Brought Into Oneness (Jake Enns)

Our sermon title this morning is brought into Oneness.

We are in the Pentecost season and if I'm not mistaken, I think

May 24 is the 5th Pentecost. Is that correct?

And next Sunday in many church traditions, there will be

baptism and people will celebrate with the baptism

service, a good time to do it in the year.

It's not not right or wrong. It's just when they it's, they

go by what happened at Pentecost in the book of Acts in chapter

2. The story tells us that they

were all together the believers in one place, and there was a

sudden rushing of wind and tongues of fire.

What appeared to be tongues of fire settled on the heads of the

apostles there together. And it tells us further in

chapter 2 of Acts that there was a lot, there was a lot of people

in Jerusalem at the time from many different countries.

I think there's 16 different nationalities mentioned.

They all came together wondering what this is all about.

And Peter got up and stood and preached, preached a powerful

sermon. And when the day before the day

was over, 3000 Jews had repented of their sins have been baptized

into one name, the name of Jesus Christ, Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit put baptized in the name of Jesus.

And that was the start of the church in the body of Christ.

And they were all one. It tells us they were one.

And this morning sermon is not a Pentecost sermon, but it builds

and expands on that concept. Today we're focusing again in

our sermon series on Paul's teaching in the book of Ephesus.

Jesus taught in the Gospel of John the importance of unity and

oneness. That was his mission.

That's what he came for, to bring the gospel to the world,

to preach the good news and to bring people to himself.

And they would all become one. And he talks about that in the

Gospel of John, chapter 17. He really iterates that.

John 17 · chapter mention

He really drives that point home.

But to do that, Jesus had to pay a price.

It didn't come just free. It wasn't just OK, whatever.

It took a lot. And for him, it meant his life.

And we're going to go into that a little bit later on in the

sermon. But just before he died at the

Last Supper, before he went to the cross, he was serving his

disciples and he took the cup and he shared it with his

disciples saying, this is my blood and the new covenant.

He took the bread and broke that.

And he said, this is my body broken for you.

And then he washed the disciples feet.

He comes to Apostle Peter wants to wash his feet, his own, Oh

Lord, you're not going to wash my feet.

And Jesus says to him, unless I wash you, you have no part in

me. The Oneness of Christ covers all

aspects of church life. Jesus mission was to bring them

into one in all areas. And the main idea I want to look

at this morning for us, we want together.

Look at is God brought us together into one through

Christ. That's the main idea for today.

The truth is, for a people group to become one, they cannot

remain as they are. For people to become one, they

cannot remain as they are. There is change that has to

happen, and we see this in all kinds of day-to-day events in

the physical world. For imagine a loaf of bread.

There's many different grains of wheat that are crushed and

ground into flour to make that wheat, that flour into a loaf of

bread. Or for instance, imagine grapes

on a vine. They're picked and crushed to

become a bottle of wine. The Bible has a lot to say about

being together in spirit and spirit of oneness and unity and

fellowship. I want to say it this way.

We as human beings in this world were never created for

individualism. This idea of individualism is a

modern idea has no basis in Scripture whatsoever.

Unity, or one out of many, is the biblical concept.

So our Scripture passage in Ephesians this morning focuses

what God has done for us to bring us together into one unit,

to bring us into one body, make US1 temple, and how God through

Christ broke down and removed the wall, the barrier that kept

us apart from one another. And in Jesus we're all unified

into one body. So let's take our Bibles and

read Ephesians chapter 2 beginning verse 11 to the end of

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

the chapter. Ephesians 211 to the end of the

chapter Paul writes. Therefore remember that you once

Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is

called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, that at that

time you were without Christ, being aliens from the

Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of

promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been

brought near by the blood of Christ.

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both 1 and has broken

down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in

His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments

contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man

from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them

both to God in one body through the cross, therefore putting to

death the enmity. And He came and preached peace

to you who were far off, and to those who were near.

For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit to the

Father. Now, therefore, you are no

longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens, with the

Saints and members of the household of God, having been

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, and whom the

whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy

temple in the Lord, And whom you also are being built together

for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Thus far the reading of God's Word.

This idea of oneness comes through powerfully in this

passage. Here Paul is in some ways

retracing his steps of what we looked at earlier in chapter 2,

verse one to 10 last Sunday. But he's doing it with a very

deep and penetrating beam of light that highlights and brings

out this principle of oneness. As I've mentioned in the past,

when this letter was written, like all the rest of Scripture,

there were no chapters and verses.

This would have been just one long letter in the original

language. But the themes in the letter are

very clear and distinct. They are very visible as we read

in verse 11. We read, therefore, when in our

reading we come to a word like the word, therefore, that

indicates of something that came before.

Paul has been explaining to his readers what they had been back

in chapter 1. Then in chapter 2 we read of

Paul teaching his readers what they are now in Christ.

You may have noticed as we're going through the sermon series

thus far that we have not touched on a lot of Christian

ministry or activity or works of service yet.

We've not done that yet in this series.

That is still to come. So far we've been more in the

preparation or foundation laying phase in the series.

And there's a reason for this. It's important to have the

foundational understanding of unity and oneness in place

before we go on to the nuts and bolts of the Christian life.

Or we could say this way, we need a clear understanding and

grounding of Christ's mission in our lives before we begin the

boots on the ground engagement and ministry.

This is very important, very critical in the Christian life.

If we focus on the boots on the ground teaching first, don't

have the historical background and the theological Bible

training background, we will not understand unity.

Then everything very quickly falls out of alignment and falls

apart. There are countless stories of

churches where that's exactly the case.

Some people want to start a church is a great idea.

All have a different concept of church until they start, Oh wait

a minute, we're not even aligned.

Paul does a very wonderful job in the book of Ephesians before

he goes into the teaching telling him how to live, telling

him what they are, what Christ has done.

That comes first. We need that foundational

understanding of who and what we are in Jesus, what he's done for

us, how God brought us into oneness in Christ.

We need to have all that before we start going into the teaching

what God tells us how to live in a day-to-day lifestyle.

The nuts and bolts, so to speak of the day-to-day Christian life

will yet come as you just keep coming to these services and you

will get there. So now let's go and pick this

apart. Let's go back to verse 11 to 13.

I have this in the slides here. Now therefore, remember that you

once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by

what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that

at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the

Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of

promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you were once far off, have been brought

near by the blood of Christ. So the first thing I want to see

is we are brought near to God through Jesus blood.

He just remember. That's what we got to remember

first. There's something important that

happens here. Paul wants us to remember who

and wants them to remember and us to remember who we are in

contrast to what we were. We are here together this

morning in a place called a church, and that's not wrong.

But really it's just the building.

We're in a group setting here, and that's fine.

But one day this building floor, walls will no longer exist.

It will be gone and we will be dead and buried, but we will

exist. We are never going to die.

When Jesus talked about the church, he talked about an

eternal thing, an eternal body. When Paul the apostle talked

about the church, he was not having some mental image of some

physical location, a building and so on.

They talked of a gathering. There's a word for that.

They're not talking about a powerful, forceful organization.

That was political power in which to get things done to

Jesus. The church was his people

gathered in his name, serving him, worshiping him.

He even says in one of the Gospels where two or three are

gathered there, He's among them. So in this passage it says we've

been brought nearby. His blood were gathered near to

God. Remember you Gentiles once in

the flesh. What does that mean?

There was a time when it was Jews and Jews only.

At Pentecost it was Jews and Jews only who were baptized.

We don't read of Gentiles being baptized until a little bit

later. And the Jews, really, they

camped on that. They made very sure the

differences were marked and clearly understood the imagery

that Paul uses here of aliens and strangers and walls and

separation that was not lost to these to this audience.

They knew exactly what he was talking about.

The people of that time knew very well the significance of

what Paul was saying. This passage as a whole shed

light on both their past separation now in their present

oneness in the body of Christ. And this passage applies to us

in our time as much as it did for them and their time. 1

Commentator Thomas Yoder put it this way.

He says Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11 to 22 surely ranks at

Ephesians 2:11–22

the top of the list of most memorable passages in Ephesians.

It is one of the most profound and beautiful peace texts in the

whole Bible. The image of the broken wall has

exerted influence well beyond the borders of the Christian

community. And he goes on in his commentary

to talk about what walls do, what walls represent.

And for instance, he talks about the Berlin Wall.

And when walls in general divide, separate.

It's not always wrong to have a wall of separation from evil,

let's say. But generally speaking, walls

are not healthy for society. The imagery of walls is

powerful. There's a picture that I decided

to include here. It's a picture of what the

temple may have looked like. It's a vast complex and the

picture doesn't get really do justice to what it would have

been really like. But it was a large area

surrounded with walls. The temple grounds was a huge

open court area and there was different smaller buildings in

the middle of it. First there's the outer

structure called the Court of the Gentiles.

This is where everybody could go.

Anybody who came to Jerusalem could go into the Court of the

Gentiles. Then there was another inner

court, and that was the Court of the any Anybody who was a Jew

could go in the inner court. Men and women could go to the

inner court, and then inside the inner court there was a smaller

area yet, and only the priest could go.

The men could go into that. And I think there was another

one. I don't have my information

totally with me, and I'm not sure exactly how it all was, but

the closer you got to the center, the fewer people could

go in. And then the high priest would

go once a year to the Holy of Holies, that small little place

where there was a veil that would would protect or shield

the Ark of the Covenant. And once a year a priest would

go in there. There's records that between the

Gentiles to the court of the Gentiles and the court of the

Jews or the the where the men and the Jewish men and women

could go, there was this signs carved in stone warning Gentiles

not to go past those walls into the inner structure on pain of

death. You could be killed if you'd go

in there. What got Paul in trouble in Acts

Acts 21:28

chapter 21, verse 28 was he had been on a mission trip, came

back from his missionary journey.

He went to the attempt and he was grabbed and arrested.

He was accused of having brought Gentiles into the temple.

There's a there's a passage in Acts chapter 21, verse 26.

Acts 21:26

I'll just read that. And now Paul, this was before

Paul wrote Ephesians. This was before Paul got

arrested. So Paul in Acts 21, verse 26, it

Acts 21:26

says then Paul took men, then it took the men, and the next day,

having been purified with him, entered the temple to announce

the expiration of the days of purification, at which time an

offering should be made for each one of them.

So Paul was a Jew, he was not anti Jew.

Then verse 27 and on he says now when the seven days were almost

ended, the Jews from Asia seeing him in the temple, stirred up

the whole crowd, laid hands on him crying.

Men of Israel help. This is the man who teaches all

men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place.

And furthermore, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has

defiled this holy place, for they had previously seen

Trophimus, the Ephesian with him in the city with whom they

suppose that Paul had brought into the temple.

This was all before Paul was arrested and then either house

arrest or prison, and before he wrote Ephesians.

So this experience was behind him.

When this happened, the people, the Jewish people, were very

precise. The Gentiles could come into the

outer court, but not to the inner court.

And so Paul has all of this imagery in mind when he's

writing this passage. Paul is saying to the Ephesians,

therefore remember you once you Gentiles uncircumcised by what's

the circumcision of flesh, you were without Christ being aliens

from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants

of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, you

were outsiders. You didn't belong.

Without going into too many directions here this morning, I

want to say this. God's design for worship as

described in the Old Testament was not intended for how the

Jews practiced it. It was never that God did not

love the Gentiles. God's plan all along was for the

whole world to receive the Messiah.

We read that in Genesis chapter 12, the first part where God

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

said to Abraham, through you all nations will be blessed, and

many other passages in the Old Testament we read of God's plan

for all of mankind through the message of the gospel.

They will be. They were drawn to Christ.

God's purpose for the Old Testament judicial system, the

law, and everything else was to show His Holiness, His mercy and

kindness, His love and His grace.

Of course, that system could not save them, but it was to lead

them to fear and seek God. And so God had built this, had

them build this place. And when the people of Israel

earlier on in their existence were in the desert, they had the

tent of meeting and the promised land.

Solomon built a temple. It was destroyed when the nation

was invaded and taken captive 700 plus years before Christ.

Later when they returned from captivity, they built another

temple. Not as good as the first one.

But then in the New Testament we find that Herod the king built

the Jews this magnificent temple that took him decades to build.

But it didn't make them holy. Their hearts were still not

changed. And he's called him out on their

hypocrisy. But back to Paul in the letter

of Ephesus. Paul was familiar with all of

that. He knew the history.

And he knew that, yes, the laws had been given to the Jews in

the early face of God's people. The Gentiles had not been given

what the Jews had. But with the coming of Jesus,

all that changed. So let's read again verse 13.

But now in Christ Jesus Paul's words.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been

brought near by the blood of Christ.

So the Gentiles were not welcome in the old system, but now they

are now in Jesus, they're as welcome as anybody.

That's us. We're Gentiles.

And we read in the Gospel of John, Jesus says to the

Samaritan woman the following words, God is spirit.

Those who worship him in must worship him in spirit and truth.

And again Paul says in Christ, we who were once far off have

been brought near. Why is blood such a big deal?

Why is blood such so important? Because blood equals life.

Blood equals life. We read in the Old Testament

right after Noah came out of the ark after the flood.

God told him you can eat animals, but you can't eat the

blood, can't drink the blood, It's forbidden because it

clearly taught life is in the blood.

So why are we brought near? Blood is the life of the one in

whom the blood is. And Jesus said his blood as the

full payment for the sins of the world, for both Jews and

Gentiles. It's through the blood of Christ

that everyone, both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young

and old, everyone in the world is placed on the same level.

There's no longer any preference, any distinction in

that the sacrifice of Jesus once for all, even the score.

Everybody now has the same access to Christ.

And whoever repents and believes puts their faith in Christ is

saved. Well, what did all of this

accomplish? What did it achieve?

Well, let's look at verse 14. It says for he himself as our

peace was made, both one has broken down the middle wall of

separation. So there's no no longer any

walls in that place. That place has no walls.

Maybe the physical one would if it stood, but the real one

wouldn't. The next point is God has broken

down the walls. Remember the picture of the

temple Paul wrote in his letter? The temple in Jerusalem is

probably still standing when Paul wrote this.

This was before the destruction of Jerusalem, while the Romans

would come in, in 76 AD, after Christ, the Romans broke

everything down, the temple and everything.

But when Paul wrote this, as far as we know, the wall was still

standing. And the wall that Paul is

talking about here is not the wall of brick and mortar.

He's talking about a wall of rules and traditions and and

laws and so on, cultural boundaries that were as good as

written in stone. The wall that Paul has in mind

is the wall of enmity. God's plan was to do away with

all of this that keeps people separate, to bring them to

unity, into oneness. Let's read verse 15 again.

Having abolished in His flesh the enmity that is the law of

commandments contained in ordinances so as to create in

himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.

God's plan was and is to bring all of humanity under the same

umbrella, the umbrella of grace and forgiveness.

He wants all humankind to be united into one.

Let's just pause for a moment. Let that sink in.

Does that look like our world? Does that look like our homes?

What about our marriages or our churches?

We're so good at splitting and dividing.

I'm not saying churches shouldn't split off and expand.

That's fine. But in the spirit of hostility

and division, we don't like you. You, we're going to kick you

out, that kind of thing. Let's imagine for just a moment

if enmity was a physical material matter contained in a

box, and unity was a physical material matter contained in a

box. And we would put all the enmity

in the world in a pile, like maybe in a big pile, we put all

the unity in the world in another pile.

Which pile would be greater? We know the answer to that one.

We don't even have to think about it.

The world is buried in enmity. It's sinking in enmity.

It's destroying itself, blowing itself to pieces through enmity,

and the unity is in short supply everywhere, whether it's in our

marriages, whether it's in churches, whether it's in our

communities, in our country. And we just have to turn on the

news. And it's right there.

Let's be honest. If God abolished in his flesh

the enmity, why is there still so much of it?

The only thing that makes any sense is because we're not as

near to God yet as we should be. The body of Christ was

sacrificed. This enmity would be destroyed,

and in Christ it is. And so if we come to Christ,

receive his peace, the enmity's gone.

If we consider what God did for us that he did that for us, if

we call ourselves Christ's followers, should we then not

lead by example and ask ourselves how well are we doing?

It's so much easier just to I'll do my thing, you do your thing,

each to their own. Let's be honest, we do live in

times of growing isolation, growing hostility, growing

individualism, and how we live our lives reveals our state of

being, what values we have. If you study trends over time,

even the way people build their houses is an indicator of what

their values are. I'm not judging anybody for the

size of their house. Don't.

That's not what I'm pointing to. Just go back over 100 years.

Look at houses, how they were built in the 1900s.

Some of you heard me talk about this before.

Go to the downtown old parts of Windsor someday, just for just

for a drive, the old university area.

Look at the houses that were built in the 1800s or 1900s.

They have, not all of them the same, but front porches,

verandas, whatnot. You can put tables and chairs

there. Why?

Because they're community minded people who built them.

They have problems too. Yes, they have all kinds of

problems, tribalism and disunity.

There's all kinds of problems too.

But they would sit in the front porch in the evening after work

and chat to the neighbor walking by.

People got to know each other. Today we have a garage that

closes in the front door to go inside in the backyard that's

fenced in. That's what we do now.

That's real. My yard's fenced in too, and my

wife and I did the same. We have a nice fenced yard, so

we have privacy. We drive in cars that have

windows rolled up back then we've drove in horse and buggy.

We could say hi to. We'd talk to the neighbors that

drive by. I'm not saying we can change all

this and that, but what I'm trying to say is how private are

we? How oneness our minded are we?

The new subdivisions in town, I like looking at new houses.

I just wonder what they're thinking.

Are they designed for group gathering?

For community? How well are we doing at getting

to know our neighbors to building bridges instead of

walls? How good are we connecting and

removing walls of separation? And I have to say to our Shamus

and a Baptist, we have not always done very well.

We let's move away from here. Not saying we should never move

away, Paul, Jesus talks about run to the mountains and

persecution. But at the same time, do we care

enough about our community that we integrate ourselves into our

community to help the community become a better community or

let's just get away from it. Jesus broke down the middle wall

of separation. What separates us from one

another? You know what separates us?

Fear, hostility and I'm not now saying this morning we should go

and subject ourselves to unsafe environments and unsafe people.

That's not the point of my sermon.

Some people literally are dangerous physically, socially,

morally, and we're to be careful who we interact with.

The Bible tells us that too. But do I have a me focus or an

other focus And he did that to reconcile both to God in one

body through Christ. Verse 16 tells us put him to

death. The enmity preaching peace to

those who are near and verse 18 for through him we both have

access by 1 spirit to the Father.

And so now, OK, now let's let's imagine, let's we do this.

OK, let's do this. So it's going to be easy.

No, this path leads to the cross.

The path through the cross kills a lot of things.

Sending people's lives is alive and well in many cases, but it

can't stand the fire of the cross or the pain of the cross.

It dies there. No sin gets past it.

Sin can't stand the experience of the cross.

It seems to me in our day we do too little preaching and

teaching on the concept of the cross, what it means.

Paul had a real good understanding of it.

He understood that to be one with Christ meant to suffer for

Jesus. Again, we're 16 that He might

reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross,

therefore putting to death the enmity.

When both Jew and Gentile have embraced and experienced the

cross, the enmity's gone. They no longer care or worry

about their personal ambitions and goals and dreams and

whatnot. Only in the context of what

helps us all. In verse 18 He says for through

Him we both have access by 1 spirit to the Father.

That's so good through Jesus, both Jew and Gentile have access

by 1 spirit to the same Father, the same spirit.

Both have the connecting link. You see, this is where good

people sometimes get it wrong and fall down.

There's sometimes people who've lived a good moral life for

pretty much their whole life. They never wrecked the sinners.

They didn't commit adultery, they didn't steal, and they had

a good credit score, so to speak, in society.

And, and then, then all of a sudden, one day there's this bad

guy who's done time in prison, let's say, and he's got a bad

record and, and now he wants to join.

And then the walls go up. Do we trust him?

You see, friends, for morally upright people, their sin is not

in committing adultery or stealing or anything like that.

Their sin is in the pride. You know, we're good in the eyes

of God. Pride is the worst of all sins,

yet at the end of the day, there's no other path except for

the cross. No matter how good we've been or

how bad we've been, it doesn't make any difference.

No one is good enough to get a free pass.

Nobody makes the grade. We all come through the cross,

each one of us. When we've come that far that we

have surrendered ourselves to Christ, we've repented our our

sins or our self righteousness or self-sufficiency or or sell

independence, the enmity is gone.

You know what then? Then we become family.

Verse 19. Now therefore, you are no longer

strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints

and members of the household of God having been built on the

foundations, the apostles and prophets.

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the

whole building being fitted together grows into a holy

temple, not temples, temple and the Lord and whom also you are

being built together for a get this a dwelling place of God in

spirit. Let's just pause for a moment

again from being people who can't stand each other, drowning

in enmity, who have nothing to do with each other.

Paul says members of the household of God and a dwelling

place of God in the spirit. So in that last point, as

family, we become a living temple of God, no longer

strangers. We're citizens, fellow citizens

with the Saints. Paul uses the illustration of a

temple. He says they're integrated into

the building, this living temple of God, the chief cornerstone

being Jesus Christ himself. It's a, it's a living, growing

thing. Think about that for a moment.

God wants us to be one with one another, with him in spirit.

We have to finally say, in that case, nothing in this world

matters in comparison. The Saints of old understood

this powerful, deep truth. This was so deeply rooted in

their souls. They chose rather to suffer and

die, then give this up. And continuing on.

Today, there are many people who continue to be arrested and

tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus.

You can read these stories. They're never on the mainstream

media, but they are there. They've gone over from death to

life. They've become members of this

household. The world doesn't know what to

do with people like that. The world has no, no, no concept

of this. The world does not understand a

relationship with Jesus. But for all who give themselves

to Jesus, as they grow and develop, this becomes an

increasingly powerful reality in their lives.

And as they grow and mature, God can and doesn't trust them to

greater and deeper paths of discovery about Himself.

As God's people grow and become stronger, they come to a point

where suffering for Jesus really is not a big deal anymore in the

sense, Oh, we're so surprised. No, it it come to expect that

Paul writes in first Timothy in Philippians chapter one, verse

29. He says for to you it has been

granted by the way he wrote this from prison for to you it has

been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but

also to suffer for his sake having the same conflict you saw

in me and now here is in which you saw in me and now here is in

me. That first part granted, granted

to suffer as if it's a gift. What Paul was who he was was not

based on the world around him. He was so totally grounded in

the Lord Jesus. This been has been true and

continues to be true for thousands of Saints through

history who go through this. And when they do that, this

prepares them for greater service.

So we're still in the preparation phase in the

learning stage and the and the and the teaching stage.

But in the next few chapters, we're going to start seeing how

God through Christ now prepares us for service.

So let's wrap this up. We're brought near to God

through Jesus blood. There's no other payment.

The walls are broken down. We're no longer strangers and

aliens. We belong to the household of

God. Our common ground, our path to

oneness is to the cross. The message.

The message of the cross will never be received by this world,

but for the Saints of God, it's a gift.

It's a sign of victory over death.

And because we're God's family, we have unity among us that bind

us all together into one that draws more people into this.

We are a living temple of God. Are there walls that separate

you and I today? Let's be open to the leading of

the Spirit in our lives. He wants to be among us, to us,

us to be one with each other and with Him.

He wants us to be His temple. Imagine the God of the universe

wanting to connect with us in such a way spiritually, wants to

be inside of us. It should humble us, make us

Revere Him, fear Him and and make us grateful.

I trust that we will live out this calling of God in our lives

and that our lives will demonstrate that we are a people

in whom the walls of enmity are broken down.

We will be a people who've laid down whatever it is that's

holding us back from serving Him faithfully.

And we will rejoice that we're called to be the family of God

and we are the family of God. Let us pray.

Thank you, Lord, for your grace to us, for doing for us what we

could never do for ourselves. I pray our hearts when we turn

to you, away from our own sinful, selfish desires, and

pray that in our hearts you will always be.

Lord, thank you for the work of salvation.

Thank you for saving us. Thank you for making us part of

your temple. Your body, Your name we pray.

Amen.