- God has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Disconnection, isolation, loneliness! All around us we see the breakdown of community as people have little or nothing in common, or don’t realise what they have in common. What we have in common makes us part of a community, whether it be a nation or a family or a congregation. It creates communion, the fellowship which gives us our sense of self, our worth and fulfillment as people, because we were created for life in community and the riches that it provides.
In the First World War two British soldiers looked so alike that they were taken as twins. But they were unrelated and had little in common apart from their rank as officers in the same unit of the army. They came from opposite ends of the social order. One came from a good family with good parents and the high status that came from his position in society and his share in a prosperous family business. He had a good education and was engaged to be married to a lovely girl. He had the prospect of a worthwhile, fulfilling, and enjoyable life. The only thing that he lacked was a really close friend. The other soldier was an orphan who grew up in the slums of Birmingham. He did not know who his father was and had nothing to do with his mother who migrated to Canada soon after he was born. He never went to high school but used his lively mind to make a living as a petty criminal. He was clever enough to realise that his criminal record would make it hard for him do well. He escaped a life of crime and the prospect of imprisonment by joining the army where he quickly became a good soldier. His daring exploits in trench warfare and his common touch soon earned him his rank as an officer.
These two soldiers became the best of friends in the bloody trenches of Flanders, blood brothers who backed each other and confided in each other. The soldier without a family told his dismal life story to his new friend, and quizzed him about his parents, his fiancée, his two younger brothers and his little sister, his friends and relatives, his family home, his education, and the family business. He quizzed him again and again and never grew tired of hearing about it all until he knew it all by heart. They eventually became such good friends that the soldier with the good family told him that if he were killed in battle his orphaned friend should exchange their dog tags and papers.He should take on his name and use it to impersonate him.
That’s what happened. The soldier without a family and a family inheritance swapped places with his friend who had died. He gained much more than a new name, a new identity. He gained a new life as part of a good family with loving parents, a beautiful fiancée, two sisters, and a little brother. He inherited a prosperous family business, a lovely family home and all its assets. All this became his at the death of his friend through his word and the gift of his name.
- Jesus has done something like this and even better than this by his common human life with us and his sacrificial death for us, so that we could share in his relationship and life with his heavenly Father. As we heard last Sunday he has involved us in a great exchange. He has swapped places with us. He took on a human name and gives us his name as God’s Son. He took on our troubles and pains, our guilt and shame, our suffering and death. He now offers us his place and life with God the Father and shares his status and privileges as God’s only Son with us. Through our union and communion with Jesus we have communion with God the Father. We have the same relationship with God the Father as Jesus. Through our communion with Jesus we are part of a new community, a heavenly community, at supernatural family where what belongs to Jesus belongs to us. That’s what Paul tells us when he says: God has called you into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
For me it’s a bit like my marriage with Claire. When I married her I did not just receive her as my wife and a common life with her. I joined her family and began to share in its life. Her father and mother became my father and mother. Her two sisters became my sisters. Her home became my home. By my union and communion with Claire I shared in her status and inheritance as a member of her family. That’s how it is with Jesus and us. Our communion, our fellowship with him, brings us into his communion with his heavenly Father. We share in his acceptance, his love, and delight in Jesus. What Jesus has he has in common with us.
- Well what do you all have in common from your communion with Jesus and his communion with his heavenly Father?
Paul mentions three things in our text. First, Paul mentions the grace from God our Father (1:3). Since God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you all, he graciously gives you all the things that belong to Jesus, every good and perfect gift. Because God the Father has adopted you as his dear children, you can be sure that he accepts you and wants to answer your prayers. He withholds nothing from you. Your relationship with him does not depend on your worth or your achievements, but on his generosity and his pleasure in you as a disciple of Jesus. He is as pleased with you as he is with Jesus. He loves you as much as he loves Jesus. He wants you to receive what belongs to Jesus as his Son and heir. The riches of his grace is given to you in Christ Jesus (1:4). From the fullness of his grace you all receive one blessing after another (John 1:16). So receive your common divine inheritance as a free gift for your enjoyment.
Second, Paul tells you that you are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people (1:2), so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:8). You share in the holiness of Jesus and borrow his holiness as a gift from him. He alone is holy, the holy One of God. In yourselves you not at all holy, but you are all holy in him. Through faith in him and his holy word God makes and keeps you holy. Through his holy body and blood you have holy communion with God the Father. Like the light of the sun that shines on you, Jesus covers you with his holiness, so that you are as holy as he is holy, completely holy, holy through and through. His holiness protects you from Satan and all the powers of darkness. By his holiness you are blameless in God’s eyes, as long as you rely on Jesus, and are kept as faultless as Jesus for life with God in heaven. Jesus does not just cleanse you by washing you in the waters of baptism, but also sanctifies you, together with his whole church, to present you to himself and his Father in splendor, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Eph 5:26-27). You are all saints, holy people, who are called to live holy, heavenly lives with Jesus and the angels here on earth. So enjoy your holy communion with Jesus and each other in the communion of saints.
Third, Paul assures you that since you have been enriched in every way in Jesus (1:5), you do not lack any spiritual gift (1:7). Since you have God as your holy Father and his Son as your holy brother, you have the gift of the Holy Spirit. You have access to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that enriches you spiritually, the Spirit that provides you with every spiritual gift that you need for your life and work as a saint, the Spirit that supplies all the spiritual gifts that we need as a congregation of holy people. It is true that you may lack many things that you need for your earthly life. You may feel that in yourselves and with your own resources you are unequipped for what God has called you to do. But that does not matter, nor should it deter you. All the spiritual gifts that you need are there for you in Jesus. They are yours for your asking and receiving as you need them. So enjoy the great spiritual riches at your disposal by your communion with Jesus as you receive his body and blood today.
- Well, my dear fellow saints, what do we all have in common as a community of faith in Jesus? We have access to the boundless, lavish grace of God the Father. We all share in the holiness of Jesus, God’s holy Son. We all have the gift of the Holy Spirit and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit for our life and work as God’s holy people. We therefore have good reason to thank God that he has called us into the communion and fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
