Within Ephesians chapter 2 Paul states that it is grace through faith that you are saved not by works. Then Paul once again brings up that Jesus came to bring unity. Jesus came to break down the dividing walls and bring all into one new humanity building all together to become a dwelling place for God’s Spirit. We together become a temple wherein God communes with humanity.

In Ephesians one of Paul’s biggest messages is unity. In Chapter 1 Paul states that one of the things Christ did was to bring a unity to all things. Unity is bringing together, uniting around one common purpose. What purpose is that? Bringing people to know Christ. How do we do that? Paul talks about that later in Ephesians, we do that through love.

Taking the new path that God has given to us might be hard. It might be easier to go back and do what we have always done. This was the challenge facing the first churches, this pull to keep doing what they had done before. But the cross called them to go in a different direction. We as a church need to pray for God’s direction and then not grow weary in going that direction.

In Genesis chapter 6 we reach a point in the story that usually doesn’t make much sense. But if we look at it in light of the 5 chapters before and the many chapters after we see that evil has come in the shape of selfishness. There is an inward turn. Mankind is wanting to make a name for themselves. That isn’t the original design. That is why Paul insist that we have a renewing of our mind. We can’t worship self and worship God.

As we look at the story of Cain and Able we see that the attitude of the heart matters. If we aren’t careful then the attitude can turn into sin. And just as the rest of the creation story has stated relationships are important. We might think “well I’ve never killed my brother” but Jesus said if we say “raca” to our brother we face the same judgment. How is our heart attitude in our relationships with God and with others?

The Tree of Life is significant within the Biblical text. The Garden of Eden is also significant within the Biblical text. There are references all through the Bible. Even Jesus said He is the living water and the vines from the tree tended by His Father. When we are faced with the decision to give God control of our lives we still chose between the two trees. What choice are we really making with our actions? Is there fruit?

After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and admit to it God announces what will now be because of the choices they made. There was now going to be a break in relationship. To continue to live into this break in relationship is part of original sin itself. Sometimes though we tend to naturally lean towards this even though it wasn’t what we were created for. Thankfully in a relationship with Jesus we can repair relationships not only with God but with creation and humanity.

When we come to the third chapter of Genesis we hear the story of the fall. The fall is what brings Original Sin into the world which brings personal sin into the world. But what is Original sin? What is it that we do naturally? We make ourselves the god of our own life, notice the little g on that. We place ourselves on the throne that was never meant to be ours. But we can make the choice to allow God to have the throne in our lives and have completely control over our lives.

God created all of creation to sing praises to Him. Mankind was to tend to the earth to help it sing praises. God created all of creation to live in unity and harmony and after 6 days of creating out of nothing what God created was good, meaning it was fulfilling the purpose of creation. So how do we get back there? By purposely working on unity and harmony with our relationship with God and all of God’s creation. Simply put we are asked to love.

We tend to think change is an enemy. We don’t embrace change and sometimes for good reason. But change is not the enemy. Change happens and sometimes God directs us to those changes. Jesus told us to be adaptable to the way the Spirit moves. You can’t put new wine into old wine skins that don’t move, the new wine skin should be flexible.

We look at the story of the prodigal son as a story about us. As much as we may be like the prodigal son sometimes our actions are more like the older brother. We feel that someone has sinned against the Father and therefore us so someone needs to pay. Or sometimes in others being celebrated we feel unloved, but that isn’t the case. Grace is freely given and we are loved by the Father.

God called Moses and planned on using who he was and the things Moses had done to bring about glory for God and salvation for God’s chosen people. We tend to make the same excuses as Moses but really in those excuses we tell God he doesn’t know what He is doing.

In Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well we can learn a few lessons with interactions and conversations. Conversations are important, they can change the future of those who have the conversations and others

Over the course of this sermon series we hav looked at the Biblical vision of the church, and are now looking at the people. Today we look at a family that is outside the church and what they feel about the church. In the story of Zacchaeus we see the story of how Jesus interacts with those on the edges of society. We see that Jesus sees him for who they are in God’s eyes not for the way the crowd sees him. As a church it is easy for us to go along with the crowd but we have to put ourselves in the place of Jesus, as seeing people as God sees them.

Jesus’ interaction with the Syrophoenician woman changed his heart. Matthew referred to her as a Canaanite woman reminding the Jewish that were hearing this story that she was someone they usually wouldn’t have interacted with. And Jesus interacts with her and listens to her heart. Jesus was kind of harsh at first but then found out that her heart had more faith than he had seen in even the Jewish he interacted with. Because of her faith He gives her a seat at the table.

In response to being accused of welcoming and eating with the sinners Jesus responds with the parable of the sheep. Jesus starts out “what if one of you…” making this a personal question. What would you do to bring back someone whom you love? We tend to see outsiders as the enemy, we forget that those lost are loved by God. Loved so much that while they were still sinners Christ died for them.

The key to the church is recognizing the authority and power given to us.  We've been handed the keys, now we need to use them.

Proverbs 31 paints a wonderful picture of womanhood, but how many women feel like they fit the mold created in Proverbs 31? I would say not many. Maybe the most important part of that whole proverb is that a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. We aren’t all going to look like the woman in Proverbs 31. There will be different seasons in our lives. Much like the story of Mary and Martha, there will be a time God calls us to service and a time when God calls us to just sit at His feet. The key is being a person who listens to God.

The Church is described in the Bible as the Body of Christ. So we as the Body of Christ are called to continue on the mission of Christ described in Isaiah 61 which he quotes after being baptized. Jesus fulfilled this mission by being love here on earth. We are asked to do the same.

We are now starting into a sermon series called “These Are the People in Your Neighborhood”. If we think back to childhood we might remember a nursery rhyme where we clasped our hands together and said “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.” We sometimes have to ask the questions what is the church and who are the people? This week we start with that question of what is the church? The church is described multiple ways in the New Testament including New Israel. We find in 1 Peter that Peter likens Christians, the Church as a chosen people. But to understand why Peter does that we have to understand the relationship between God and Israel, and that takes us back to the beginning.