I Believe: The Communion of Saints (Ephesians 4:1-16)

This morning we continue our sermon series on the Apostles' Creed.

Pastor Creighton has been taking us through the Creed statement by statement.

And today we will focus on the Communion of Saints.

We are privileged to have speaking today the Reverend Colton Carrick, a former colleague of Pastor Creighton's at St.

Peter and St.

Paul in Ottawa.

Reverend Colton was ordained a deacon in January 2020 and is now mission curate at the Church of the Good Samaritan in St.

John's, Newfoundland.

Reverend Creighton Carrick.

Good morning, everybody.

It's good to be with you.

Before we come to God's word, let's come before the Lord in prayer.

That the words of my lips and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

I might begin by saying how excited I am by the fact that you, a new song, have been doing a series on the Apostles' Creed.

As I'm sure you've been discovering, taking a deeper look at the Apostles' Creed brings us face to face with the most important and essential beliefs of Christian people over space and throughout time.

This morning we come to that section of the Apostles' Creed where we confess our belief in the communion of the saints.

When we consider our belief in the communion of the saints, we are considering the fact that all Christian people, that is, saints, both in heaven and on earth, are knit together in a single society or family or body.

To put it another way, all Christians in heaven and on earth are united in a special and important way.

My sermon for this morning will have three points, and each point will show how we as Christians are united together in this special and important way.

My first point is called united in Christ.

My second point is called united in Christ's benefits, and my final point is called united in Christ's Church.

Let us first consider what it means that we as Christians are all united in Christ.

We as saints are in communion with one another and united to one another because each and every one of us is united to Christ.

Our union with Christ is the basis of our communion with other saints.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in our reading from Ephesians chapter 4, verses 15 to 16.

Ephesians 4:15–16

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, even each part, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

In these verses, the Apostle Paul is offering us a helpful metaphor, the metaphor of a head and a body.

Jesus Christ is the head, and each saint is a different part of that body.

What unites us is that each and every one of us is connected to the head.

When we talk about what unites us as Christians, we very often talk about the fact that we have a common set of scriptures, the Bible, a common set of beliefs, a common set of practices, a common set of experiences, and so on.

All of this is very well and it's very good.

But I would like to suggest to you this morning that before we think of any of that, we should remind ourselves that we have a common Christ.

Each and every Christian is connected to, united to, and in relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

We have a common Lord, a common Savior, and a common friend.

That is the most important thing that we as Christians share with one another.

That is Jesus Christ.

When we meet other Christians along the way, it is helpful to remind ourselves that they also know and love the Lord Jesus.

Imagine, if you will, a massive wedding.

The bride and the groom have rented out an absolutely massive banquet hall, and they have invited 5,000 of their closest friends and family.

Some people have had to travel a few minutes to get to the banquet hall, and some people have had to travel many kilometers by train and plane and automobile.

People have come from far and wide.

Some of the people that have showed up are infants, some are toddlers, some are teenagers, some are young adults, some are not so young adults, and some are even over the age of a hundred.

They speak a variety of languages.

They come from a variety of backgrounds.

They work at a variety of different jobs.

But what is the one thing that unites everybody at this wedding?

Each and every one of them has some connection to the bride or to the groom.

If you've ever been to a large wedding, a lot of the small talk begins with, so how do you know the bride or the groom, or how are you related to the bride or the groom?

The thing that holds all the people together at the wedding is the fact that they are connected in some way to the bride or the groom.

And so it is with the communion of the saints.

Each and every saint is connected to Jesus Christ.

I felt it was appropriate to compare the communion of the saints to a wedding because the Bible teaches us that all of history ends with a great marriage, the marriage of Christ and his church.

Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, and all the saints collectively are the bride.

At the end of history, this great marriage will be completed, and it will last for all of eternity, and indeed it will be a source of joy and praise for all eternity.

The Bible tells us in the book of Revelation, chapter 19, verses 6 through 8, that all the saints will gather at the wedding supper of the Lamb, and they will sing together, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

Revelation 19:6–8

Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.

For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

This beautiful and heavenly image reminds us of another important aspect of the communion of the saints, namely that the communion of the saints includes saints in heaven and saints on earth.

If the basis of our communion as saints is our union with Christ, then our fellowship with one another pierces through the veil that divides heaven from earth.

This idea can be immensely comforting.

Many of us think of loved ones who have died in Christ and gone to glory.

We rejoice in the fact that they are now in the nearer presence of Jesus Christ.

We thank the Lord for bringing these dear ones to Himself, and we feel united to these folks, knowing that they have the same Lord as we do, and that He cares for them in the same way that He cares for us.

We feel united to these folks, these saints, knowing that as we worship the Lord Jesus, so do they.

This doctrine is also immensely comforting because it unites us to the great men and the great women of the faith.

I find it comforting to know that I'm united to the same Christ who was loved by and cared for by dear old Mary, his mother.

I am comforted by the fact that I am united to the Christ who confronted the fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and asked them all to follow him.

The same Christ who confronted the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, and the same Christ, who was anticipated by and is now enjoyed by all those dear saints of the Old Testament.

We Christians here in 21st century Canada are in communion with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, James, John, Mary, and pick any other of your favorite saints, biblical or otherwise.

All of us are united together because all of us are united to the same Christ.

I can't imagine being part of a more interesting or more exciting fellowship.

The communion of the saints.

My second point is that being a part of the communion of the saints means that we all share in the benefits of Christ.

To get at this idea, let us turn to the first chapter of Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 3.

Ephesians 1:3

As an aside, the book of Ephesians is the place to go if you would like to learn about the church and the fellowship of Christian people.

Anyhow, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

If you were to keep reading Ephesians chapter 1, you would find that the Apostle Paul gives us a long list of the many blessings or benefits that we as Christians receive in Christ.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Paul mentions our salvation, our predestination, our adoption as sons of God, the glorious grace of God, our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, our inheritance in heaven, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

These are just a few of the many benefits that Christians receive in Christ.

What is remarkable is that these benefits are given to all Christians.

All of us receive salvation, adoption, the Holy Spirit, and so on.

We as Christians are united by the common experience of God's saving grace in our lives.

This common experience and enjoyment of Christ's benefits is what makes singing and worshiping together possible.

Each of us can be and should be basically grateful to the Lord Jesus for the same reasons.

We all have the same Savior and the same salvation by his atonement on the cross.

We all have the same Father and the same adoption into his family through a son.

We all have the same Holy Spirit graciously put into our hearts and given to us as a guarantee.

This is why we can sing and say the same words together, thanking and praising God for all that he's done in our lives.

Some of you may have heard of Sir Nicholas Winton.

Winton was a British banker who was called by friends to the city of Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia to help out with the Jewish refugee situation.

This was in the year 1939.

Winton was disturbed by the situation he found in Prague and set to work evacuating Jewish children by train and sending them to stay with foster families in Britain.

He successfully evacuated 669 children, effectively saving them from the Nazi death camps.

In 1988, Winton was invited to sit in the audience of the BBC program That's Life.

He did not know that he would be the subject of that show.

At one point in the show, the host, Esther Ranson, asked if anybody in the audience owed their lives to Winton.

Around two dozen people sitting around Winton and his wife stood up and applauded.

Then Miss Ranson asked if anybody owed the lives of their parents or grandparents to Winton.

And the rest of the audience stood up.

Winton was understandably overwhelmed.

You can find the video on YouTube if you go searching for it.

What I find and still find so striking about this video is that everybody in that room, excepting Winton and his wife, were united by a common savior.

Everyone in that room owed their life to the kindness and heroism of Sir Nicholas Winton.

Those people proudly and affectionately called themselves Winton's children.

Well, my friends, so it is with the communion of the saints.

All of us share a common Savior.

Each of us owes our lives, and each of us enjoy the many benefits that come from knowing and being a part of Jesus.

You know it is a sweet and edifying thing to speak of these things with one another.

I know that I have been much helped in my Christian walk by hearing the testimonies of other Christians, dead and alive, and by others sharing with me all that Christ has done for them.

It is a wonderful thing to recognize that the Lord has not only been kind to you, but has also been so kind to others in innumerable and exciting ways.

It is a joyous thing to say to our friends, The Lord has saved me, and then to hear them reply, Me too.

The communion that we enjoy with other saints is made sweeter and sweeter when we share in all that the Lord has blessed us with.

Now let's move on to our last point.

United in Christ's church.

Being united in Christ's church means being made part of a single body.

But it also means being invited into a common way of life.

All of us worship, all of us pray, all of us are called to baptism, all of us are invited to the Lord's Supper, all of us are called to give for the sake of the church, all of us are called to live according to the same set of commandments, and all of us are called to hope according to the same gospel.

Christians across space and time have engaged in a common life defined by a set of common practices and attitudes.

If you return to our lesson from the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 4 through 6, the Apostle Paul writes, There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4–6

Here the Apostle Paul is emphasizing that which is common to all Christians.

Take baptism, for example.

From the days of Christ until now, Christians have been baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For these 2,000 years, Christians have been baptized into the Church of Christ.

The simple practice of baptizing believers with water has been the constant practice of Christians since we were commanded to do it by Jesus Himself.

The communion of the saints entails a common life that spans the centuries.

And in fact, this common life is not only old, but it bridges the gap between heaven and earth.

One of my favorite parts of the Holy Communion service is when we all sing or say together, Holy, Holy, Holy.

The minister begins, Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.

Holy, holy, holy.

Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

In this part of the service we are reminded that when we worship God here on earth, we are joining in on the life of heaven, intermingling our praises with the praises of those saints who have gone before us into glory.

What a wonderful thing.

I would like to finish by noting that the communion of the saints is a reality that is very close to the heart of God.

In our Old Testament lesson for this morning, we find the Lord God making a covenant with Abraham.

God's promise to Abraham is that he will be the father of a great nation, and that that nation will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

That great nation is, of course, the nation of Israel, and it blesses the world by being the means by which the gospel of Jesus Christ is brought into the world.

In his covenant with Abraham, God shows us that he desires a people for himself, a people made up of every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages.

A people that enjoy a deep and profound unity, a deep and profound communion, based upon their union with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We also see the heart of God expressed in the words of Jesus on the night before he dies.

In what is called His high priestly prayer, Jesus prays, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Here Jesus is praying that the same intimate communion that characterizes his relationship with the Father would likewise characterize our relationships with him and therefore with each other.

Jesus wants us to be one with God and therefore one with each other.

And this, dear friends, is for our joy.

And it is the delight of God to make us one with himself and one with one another.

Let me finish by praying the collect for all saints' day.

Almighty God, you've knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Give us grace, so to follow your blessed saints and all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you in the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God and glory everlasting.

Amen.