Guest Speaker Pastor Jesse Ramer: Our Identity in Christ: Members of His Family
Message
Our Identity in Christ: Members of His Family
Ephesians 2
I hope and pray that you all had a fun, festive, and safe Fourth of July celebrating our Independence from British rule and had some time to reflect on the privilege it is to be an American citizen. I hope you also had some time reflecting on our greater citizenship in Jesus’ eternal kingdom, especially in light of the alienation that we had from God before our being in Jesus.
In your relationship with God, have you tried to stay as merely a citizen of his kingdom, or have you leaned in and opened yourself up to having a more intimate relationship with him?
Citizenship in the kingdom is not the only privilege that believers in Jesus enjoy, but as we continue to explore Ephesians 2 we will see that we have been included in God’s family (Ephesians 2:19). While citizenship offers us some privileges, it does not necessarily offer us the intimacy that we so crave, but being in God’s family offers us intimacy with God himself. We were once enemies of God and yet now we have been adopted into his family. In your relationship with God, have you tried to stay as merely a citizen of his kingdom, or have you leaned in and opened yourself up to having a more intimate relationship with him?
Not only are we invited to have intimacy with God himself but we have been given a new extended family of fellow believers in Jesus. In what ways have you experienced the gift of being Jesus’ wider family? But family can also be really hard, how have you experienced challenges or even downright hurt from our fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus? How do you think Jesus would respond to the hurt and pain that you have experienced from our “brothers and sisters” in the faith?
In Him,
Jesse