think about God when you read these is how merciful, loving, and gracious and kind He is. That it's not just to a select set of people that He set His eye and affection on. He has set His eye on all the nations of all kinds of backgrounds. In in a few verses, when we get to chapter three, Paul's going to extol. He's going to say that glory to God, who reveals His wisdom in the church, because He takes all kinds of people, He rescues all kinds of people out of Satan's dominion, from Satan's country, forgives them, cleanses them, establishes them together in His country, and as emphatic as so then is, here's the point of all this talk about salvation. He makes this emphatic contrast: you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the Saints. There's there's a couple of details to note. Three words from 19 through 24 have this prefix that means together with. That's part of a word. It's the sin or sum prefix. We have it like a symphony, a bunch of instruments, classical instruments tend to tends to be making music together. Sympathy, sharing each other's pain or difficulty. This particular word, suppolatai, is being citizens together. One word, trans. has to be translated by two as fellow citizens, and and this would have been revolutionary and remarkable in Paul's day. There was a large slave population; slaves get saved; they were property, not citizens. There were freedmen. Yes, you're not a slave, and you can work, but they were laborers. They weren't part of the citizen class of a city. They couldn't vote on anything. They had no special rights of control, but they were free to work. There were city citizens, and those usually were part of the elite class. They were property owners who could join the assembly and have some say in the the city governance. And then, of course, there were Roman citizens in Ephesus. In Ephesus, all of those kinds of people were together in Christ, but it was a remarkable scene reported often across the early church in the Roman Empire. A slave had an education, got saved. His master, hearing the gospel, gets saved. At church, the slave is the lay preacher, and the master is the listener. The Bible studies that are led are led by freedmen who are teaching the aristocracy. This was a remarkable thing. It was so remarkable it was offensive to the intellectual elite in Rome. The intellectual elite thought stable boys don't belong talking about philosophy and religion, and here one stable boy is telling another stable boy about the forgiveness in Christ and the Bible storyline. How dare he say anything about that? And yet, the reality in the church is that they are all citizens together, rights, privileges, duties, Responsibilities. Notice where the citizenship is. Fellow citizens, not in the political sphere, with the saints. A saint in the Bible is someone saved by God through faith and repentance, they're called saints, meaning holy ones, because God takes us out of the muck of our sin. Christ cleanses us, forgives us. The Spirit makes us new with new purposes, and He sets us to new holy purposes, righteous purposes. Eventually, saints got attached to people of heroic faith, and you see the evidence of that in the church names around the city: Saint David's, the Episcopal Church on the north side; Saint Aloysius, Gonzaga's Catholic Church in the Gonzaga district; and Saint Mary's, Saint This, Saint That, and you get the idea that saints are the super spiritual ones, but that's not what Paul understood. A saint was anyone rescued by Jesus out of sin and tyranny into righteousness and freedom by the blood of Christ. Your fellow citizens with the saints. The saints are all believers who've ever trusted God and His promises from Adam and Eve to the present. God hasn't just joined us to Israel. Israel was near in that they had the Bible, they had the covenants and promises. There was a remnant of Israelites that were believers, but mostly they were rebellious too, just like everybody else. No, he made one new man. That's the verses we just covered last week. A new kingdom, a new citizenship.
  
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  Nations still exist, just like men and women still exist, just like Jews and Gentiles would still continue to exist, but their identity is one set of citizens together in the kingdom. All nations under heaven belong to a kingdom that surpasses them all. We share together all the rights, duties, responsibilities, privileges. This citizenship is opposite of an alien, somebody in a country without rights and privileges, turn to the right. Let's just apply it a little bit. Turn to the right to Philippians 127. There's there's two verses that give us some idea of then where the apostle Paul will take this this concept. Philippians 127. It says, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. I want you united. I want peace to rule. I want you to get over your conflicts. I want to want you to get over your your difficulties. I want you to humble yourself, and I want you to serve together. Now, verse 27 says, "Only let your manner of life be worthy. The manner of life translated one Greek word: be like a citizen. That's what it was to live worthy. Be a citizen of the gospel of Christ as King, and this in His Kingdom, being fellow citizens, brought responsibilities and privileges. Look over at Philippians 320, and this was significant because Philippi was a retired army city. You retired. You moved to Philippi. You got a place to live. So the city was a Roman colony in Greece. They prized their citizenship, and the Apostle Paul makes this astounding statement to them. He says, "Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You're in a sense dual citizens-citizens of Earth in an earthly country, an earthly city-but ultimately, you are in you are a citizen of the kingdom. When Jesus returns to set up His kingdom, He will be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over all nations in the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus will rule all nations. We will be citizens of a nation under Jesus, the great emperor, all sharing the same access and same standing before God. You are resident citizens, so you belong to the kingdom. You belong together. You belong to the kingdom. Finally, you belong to the family. It gets more intimate in this section. Number three, you belong to the family. You're now now family. It's it's the opposite of stranger. So there's this mirrored effect in this section. You're no longer strangers and aliens, but you're citizens and family. Opposite of the stranger who doesn't belong is the family member who does belong. Ephesians 219 gives us these very strong words, and there's few stronger words of belonging and affection than a household in ancient Greek, in ancient Greece, in the ancient Near East. God is our Father because we're in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our older brother. That's how God sees us together. He looks at us in Christ and loves us as he does Christ. Every parent understands this. If you have two or more children, two or more children, there are things that are commonly called sibling rivalries. Do the kids bicker? Do the kids fight? If one kid picks up the the little game console, and there's only one, immediately it is interesting, and immediately it's worth fighting for. Parents spend so much time trying to get their kids to stop bickering and fighting, don't they? Don't you spend a lot of time doing that. Well, the evidence in the New Testament letters is that a lot of siblings in a church did a lot of that, and God the Father through God the Son is challenging them and helping them grow. Hebrews 211 says it this way: For he who sanctifies, that is, makes a saint now, and those who are sanctified made a saint in the past, all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. Think about that. Jesus is the one who makes us holy, makes us saints by His death and His work. He's not ashamed to call us brothers, and the blessing of this is staggering.
  
  38:09
  God the Father loves us like Jesus. He gives us what's best for us. He provides for us as His children. He welcomes us to Him as His children together. That family. How do we express this in a freelance Christian world? I've often thought about the words cowboy Christian or Lone Ranger Christian. Those things have been used. This person professes Christ, but doesn't connect to a local church, doesn't make a membership promise to care for and be cared for by a church. Just kind of bounces from church to church and thing to thing. How do we express this kind of unity in a in a freelance Christian world, I use the word freelance because I was thinking about writers who might write an article for a newspaper, a a blog, a magazine, and they get paid per article. They don't have a contract. I think there are freelance Christians. They they just plug in as it's convenient. They leave when it's convenient. I mean, we certainly understand job transitions, job responsibilities, all kinds of things like this. And sometimes I think a freelance Christian one just likes the convenience. They sometimes they retire and they want to spend three months where it's warm, and three months where it's warm, and another three months where it's warm, and a final three months where it's. Warm, like you get older, and you're like, "Can we have warm? But you end up never really connecting well unless you work at it. Some people do that with church connection; they just don't like being tied down. Another set of it comes because all this family talk does not help you. You have such family drama and trauma and difficulty to for the church to be called family. Like no way, no thank you. Did you? My father was not God the Father. My older brother was not Jesus. You're telling me I'm a family with these people, but I want to tell you maybe you could finally find a true and good and loving father. You know it by what He sent His Son to do, and you know that the people that you start calling family are in progress because you're in progress, and you need to join in, join together. Some of you have been hurt badly in other churches, so you're like, I don't know if I want to open myself up. Family is not a blessing to me, so you won't give your heart to anyone, especially leadership. That will produce some difficult things. I think one of the major blessings that I Have my parents weren't believers. My mom was only nominally Catholic. I I think my dad's sexual ethic was don't get a disease. He had real high standards. So there were so many things that I didn't know and didn't learn. I got saved. God rescued me. Got married. I knew how my parents raised us, and I don't doubt that they really loved us. But they were a mess. Multiple marriages, multiple kids, and when we stepped into the local church, I had a way to get my bearings. I had a I had a way to get my bearings. I I got to ask the parents that were 10 years older. We got to watch. We got to ask questions, and we got to get training. And I we went to so many parenting classes, and you'd be able to do things like get your bearings. I think Brenda's something like 10. My daughter's 10. Everybody's old enough, right or wrong, to watch 24, but she's not. And we're asking other families, "Do you let your 10-year-old watch 24? No. Good. Okay. We thought we thought that was a good idea. Don't watch Jack Bauer. He does terrible things to people. You know, like there's just things that you like. Kids shouldn't be doing this. How would I have known this with people who love the Lord if I wasn't in connection with people who love the Lord? There's so much you learn culturally by being committed in a local church. This membership, this family, is essential. We'll talk about it next week, but this is one of the basises for being a member of a local church. I'm going to commit myself to a group, it's one way to express this truth: is committing in a covenant-like way with a local church.
  
  43:52
  The elders of the church are are challenged to shepherd the household of God. It's going to use the same language. And for us, sometimes freelance Christians are hard to figure out. Like, what do I do with you? Do I? How do I serve you? How do I have you serve here? But committing to learn together, grow together, be be challenged together. I recently read Andy Crouch's book, *The Life We're Looking For* It's mostly he's a Christian who's writing about the sociological impacts of Christianity. But one of the things that he says at the end of the book is that the most satisfying, enriching, and best community relationships is when the community has special needs kids, when they have elderly who are using their canes or their walkers, when there are a variety of people from economic backgrounds. Because as a community together. You learn how to adapt, how to care, how to show support, how to help another community member endure. One of the pleasant parts about a summer in London was the community's care for pregnant moms, moms with strollers, and the elderly and disabled when they got on the bus. If you were sitting and a pregnant mom got on, whether it was the tube or whether it was the bus, you stood up if you could stand up, and there was a care and a concern. And if the bus was herky jerky, you'd see three hands making sure that the saint, or not the saint, but the the elderly person, didn't fall over. Andy Crouch said, "That's the life we're looking for, because it teaches us deeper, richer, more powerful community and care, and that's what the local church is striving for. We call our our purpose statement a loving community making disciples of Jesus Christ. It's an aspirational mission. That's what we want to be, and we're growing into it. Read the New Testament epistles-they didn't all start that way. You need to grow into it, but you need to know who you are first. It's interesting. The Apostle Peter says you are strangers and aliens. First Peter two eight through 10, Peter, you say we're strangers and aliens. Paul, you say you're no longer strangers and aliens. He's talking about two different countries. Once you turn to Christ and you join His country, you're no longer at home in the world. You're a stranger and alien here. You're temporary here. Your lasting home is in heaven. The local church and its gathering, the Christian relationships, are an embassy in a hostile world where we go out and we bring the gospel, and we bring people in who are watching the commitment, the healing, the growth in a local Church, being a citizen is an amazing thing. Every time I've landed back on American soil, the person to customs says, "Welcome home. We all understand the importance of citizenship. We're waiting for the final welcome home from Jesus, but we can enjoy we can enjoy the embassy life together here. Let's pray that we would, Father. We thank you for the the encouragement, the powerful statements from the Apostle Paul in a world wanting to be isolated and wanting wanting community all at the same time, there is a schizophrenia of the way people interact with each other here. But here, there's a there's a sound, stable mind in the church because we have you, and we have each other, and as we all have imperfections and are making progress, help us be in it together. Like every family is in it together, good families are in it together. As everybody makes progress, help us do that as your family under the Father's rule, in Christ's name we pray, Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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