What Does Family Look Like?

When my husband and I had our third child, we suddenly realized that we had switched from man-to-man defense... to zone defense. No longer could Tim take one kid and I take the other and deal with issues that cropped up. Now it was me propping a screaming baby on my shoulder while I changed a toddler's dirty diaper while Tim cleaned up throw-up in another room from a sick child. Later, it became me donning my justice robes and hearing the defense and the prosecution and the witness as each child sobbed out their story with pointing fingers and angry faces. It became "Fighter to your corner!" and doing the ten-count to see who had actually won the round.

This is parenting 101. It would be nice if my children could always be angelic cherubs who love to share... they are not. They have moments of sweetness, so much sweetness. And then, there are the moments of hurt feelings and shouting matches. Somehow, we as parents must figure out how to bring the feelings and emotions of three injured individuals together into one circle on the floor and work out peace, work out unity, work out what family looks like.

This morning, the Lord led me out of John over to Ephesians, and He kept me there so long and with such a heavy burden, that I decided to focus there today, and will go back to John tomorrow, if He wants me to.

Paul gives a sort of... mission statement for his personal ministry in Ephesians 3:7-9. He says: "I am a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of His power. Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, Who created all things." 

Sorting through that, I picked out a couple of things: 1.) Paul is a servant of the Gospel of Christ. 2.) He is called to preach mainly to the Gentiles (similarly, Peter was called to preach to the Jews, although both preached to all), and 3.) He administered this gospel.

Administered? What's the mean? Today, the message of the Gospel is nicely laid out in 66 books, sometimes with a leather binding and a ribbon bookmark, and there's usually a table of contents to check in case you don't have the 66 books memorized in order. When Paul was ministering, he was still actively writing many of those New Testament books -- administering the message of the gospel, clearing it up with order and precision so that people could understand "this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God."

So, with that said, Paul brings attention to the post-resurrection church, the church that is still in the process of forming its own mission, and he says: "[God's] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms..." (Ephesians 3:10).

Wait... What?!

Read that again: God's intent was that now, through the church (spoiler: that's us, if we are followers of Christ), the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. 

Who are the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms? Flip two pages to the right (in my Bible, it's two pages): "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12). Now flip back a few pages to Ephesians 1:20-21: "...which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion..."

The rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms are spiritual beings. Angels. Demons.

The church, the body of Christ, is supposed to be a manifold witness... to angels and demons.

Look at the word "manifold." My footnotes say that it means "multifaceted," like the beautiful facets of a diamond, many, varied, each reflecting the others in order to enhance the beauty of the entire thing.

Is that what the church looks like right now? 

Is it?

Paul goes on in Ephesians 4:11-13 to unroll some gifts that people within the church are given: "It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

You know, over this pandemic, I've seen people's spiritual gifts come to the forefront. The helpers. The administrators. The pastors and teachers. The prophets. The wise and discerning. The intercessors and prayer warriors. I've seen people step into these roles and run with them, encouraging and exhorting the church, building us up during a time of intense shaking.

What have I seen over the last week? Pastors pointing fingers at other pastors. Prophets demanding apologies from other prophets. Intercessors and prayer warriors acknowledging loss of hope as the darkness closes in (this is not universal, but certainly increasingly noticeable, enough that the Lord laid it on my heart this morning to highlight this).

What witness is this kind of church showing to the angels and demons who are watching and witnessing? How are those diamond facets that show God's wisdom reflected in the church looking?

"Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, become mature..."

How do we reach unity when we are clinging whole-heartedly to "the way I see it?" Because the way I see it is very likely not the way you see it. 

Unless we can both agree to look at Christ. If I squint through my lens at Christ, and you squint through your lens at Christ -- rather than seeing each other and our differences, we see the same God, the same leader, the same Head. Then the whole body, the whole church, "joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Ephesians 4:16).

Unity is not a catch-phrase. It's not a throw-away statement: We have to put every ounce of weight behind each one of these words: "We must be unified in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God." We need to live into this, not just toss the words out as a half-hearted "coulda shoulda woulda."

Why? Because Christ is our Head, and we are a witness to the heavenly realms. It staggers me that the entirety of heaven and hell is watching us, and judging our effectiveness by how unified we are in Christ.

I'm going to be a little brutal here, in hopes that we can wake up! We're not there today. We are reeling in our corners, nursing our grievances, drawing our lines in the sand and daring each other to cross them. 

Paul says of a church who reaches unity in the faith: "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming." What a picture! It reminds me of Psalm 1:4: "Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away." The writer calls this type of instability wicked!

Lest we forget... the church should not be wicked. The Word of God is quite insistent that this not be the case.

In contrast, Paul goes on to talk about how the church should look: "Speaking the truth in love... " Truth without love is judgy. Love without truth is wimpy. They are two equal parts of a whole, and neither should stand by itself. "Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is... Christ. From Him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Ephesians 4:15-16).

Lines and circles were what I saw today, lines in the sand that created dividing barriers from each other, from unity. Circles in the sand where we come together and speak the truth in love, where we invite each other inside those boundaries to find communion with each other, to pray for each other, to use our gifts for the benefit of each other. 

That's the place where the heavenly realms can see the beauty of the diamond. Right now, it appears that we the church have morphed back into carbon.

Here's a reminder, diamonds only form under intense heat and pressure. So rather than letting the heat and pressure that is all around us divide us, break us, and destroy us... let's use that pressure to become a manifold, multifaceted reflection of the glory and wisdom of God that is a witness to the heavenly realms.