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Intro
It is great to be in the house of the Lord today.
For the past two weeks I have enjoyed being poured into by our guest speakers.
A few weeks ago the Lord prompted me to dive into the book of Ephesians.
So for the next few weeks I encourage to take some time if you haven’t already and read all six chapters.
What you will find is that the Word of God is contrary to the culture around us.
It doesn’t fit into the social norms of the day it was written nor does it fit in today.
The Word of God is counter culture.
In other words it goes against the grain of our society.
In this series we will be challenged to go against the cultural norms and live a life that God created us to live.
I want to kick off this Counter Culture series with a message called Revolutionary Idea.
Revolutionary Defined
The word revolutionary is defined as:
Revolutionary: “involving or causing a complete or dramatic change”
The Word of God is filled with revolutionary ideas that if applied will change the course of your life not only physically, but spiritually as well.
We are called to be changed.
As Christ followers we are called to live life different than the rest of the world.
As a Christ follower I am called to live differently than those who do not belong to Christ.
We find throughout Scripture how revolutionary we are called to live.
The culture says to hate those who hate you.
This is the complete opposite of what the world says.
The culture says to be you and be proud of who you are.
As Christ followers we are called to lay down our personal pride and look first to the needs of others.
These words, and the ideas presented in the book of Ephesians, are revolutionary in our culture today.
This gospel message goes against the culture.
If we are going to get where God wants us to be, we must live out what God has laid out for us in the Scriptures.
Some of us are stuck in the same rut because we are trying to live life the way we think it ought to be.
My only question for you is, “How is that working out for you?”
Let’s dive into the first chapter today and see what God is telling us.
Diverse Church
In the first chapter of Ephesians we find Paul writing to the church at Ephesus and what he is writing is indeed counter culture and revolutionary then as it is now.
Before we read we need to understand the audience that Paul is writing.
He is writing to both the Jew and the Gentile.
In this time period there was a division amongst these people groups.
Jews didn’t like Gentiles and Gentiles didn’t like the Jews.
But Jesus died not only for the chosen people the Jews, but also for the Gentiles.
In fact Jesus died for all mankind.
Like the old song goes Jesus loves the little children of the world, red, yellow, black, and white, they are all precious in His sight!
Green, blue, purple, it don’t matter what color you are or claim to be, Jesus DIED FOR YOU!
In the midst of this ethnic dived culture, Paul pens these words.
Family of Oneness
What we need to understand is that not only did Jesus die for our sins, but also that a power would be unleashed in order to create a family out of people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation.
This is what we will see in Heaven when the Lord takes us home or should Jesus tarry first.
John shares with us in his vision:
We live in racially divided world and the idea of being one family in Christ is truly a revolutionary idea.
Listen, we are not called to be a church of sameness, we are called to be a multi ethnic, multi cultural, multi generational church!
Salad Bowl Family - too often we have churches that don’t operate in the family of oneness, but sameness.
We have lettuce churches.
Lettuce by itself is boring.
Nobody just eats lettuce.
We have onion churches.
Cheese churches.
Tomato churches.
When you stay in sameness, you will remain stuck.
But if you begin to combine the lettuce with these other ingredients, something amazing happens.
What used to be a boring bowl of lettuce has now become mixed salad with new combinations of flavor!
Add a little bit of dressing…i.e. the Holy Spirit...and it sets the whole thing off!
When the church is blended in this capacity we can show the world around us a picture of what heaven is going to be.
It sends a powerful message that not only does the blood of Jesus cover our sins, but we are now empowered to live in unity across all ethnicities!
When the church is in unity, it can change the very community it is located in.
Chosen
Paul is reminding both the Jews and Gentiles that they both have been reconciled through Christ and now it is their turn to go with this same message to reconcile the divided world to Christ.
Listen to what Paul also teaches:
We are chosen by God to bridge the gap between God and people no matter who they are by sharing the Gospel message of Jesus!
The Gospel message isn’t for a certain people group, it is for all people groups.
Unity in the Church
The enemy does not want the church to thrive in unity.
But wants to create division.
We will go into this more as Paul addresses this in chapter 4.
When we thrive in unity, God can move.
God can move in powerful ways.
His body, the church, can be used by God to bring healing to the sick, restoration to the broken, and freedom to those in bondage.
David uses this top down imagery here in this Psalm.
When brothers, speaking of God’s people, live together in unity, something special happens.
Oil is a representation of the Holy Spirit.
Dew is a representation of blessings, favour, prosperity, resurrection, long life.
Something God showed me about this outpouring is the top down affect.
Two things and then we are done.
Mt.
Hermon
You see Mt. Hermon is said to be the same mountain where Christ was transfigured and revealed his glory to the disciples in Matthew 17. Zion is symbolic for the church.
When the church is united, the church is blessed.
Paul opened with this in Ephesians 1:3.
He tells us that we are blessed with the blessings of God.
The Lord’s Scent
When the church is united, there is a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church that can bring deliverance to the people.
This oil that was used on Aaron who was a priest of God, had a certain scent to it.
Smell was an important factor in the Old Testament.
Certain smells pertained to impure things and it helped to keep the people of God from defiling themselves.
Just the opposite, certain smells also pertained to holy things.
I am not going to go into all the details, but there was a prescribed recipe found in Exodus 30 for the anointing oil for the priests.
This oil bears the scent of the Lord.
It was used specifically for the Lord.
Whoever makes an oil similar to it, a counterfeit if you will, or puts any of it on an unqualified person, shall be cut off from his people.
The Lord was very serious about this scent as it was His.
Any who were anointed with this sacred scent were anointed with the scent of the Lord.
Those anointed with the Lord’s scent were made holy because the Lord is holy.
Not only that, the Lord is a deliverer.
He delivered the people of God out of Egypt and delivered us still to this day through Jesus Christ.
Those who were anointed with the scent of the Lord were seen as such.
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