PLAN: God's Purpose is Beauty

"That is the work that God is doing throughout all time in history, is to fill all things with his presence, his spirit and then have all things come under his rule and reign. That brings the flourishing, the hope for a renewed creation that we're all living and dying for." In the third episode of the series PLAN: God's Purpose for a Fractured World, Robert talks about the beauty of transformed lives and relationships in God's kingdom, temptations, covenants, masterpieces, and mosaics of broken clay. Find more from Redemption Hill at redemptionboise.org, or follow us on Instagram @redemptionboise, and Facebook at Redemption Hill Boise. Alright, we are in our series on Ephesians, looking at God's plan, his purpose in our broken world and the last couple of weeks I think have been really rich diving into this, this special kind of book, I think it's Ephesians a special book because it was written to a group of churches in the first century and it was used for a couple of centuries as like an early cattle carcasses which is um that's what they used to teach people what it was like to fall in the way of jesus. That's the way that's written, is to give some big themes of what it means to be a follower of what it means to belong to God's family. And then the second the second half is what does it look like to live as a part of God's family and live in the way of jesus. So it's just such a practical book but it also has some really big themes that we've been jumping into and the last couple of weeks um I love that the purpose of God is um not just to save some but to save all and the purpose of God is that this big inclusive family that is not just for the jews but for the whole world for all the gentile nations as well, which was a radical thought, especially for jewish believers in the first century and for gentiles who were not a part of the jewish people to hear that they belonged, that they had a place in God's family. So when you hear the word chose and plan and God pre destiny, it's this incredibly um powerful image of God inviting us in even when we don't look like his family and for us when I look back on the first century, particularly Ephesians, um I love it because they were a house church of micro church movement just like ours. They had uh it was, it was written to a church in a city and Ephesus with lots of house churches that were throughout Asia minor in different cities and across Ephesus there's probably 10 to 12 small gatherings that happened in households, they were sent to these house churches, they were you know hand copied down and they didn't have like large meeting spaces where hundreds and thousands could gather, especially to worship jesus because the large gathering places were in places that were meant to be set aside to worship the pagan gods of the romans. And so they would have these multigenerational houses and households mostly by wealthy individuals that would gather in as many people as they could to learn the way of jesus weekend and week out. And that's what we're trying to do as a community. Um we believe that we are an extended family on mission. That's how we see this little community and Redemption Hill as we have our families, whether it's our, our nuclear family, our extended family or our micro church as a tight knit unit that does family together weekend, week out, sharing our lives. And then um as as a group, we meet together, there's about six or seven micro churches right now throughout Redemption Hill, that meat throughout the city and together we gather to celebrate all that God has done and be aligned in his mission and learn more together about how to walk in the way of jesus. We do that on sunday mornings and then we're part of a group called the syndicate, which is a movement of house church and micro churches across our valley. There's almost 27 micro churches that are part of that, that are all worshiping this week, gathering in households, celebrating the Lord's supper and uh teaching each other. What does it look like to live in the way of jesus. Uh and then we're also part of what is the worldwide body of jesus followers, everybody who has put their faith in jesus throughout the world. It's these extended families of of of the people of God on mission and when I look back at Ephesus particularly, I see that we're mimicking what they had created in the first century that lead to the same explosion of spiritual life throughout the roman world. The last couple weeks we talked about some important things um and it culminated at the end of chapter one and this is what I said in verse 23 of chapter one and the church is his body, it is made full and complete by christ who fills all things with himself and that is the work that God is doing throughout all time in history, is to is to fill all things with his presence, his spirit and then have all things come under his rule and reign. That brings the flourishing the, the hope for a renewed creation that we're all living and dying for. I just, I love that. So God has a plan is to choose for himself, a people to adopt forever into his family and is making a new family out of people who were far away from him and people who are near from him. He's bringing them all into this new family um and that, that's that's what we're doing as as a family at redemption him. So, alright, let's start in verse one of chapter two, that's where we're gonna be at today and I think that I can get this to show up um on picture and picture, hopefully that's gonna come on the screen as I'm going. But here's if you're if you have your bible open up to Ephesians chapter two verse one, once you were dead because of your disobedience and your sins, you gotta love that opening. You used to be dead because you disobeyed God and you had so many sins. I used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil, the commander of the powers in the unseen world and he is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way. Following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature by our own very nature. We were subject to God's anger, God's wrath, just like everybody else. I like how the message puts it because I think that it's um it's powerful. This is what it says. It says it wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live, You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and and then exhaled exhaled disobedience. We all did it all of us doing what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it all of us in the same boat. Doesn't doesn't that just feel like you can feel it when I talk about like being mired in the old stagnant life of sin. I love how Eugene Peterson just makes it so visceral. That's like our bodies are mired, they're they're held back and held down and overwhelmed by the weight of sin. And what we see is that we talk a lot about this in our, in our discipleship, but we're talking about the three temptations that show up of jesus in the desert right after his baptism of approval, ambition and appetites. And when we give into our temptations, these these these things that our body desires and we let them rule us, then we obeyed and participated in the powers of darkness in this world. So approval When we seek approval, um, it leads to destruction in our lives. When when we're dying to get people to like us, we'll do things that ruin relationships, will destroy the world around us by choosing what we want rather than what's good will hurt others so that we can avoid rejection at work at home at the pub. Maybe it's maybe it's you're just joining in a lie about a coworker and then you see their careers evaporate because you want to be light, uh, maybe it's letting your kid do what they want so that you don't have to be the bad guy and speak truth and you ruined their lives by not giving them the discipline that they need. Maybe it's seeking approval of others and then it makes you a prisoner to sin. So approval can be this powerful force or admired in our sin is Brokenness. Um ambition is another one that is kind of this big heading of the types of temptations that we have ambition leads to incredible evil in our world. We blur lines will steal and kill and destroy to gain wealth. And wealth is really about power. Anytime you see wealth, what we're talking about is wealth equals the power to do what I want and to get other people to do what I want, which is to give their time and energy to serve me. Our enemy, our enemy. That one that um is is entangling us the spirit of this world. He uses our ambition to justify breaking all of the 10 commandments. Look at sports. Look at religious leaders, look at the wealthy. Look at our our politicians. Power and ambition for power is an absolute corrupting force because seeking it and fulfilling our ambition requires us to do evil things. Period, anytime you let your ambition run wild, it will lead you into evil. We cheat at sports, we act unfairly in business. We treat our employees badly. Politicians lie and cheat and steal to gain power. Religious leaders are willing to hide evil to protect their positions and their institutions. When we when we let our ambition run wild, it leads us an unimaginable into an unimaginable amount of human suffering. Look at Mark Driscoll and Bill Hybels and Ted Haggard and Perry Noble and James Mcdonald and others who thought that the size of their churches would make their church board protect the institution from their bad behavior. They were hurting lonely and they acted out. But they all had the audacity to try to cover up their pain that they caused to protect the institutions that they built....