One

Have you ever been a part of a team? How did it go for you? Teams can show up in virtually any context, ranging from sports to music to your job and a million other places. It is really a fun thing to be a part of a good team and it can be quite unpleasant to be a part of a team that doesn’t operate as a team at all. A good team will have a sense of oneness even in the midst of numerous members, variations and diversity.

If a football team were made up of 11 quarterbacks on offense and 11 nose tackles on defense I am guessing there would be very few victories for that team. Or if a choir were made of gifted vocalists that refused to sing the same song, that would be a concert I would not want to attend. Would a furniture manufacturing company with the most gifted sales force in the country but no actual production force to actually make the furniture be very effective? I am guessing you see the fact that for a team to work properly there must be a unity of direction as well as a mixture of talents and functions.

This Sunday we begin our eight part series on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and we will see how profound and powerful God’s use of “ONE” is. We will consider the fact that God brings clarity in the midst of great confusion. He builds one unified family in the midst of a world that is disjointed and disconnected. Our God sets us on the singular path of our Savior Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is through Jesus' life, death and resurrection that our lives find not only meaning but also a sense of oneness or unity.

We all want to be loved and be a part of something that matters. We desire our lives to be worth living. This is a God-given cry of our heart that will lead us back to our God if we are willing to be humble and honest. We were created to be connected to our God and each other. Over the next eight weeks we will be challenged, encouraged and hopefully set free to live our lives “in Christ” as Paul so often states in Ephesians as “God’s workmanship." We have been brought together to lead lives of impact and significance through the singular source which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

• 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I 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, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far 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.          Ephesians 1

One with you in Jesus,

Pastor Nick