Do you treat difficult people like family or outsiders? /// Heaven & Earth: Part 3

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If you're using this teaching for a Home Groups setting, we've included discussion prompts to help guide your conversation:

1. Where do you notice yourself treating difficult people more like outsiders than family, and what would change if you remembered that Jesus has brought strangers, foreigners, and enemies into one household?

2. Tomy described how quickly sibling conflict can turn into bickering and backbiting, so what does that reveal about the way adults can act when disagreement gets personal?

3. Think about a person or group you strongly disagree with, and consider what it would look like to keep Jesus as the cornerstone instead of making your own convictions the foundation.

4. Read Ephesians 2:19 through 22 and discuss what it means that God is not just stacking separate stones, but carefully building his people together into one dwelling place.

5. When hostility shows up in your conversations, your church, or your online reactions, what would it mean to let that hostility stay dead on the cross instead of resurrecting it?

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Transcript

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I hate to speak in false binaries, but here we go. When it comes to sibling groups of children in particular, there's only two kinds of sibling groups. The first kind of sibling group, they are kind and they are caring and they are mutually submissive to one another and they get along so well, and they put the wants and desires and needs of their siblings above their own, and it's just really, really sweet. And then the other type of sibling group is the one that exists in the real world.

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Which honestly, it feels like their mission is to live out the plot line of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, where it's just pure anarchy all the time and they're constantly on the verge of killing one another. And

Message Start

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my name's Tommy Cummins. I'm on the student team here at Plum Creek. And of course, that is a false binary. That's it's not one or the other, if anything, and you know this if you have kids, it's both throughout the course of the same day, right? That's what it feels like in the Cummins casa right now, at least. We have an 11 and a half-year-old daughter named Lainey, and she's beautiful, and and she's really, really kind, and she's helpful, and and she's really witty. And then we have a six-year-old son named Judah, and Judah is just, he's got a big heart, and he's just a feeler, and he's really funny and active, and and there really are these moments where they're getting along so well, and Judah is such a gentleman to his older sister, and and Lainey is such a nurturing, caring, inviting presence for Judah, and and it really is just sweet to watch them when they're in this mode. And then the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of the day, it's like they're at each other's throats and they're just bickering constantly, and it gets so big so fast, and obviously that's an exaggeration, 23 hours and 55 minutes. I mean, they do also sleep in the midst of that at some point, and so no, it's hard to know which one of like which version of the kids you're gonna get at any given moment. What's exhausting for my wife, Mindy, and I in this particular season is that it feels like we're constantly having to manage their relationship for them. We're having to mediate as they argue and we're having to remind them that actually, even though you're really angry right now, it's still very possible to speak kindly to one another and to apologize to one another. And when it gets particularly bad, I will have Lainey and Judah sit on the couch together and hold hands as I lecture them about the importance of this brother-sister relationship and how someday you're gonna really want to make sure that this is a really strong relationship. And I don't know if it's breaking through at all, but we do it constantly. And on some level, it's age appropriate at this age, right? Where we're having to teach them how to manage their emotions, we're having to teach them how to navigate conflict, we're having to teach them how to make it right when we've gotten it wrong. This is age appropriate, those are learned skills. And so, of course, it makes sense that yes, my kids, they they get at each other sometimes, but when their father is in the room helping to manage that relationship, it changes the dynamics. The real problem is that for a lot of us as adults, if we're really honest with ourselves, it can be really easy to be no better than our kids, especially in the world that we live in right now where there is so much division, there is so much backbiting and arguing and bickering, and it's just really ugly sometimes. We've seen it. And I think the false binaries is a big part of that. We are presented all the time as if there are only two options. Either we completely agree on everything, or we cannot coexist. Either you vote the way I do, or you are actually evil. Either you will support me and affirm every choice that I am making, or you do not love me. These are the kinds of things that we are presented with all the time. These kinds of false binaries, they leave no room for discussion, no room for nuance. It immediately sets us against one another. And when we see this happening in culture all around us all the time, it can be really easy to slip into this same kind of mode and how we interact with the culture, but also how we interact with one another, even within the church, if we're not careful. And yet, just like my kids, it changes the dynamics when the father is in the room. This is what we're gonna see from Paul today, is the same is true that for us as followers of Jesus, it ought to be different when the father is in the room, which is always when we keep our eyes on him, when we allow him through his spirit to help mediate these relationships and help us to control the way that we act, the way that we treat one another. If you have your Bibles and your devices, I would love for you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter two. We're gonna pick up at the very end of Ephesians chapter two. And in case you've missed uh one of the first two weeks of this series, or is just a quick recap, in week one, we saw Paul telling us that as the church, as the body of Jesus, we can rest assured in knowing that we are chosen. We have been freed from our sins, we have been marked by the Spirit of God living within us. That means that we are sent, we live our lives on mission as the very hands and feet of Jesus, that we are to be the small working model of new creation, showing others that heaven is breaking into earth in the here and now through his church. And then in week two, Pastor Doug continued on this as Paul reminds us that once we were dead in our sins, but now we are alive. We were once far, but we have been drawn near. We were once divided, but we have been brought together. We were once strangers and foreigners, but actually we have been brought and adopted into the very family of Jesus. This is what we're gonna pick up in Ephesians 2, 19 here today. Paul continues this thought. He says, So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. This is important. We need to recognize this is a recurring theme throughout the book of Ephesians. Paul talks about the coming together of Jews and Gentiles. He talks about it in Ephesians 1. We're seeing it here in Ephesians 2. We will continue to see it in Ephesians 3. It's clearly one of the biggest points that he is trying to make, and not only here, but we actually see it throughout the New Testament as well. They're like, yes, we used to be strangers and foreigners, but actually now we are all part of the same family together. If you're anything like me, for the longest time I would hear Paul saying these kinds of things, and I would think of it purely in terms of these religious differences between Jews and Gentiles. Obviously, they come from very different religious backgrounds, Jewish and pagan of some kind. And yet it actually goes beyond just the religious differences. When you talk about Jews and Gentiles, these were also ethnic differences. These were also significant cultural differences that were being brought together, probably very significant different socioeconomic differences, different political differences as well. As the Jewish political system and the worldly political systems, they they kind of had to play nice together, but they weren't for one another. They were very different. And so there's a ton of tension that comes together when you start to think about all of the many ways in which they were very, very different from one another, even in opposition in some ways. In fact, the Jews of that day, they would think of Gentiles as these heathen scum, like these dirty, unclean outsiders that were too dirty to touch. They wanted nothing to do with them in so many different ways. They were literally unclean. And so when Paul says that you used to be strangers and foreigners, he means it literally. And yet, what Paul is saying here is that actually now, regardless of what kind of differences we bring to the table, we are one household. If you want to get a feel of what the tension would have been like between the Jews and the Gentiles in their day, maybe we can modernize it a little bit. Think about the tension that exists in our country right now when it comes to the topic of illegal immigrants and these mass deportations and the ICE workers and what they're doing. And probably even me just bringing this up starts to have your tension raised just a little bit, right? Because we know that there's so much obstinance here, there's so much in opposition between people that believe and think on different sides of this particular spectrum. Now, think about the fact that we are worshiping in the same room together with people that are probably on very different ends of the spectrum of what we believe should be happening when it comes to this particular topic. You can feel the tension. This was the kind of tension that existed for the Jews and the Gentiles, and yet they are being told, hey, hold on, now you are one household. And we're gonna see Paul expound on that here in just a second. But I think it's worth reminding ourselves before we get there, we've said it every week of this series so far. Unless you grew up with a Jewish heritage, with a Jewish culture, when Paul talks about these foreigners, these strangers, these gentiles, that's you. You are the Gentiles. I am the Gentile. We were the ones who had no claim to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. We were the outsiders, we were the ones that were not part of the family, and yet in Christ we have been brought into that family. We are one household. Now, regardless of our differences in the here and now, the same is true of us, and we're gonna see Paul continue to talk about this. In verse 20, he says, Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him, you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his spirit. He's saying we are being not just gathered together, but we are being built together as the very temple of God's Holy Spirit. As individuals, yes, this is important that we recognize that if we have said yes to Jesus, we carry with us the presence of God's Holy Spirit everywhere we go. But maybe even more importantly, collectively, together as the family of God, we are the dwelling place that He is building. Which means we are not just these disjointed stones that are being haphazardly stacked together. We are being carefully built together as the household of God. Which means he's not just trying to help us to learn what it is like to kind of be polite to one another, but then go back to being wildly different. He's like, no, hold on, we are one now. We have to learn to focus on what unites us far more than the things that divide us. I think Pastor Doug, he he gave such a great example of this last week as he was talking about his new daughter-in-law, Isabel. And he was like, guess what? Isabel is not a second-class miller. She's a miller, she's part of the family now. She gets all of the benefits that come with being part of that incredible family, but she also gets all of the responsibilities that come with being part of that family. The same is true for us being invited into this family of God. We get all of the benefits. We're gonna see Paul say this here in just a second, talking about these blessings, the inheritance that comes with that, but also the responsibility of being that small working model of new creation, that the rest of the world would look in and say, like, my goodness, there's just something different about those people because they have been marked with Christ. Again, he's not just stacking stones, he's building a dwelling place. You are those stones. I am that stone. And yet, again, just like the culture around us, we can get so caught up in our differences that maybe we learn to kind of tolerate one another, but not really live as that family of God. But here's what's really interesting to me. What you do not see Paul saying here is like, hey, Gentiles, welcome in. But guess what? That means that you have to fully assimilate into this family and become Jewish so that you can now follow Jesus. Obviously, we know that's true on some level, right? Because we are not Jewish. We don't practice a lot of the same customs and these cultural principles that Jewish people practice. In fact, Paul goes out of his way in the book of Galatians to make sure that we understand that the Galatian believers understand you do not have to culturally become Jewish in order to be a follower of Jesus. I would encourage you at some point to go and read Galatians 5 in particular, because if you start to understand the language that Paul is using in that particular chapter, the language that he uses is actually quite jarring for him to make this point. Don't do it now, you'll get distracted. I'm not gonna say exactly what he says now because then you won't think about anything else the rest of the sermon, but read it later. He's making a very strong point. Hey, you do not have to culturally become Jewish in order to follow Jesus. But the same is true for the Jewish believers. He's saying, hey, you don't have to give up your culture either. It's just that we have to learn to keep the main thing the main thing. There's so many places where Paul talks about this. In 1 Corinthians, he talks about it. In Romans 14, I think is one of the clearest examples where he is saying, hey, we're going to bring these ethnic, these cultural differences to the same table, but we cannot make that the sticking point between us. In that particular chapter, he's talking about uh whether you feel the freedom to eat meat, or if you feel strongly convicted that we should be vegetarian. He's like, okay, if you feel the freedom in Christ to eat the pork, well then my you're not you're not subject to that law anymore. You've been freed from that. Eat the pork if you want to eat the pork. But if you are with people that feel very strongly convicted that you should not be doing that, well, don't do it when you're with them. Your freedom is not more important than that relationship. You should be mutually submitting to one another. He also says, hey, those of you that feel strongly convicted that you should be vegetarian, you shouldn't be constantly after the meat eaters telling them how wrong they are. That's not the point of all of this. We are now united in Christ. And that might seem like such a silly distinction. Like, why does Paul spend an entire chapter talking about that? Well, it's because maybe for us, a lot of times, these kinds of dietary choices of like being vegan or vegetarian, many of you probably are, so you get this. In many instances, it's either like a dietary preference, or maybe there's like some animal cruelty convictions that are tied up within that choice. And there are instances certainly where it's like, no, this is actually a cultural or an ethnic thing, but for them at that time, it was completely cultural. It was completely an ethnic background choice that they would make. And so he's like, hey, you're going to bring these differences together. Here's the point that Paul is making in all of this. There are going to be differences, and that's okay. The point is not that we are meant to become this homogenized group of people that are all exactly the same. Actually, the family of God is multicultural, it is multi-ethnic, it is multicolored. That is a beautiful thing. We're gonna see Paul talk about that here in just a second. The bigger issue is that we have to make sure that we keep our eyes on the cornerstone, which is Jesus, the thing that unites us far more than the things that divide us. And then as we continue on in Ephesians 3, the first five verses of Ephesians 3, Paul essentially is kind of taking this pause to say, hey, what an honor it is that I, Paul, get the opportunity to be the one bringing this message of reconciliation to the Gentiles. And then he picks up with the same line of thinking in verse 6. He says, And this is God's plan. Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the good news share equally in the riches inherited by God's children. Both are part of the same body and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus. Again, Paul's like, We're the same body. There are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven. And friends, as most of us probably being Gentiles, we should be incredibly grateful that there are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven, because if there were, it would be us. We would be the ones being granted that citizenship, being grafted onto that tree, being adopted into the family, because that's not how it works in the f in the family of God. You get the same blessings, the same inheritance. And then if you skip down to verse 10, he says, God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence. This was his eternal plan, which means God wasn't at some point just like, all right, let's throw the Gentiles a bone. I guess they could be part of this thing. He's like, no, this was the plan all along. I said this in week one, if you were here with us, that the very mission, vocation of God's chosen people was to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, which meant that they were they were designed, they were chosen in order to serve the world around them. God bringing us in was always part of his eternal plan. And what does Paul say at the very beginning? He says, God's purpose in all of this was to use the church, that's us, to display his wisdom in its rich variety. This phrase rich variety, in other translations, it's it's translated as manifold. Now, if you're a car guy or a car girl, you know what a manifold does. A manifold, it brings like all of the cylinders all together in one pipe. It's many becoming one. If you're an actual mechanic, you're like, dude, you're an idiot. That there's so much more complicated than that. But essentially that's what a manifold does, right? Bringing all of these things together to one. Outside of the car world, that's what manifold means. It means many and various. And so it's it's his rich variety. It's God's manifold wisdom through our manifold witness. Meaning it's actually the rich variety that we bring together that actually makes it beautiful. And he says it's the witness, it's the display case to the world around us that we are able to come together under Christ when many people would be like, How in the world are you coexisting? How in the world can you bring such differences together where the rest of the world is like, that means you cannot coexist. And we're like, Yeah, but we keep our eyes On the Father who is in the room, we keep our eyes on Jesus. He is that cornerstone. Not only is that the display case, the witness to the other humans in the world, but it goes beyond that. He says, actually, that is that is the witness to the unseen powers and principalities in this world. It is the witness to the unseen powers that Jesus is already on the throne when we, in our rich variety, come together as one body, as one household of Jesus. Now I can understand if right about now we're like, man, this sounds really great in theory. But how in the world are we actually supposed to live this out in a country that is so divided and a culture that is full of such hostility? Well, I told you at the very beginning, it's because the Father is in the room, and this is what Paul's going to point to here as we continue on. In verse 14, it says, When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide and how long, how high and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Friends, this is such a rich few verses that Paul put together here. And he starts out by saying, When I think of all of this, when I think about what an uphill battle this is likely to be, as people with such differences, people that used to be hostile to one another, people that used to hate one another, thinking about them coming together as one household, the body of Christ, I fall to my knees and I pray to God. Paul is reminding us that what is happening here in this family, not just in the walls of this building that we're about to expand, but in the people here in us? What is happening here? It's too important. It is too holy, and it is too hard to be sustained by human effort and desire alone. And so he falls to his knees and he prays to God. When was the last time that you or I felt like we were in this pretty significant conflict with someone else, and what we turned to in that moment was prayer. Recognizing that it is only God's presence, it is only his power that is going to allow us to be his hands and feet in this situation. And so that's what Paul does. He falls to his knees in prayer, but what does he pray for? What he prays for is internal transformation. He prays for this renovation of the heart. But the only way we will stay at the same table is with transformed hearts. It's the only way that we will not also find ourselves in the same kind of mud slinging and backbiting and arguing and fighting that the culture around us finds themselves in. And so he prays for inner strength. He prays for God's Spirit to dwell deeply within us, to transform us from the inside out, that we would be deeply rooted in the love of God in a way that it would transform us, that we would understand the full scope, the width, the breadth, the height, the depth of his love. Because when we experience it fully, he says, then we will be complete. Then we will be who we were designed to be in Christ all along. And that power, he says, it comes from God and God alone. So I said it early on, friends, we are one household, but we have to remind ourselves, I'm gonna add this little caveat. We are one household built on the firm foundation of Jesus. It is only when we allow ourselves to be built on the firm foundation, the cornerstone that is Jesus, that we can stand in the midst of all of this. If we allow ourselves to be built on any other conviction, any other thing in this world at all, we will eventually crumble and collapse. But when our lives, when we collectively as a community remind ourselves that we are being built together on Christ, not just that we are being called to be polite to one another, not just that we are called to tolerate one another for an hour every weekend, but that his vision is that we would be a household, a healthy, thriving home where foreigners, those that were once foreigners are brought in. Those who were once strangers are actually now part of the family. Those that were once enemies are now co-heirs together in Christ. Those who were once outsiders are now with us, the very stones that are being built together as the temple, as the dwelling place of Jesus. So that we could be formed again into this display case to the world around us. Friends, it's not going to happen unless we remember what Paul said in Ephesians 2.16. Doug read this last week. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. The hostility that exists everywhere out there on social media has been put to death. It is meant to be put to death in this family. The hostility that we see all the time on the news is meant to be put to death in this family. The hostility in this country and around the world is meant to be put to death in this family. It is not who we are. But here's the problem. If we are not careful, God, or sorry, we absolutely can allow that hostility to be resurrected in us and we can bring it in from the outside. We have to let it stay dead on the cross. It's as if Paul is saying, hey, if we are praying that God will work his mighty power out there to bring healing out there, to bring unity out there, he's gonna first show us a mirror. And it's like, okay, great, we gotta start right here first. As the household of Jesus built on his firm foundation, because I truly believe when we are rooted in the love of Jesus, we will make room for all the people Jesus loves. When we ourselves are rooted in the love of Jesus, we will make room for all the people Jesus loves because he will give us these eyes to see the people that we once hated the way that he sees them. To recognize that they too carry the image of God. They were created in his image, to recognize that he loves them the same way that he loves us, that though we see them as outsiders now, they too are being invited in the same way that we are. But that only happens when we are deeply rooted in the love of Jesus. That the Father steps in and he's like, Okay, hang on, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. Let's calm it down a little bit. We have to stop living out of these false binaries. He's gonna come in like a good, good father. The heavenly father will be like, Hold on, hold on. You got it wrong there, and I need you to go make it right. I need you to apologize to your brothers and sisters. Maybe he will say, Hey, I need you to learn that actually you can speak kindly even when you're feeling these really strong emotions, or maybe from time to time he'll even say, Hey, I'm gonna need you to hold hands while you repair this relationship. Because the relationship between your brothers and sisters, it's too important for us to get this wrong. Why? Paul tells us in verse 20, now all glory to God, who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Friends, all of this is to bring God glory. And if it feels impossible in our day and age, again, be reminded it's actually through his power at work in us that he can do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine. But we have to learn to attune our hearts, to attune our ears to that still small voice of the Father saying, Hey, hey, guys, I don't want to have to mediate these relationships forever. And yet, if you will learn to live according to my spirit, I will play that role for you. So that the world around, with eyes, both the seen and the unseen, you will be declaring with the way that you live your lives that I am on the throne in the here and now. So, Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us to live exactly this kind of life individually and more importantly, collectively, that we we would be so transformed by your spirit, so so renovated from the inside out because of your love, because of your strength at work in us, because of our our desire to surrender ourselves to you, to reflect you to the world around us. Father, we want to be a beacon to the world around us of your love, of your coming kingdom that is breaking into the here and now. That will only happen when we learn to mutually submit to one another, to recognize that God in your family. Again, it's multi-ethnic, multicolored, multicultural. We get to bring our differences together, and that actually enriches this. And so, Father, I just ask that you would help us to learn what it looks like to keep the main thing, the main thing, to keep our eyes on you, to speak with kindness to one another, because we recognize your image at work in the lives of others as well. And God, ultimately, we pray that you would be glorified here at Plum Creek, but also in this valley because of your work through us. So, God, we make ourselves available. We love you. Same thing, we pray. Amen.