"Our Family Unity!" Ephesians 4:1-6

The Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity                     22-September-2024

Sermon Text: Ephesians 4:1-6

Sermon Theme: Our Family Unity! I. Called By Grace To Journey Together! (Vs.1-3) II. Preserved As One By God Alone! (Vs.4-6) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

I.N.R.I. “It is not good that man should be alone.”(Gen. 2:18) Our Creator God spoke these words on the first Friday of the existence of all matter. Carefully molding man from the clay of the earth, the Lord God knelt down and breathed His life giving Spirit into our dust. We became living body and soul creatures. Made in God’s image to live in community with Him, but all was not yet “very good.”

    It was not good for man, for Adam to have no human community. So, history records, the Lord God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took a rib from Adam’s side close to his heart. Then our God built woman. She was similar to Adam, but different - male and female He created them. Their differences were complimentary to mold the two into one through God’s institution of marriage. No longer would man be alone - the Lord married Adam and his wife. Adam rejoiced in her, the flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone.

    Our Creator blessed their marriage with the community of family. History records: Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Human beings are created to dwell in community with God and one another.

    Our fellowship was fractured. A proud angel rebelled against his Creator. He led a third of the angels in his war to overthrow the Lord God and take His throne. Satan desired the place of the great, the King’s throne, the best seat at the wedding feast. The devil’s insurrection failed and he was thrown out of heaven with all his demon angels with him. Since he couldn’t destroy heaven, he sought to steal the apple of God’s eye - humanity. Whispering the lie to our first parents to steal God’s Word from them. He fractured man’s fellowship with His Creator by leading them to doubt God’s love and goodness for them. He turned them to proudly do things their way, enticing them to know evil by eating the forbidden fruit.

     We live in the corruption, disruption, fracturing, and death of our first parents decision to eat. Immediately their community with the Lord God was disrupted. Shame and guilt filled them as they beheld their corruption which fig leaves couldn’t hide. Adam didn’t cleave to his wife, but calls her “that woman” God gave him - not his choice. Sin brought disease and death robbing man of life as Satan led him captive to share his eternal punishment in hell.

   Into our fractured world our Lord strode calling Adam and his wife back to God’s family. Promising that He would be infleshed to heal all the destruction, corruption, and death caused by the devil’s lie. Through the promise He breathed His life giving Holy Spirit upon them and they clung to the Father by grace through Faith in the coming Messiah Jesus. Yes, there would be consequences for their rebellion - pain, envy, sweat, toil, weeds, and death - but the promise was greater than the pains. Adam is reconciled to his wife. He honors her - naming her “The mother of all living!” - “Eve”.    In Christ Jesus alone we discover: Our Family Unity! I. Called By Grace To Journey Together! (Vs.1-3) II. Preserved As One By God Alone! (Vs.4-6)

I.  Today God the Holy Spirit continues to teach us through the pen of the imprisoned Apostle Paul. Last week we learned Paul is imprisoned in Rome for preaching Jesus every place he went. We learned pastor Paul’s prayer for his congregation at Ephesus. Now he preaches them to remember that they are one family in Christ’s Church. Listen: (vs.1-3)

     Perhaps Paul is pondering the words Jesus prayed on the night He handed Himself over to be sacrificed for our sins. Jesus prayed: Joh 17:20-21 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (21) that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Jesus gave them the Father’s Word through which the Holy Spirit sanctifies them. They are pilgrims and strangers - in this world, but not of this world.

     Paul is not a prisoner of Rome, but of the Lord - for he knows that Jesus has led him under the cross, preserved him in suffering, to testify of Him from his prison cell. Learn from prisoner Paul - your depression, your disease, your struggles - are not a sign that you aren’t a beloved child of your Heavenly Father in Jesus. He cares for and preserves you under the cross. Dropsy, perhaps heart failure causing severe edema, brought a man to banquet with Jesus on the Sabbath. The Pharisees invited the disfigured man only to test Jesus, but Jesus has compassion - healing to reunite him with the family of the Church - the body of Christ.

    Remember your calling! Born into God’s family through water and Christ’s Word - “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. ”What does it mean to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"? “It means that in Baptism, God, the Holy Trinity, receives me into communion or fellowship with Himself.” You didn’t choose God - He choose you. Paul begins Ephesians preaching: “Eph 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (4) just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, (5) having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, (6) to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Chose in Christ. He baptized you in time - putting His Name upon you to adopt you as His beloved children into His family.

    What does this mean? We follow our Brother Jesus! (Vs.1-3) Walk together on our journey towards Home - the Promised Land of the Life of the world to come. Sinners by grace you are washed in Christ’s blood to be saints. Eph 2:4-7 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, (5) even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (6) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (7) that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

   Sitting with Jesus by grace through faith our eternity is secure - Heaven is our Home. This humbles us to serve our neighbor in love. We follow our Brother Jesus’ path to pour out our lives to serve the family of Christ’s Church and humanity.

     Satan loves to tear the family of the local congregation apart by pride, envy, boasting, and infighting. Don’t allow him! Serve your fellow sinners gently! Daily you confess that you are a sinner who only deserved hell - as you pray, “Father, forgive us our trespasses!” Then freed through the blood of Christ’s forgiveness you ask strength to live as family - “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

     Be patient with one another - longsuffering - as your heavenly Father is with you in Christ Jesus. Eph 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, lest anyone should boast. (10) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” You are not called to do everything in the Church. Trust your sisters and brothers as they carry out the good works that they are called to do here at Emmanuel.

     Every day strive to keep the unity of the Spirit! It flows from the Holy Spirit through the Word of Christ! Let Him make you one in His doctrine and His peace! Eph 2:18-22 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (19) Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, (20) having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, (21) in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, (22) in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Live in our family as you are called!

II.   Jesus prays to the Father for the Holy Spirit to establish and preserve us as one in the Holy Christian and Apostolic Church. Sadly proud man thinks this unity is something he engineers and preserves. Many Christian denominations water down Jesus’ teaching joining with others teaching lies and rejoice in the unity they have established. This isn’t our family unity. It isn’t our doing - it is God’s gift in the One Man and Savior Jesus Christ!

       Listen! (Vs.4-6) Paul testifies from prison - ‘There is one body!” He doesn’t hope it will happen one day - it has been established by Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, enthronement, and sending of the Holy Spirit knitting us together as one Holy Christian Church. Hidden to the eyes of the world, but one by grace through faith in Christ Jesus! This is true for there is only One Holy Spirit - many evil spirits masquerade as angels of light - but they lead us from the cross of Jesus to trust in self chosen worship and works - flee from them. The Holy Spirit daily and richly calls us by the Gospel. One is our hope- forgiven - we fix our eyes on Home - the resurrection of our bodies and the life of the world to come!

     Here is your calling! One Lord Jesus Christ the only path to the Father! One baptism for the remission of sins - a water/Word/Spirit baptism from death to life. One God and Father of all! In baptism He names you His beloved children! Behold His love for you in Jesus!

    God the Father didn’t abandon mankind. Sin isolates us in the prison of self. Selfish desires and lusts chain us in loneliness and despair. He reclaimed us to be His own in His Son Jesus. He comforts you by His Spirit through His Word - the Holy Bible. You aren’t forgotten or forsaken - He is above all watching over you as your loving Father. He is through all richly and daily providing all you need for your body and life. He is in you all - for He who created you, redeemed you with the blood of His Son, and sanctifies your body by the Holy Spirit to be His own temple.

     St. John was in solitary confinement on the isle of Patmos, but he wasn’t alone - he was in Christ’s Church - comforted by the Holy Spirit. Listen: Rev 7:9-10 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, (10) and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" He saw you, gathered at Jesus’ table today as the Father calls you to His side by His Spirit. Amen.