You Belong Here

Last evening at the Evangelical Free Church of America’s Leadership Conference in Denver, I was reminded again of God’s many-faceted, many-colored church. We were privileged to hear from the head of the Evangelical Free Church of Sudan. He brought us greetings from our brothers and sisters in Christ who know great pain, suffering and betrayal, but who continue to follow Christ and preach Christ. The war in Sudan has been devastating, but God is building His church in spite of the carnage.

My daily times in Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus give the theological basis for our unity with Christians throughout the world. Regardless of race or color, God is calling all people into a new community in which there is no distinction before God or between each other. Yet we bring to God’s community our rich heritage of culture and language. In Ephesians 2, Paul writes:

But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything. The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody. Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father. That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. Ephesians 2:11-22 The Message

So whether we’re Swedish, Sudanese or Salvadoran, in Christ we belong to God and to each other.