We read a recent prayer letter from Rose Marie Miller that started out, “Happy New Year!” She is right; September is the practical beginning of the new year even though the calendar doesn’t turn over for another four months. In the case of our church it also means that we are drawing close to the celebration of our 40th anniversary on October 26. In anticipation of that celebration we are going to start this new year with a look into the book of Ephesians where the Apostle Paul gives us the most exalted view of the church to be found in the New Testament.
Ephesians is probably the most poetic of all Paul’s letters. It’s purpose is to carry us into “the heavenly places” (a phrase he uses six times in the letter). We bless God for his blessing us with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Those blessings include God raising us from spiritual death to new life in Christ. But everything the Lord has done for us personally seems to be subordinate to what he has done for us corporately. We are no longer aliens and strangers but fellow citizens and members of the household of God (2:19). It is in this family that we grow together to spiritual maturity (4:13). Paul then describes what that looks like in terms of putting off the old man and putting on the new.
The language about the church is so exalted it is tempting to think that it is only idealistic and not anything to be expected in this world. But it is quite clear that Paul is intending to describe a local congregation—“you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” So that means us! New Life family, when we read about “bearing with one another in love,” and being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” and “speaking the truth in love” (4:2, 3, 15) that is what the Lord expects to be at the core of our church.
So Jesus Christ is the head of his church. That image of Christ as the head and the church as his body is used several times and is familiar to most of us. But it is not stretching that image to say that Jesus Christ is the Head of New Life Church. Stop and think about what that means: this is not “our” church, as we frequently call it, but New Life is Jesus’ church. It seems to me that living in the reality of that truth would change how we think about others in the church, what it means to participate in the life of the church, what expectations we have as we come to worship, and many other ways.
I’m looking forward to this fall season for many reasons, not the least of which is the opportunity to “soak” in the great and beautiful truths in Ephesians. I pray you too will love this book and in turn fall in love with Jesus’ church. Yes—that means the ornery bunch of sinners called New Life Presbyterian Church.
