Dave was at the pinnacle of success, he had it all: a loving wife, a beautiful house, a blended family, and leadership of a vast army of employees who executed his every command. That all changed late one afternoon when Dave met another woman, a woman who was not his wife, yet a woman he wanted none the less. Thinking to himself that no one would get hurt, Dave took what he wanted, ignoring what he knew was right, and did what he pleased. After all, who could possibly be hurt by one night of indiscretion?  Unfortunately for Dave, the collateral damage of sin is far reaching. Following in his father’s footsteps, one of Dave’s sons assaulted his own step-sister. Dave was angry, but did nothing, possibly to avoid admitting his own hypocrisy. Outraged at Dave’s lack of action, another of Dave’s sons killed his guilty brother to defend his sister’s honor. Again, Dave was angry, but did nothing. Emboldened by his father’s lack of action, the same son began a hostile take over of the vast empire Dave had established, a revolt which ultimately ended in the son’s untimely murder by one of Dave’s employees. In the end, one night of indiscretion would result to the death’s of three of Dave’s children, the assault of Dave’s daughter, two attempted hostile take-over’s by Dave’s own family, and the weakening of the Dave’s empire. Dave, or as he is more commonly known from the Bible, King David, forgot one important fact: sin affects us not just as individuals, but as a community. King David’s life was a fulfillment of the word brought by the prophet Nathan: “The sword shall never depart from your family.” David’s sin in 2 Samuel 11 with Bathsheba affected not only David, but all who had contact with Him. Sin smashed David’s family, splintering it into pieces. Within two generations, David’s entire kingdom would be split in two. Three hundred years later, David’s kingdom would not even exist, but be a distant memory of the exiles in Babylon.

Even today, sin continues to shatter us as people. We really need go no further than the evening news to understand that sin has affected us not just as single persons, but it has slit us apart as the human race. School shootings, acts of terrorism, and the nation wide increase of murder, assault, and theft all bear testimony to the fact that sin has fragmented relationships and the ways we interact with each other. And it all began in the garden. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, their perfect relationship with each other was cracked.  They realized they were naked and clothed themselves, not because they were concerned about being naked in front of God, but concerned about being naked in front of each other. The perfect relationship and intimacy which they had enjoyed was broken to pieces, and we experience the same brokenness today. Our sin damages our marriages, causing us to act selfishly and maliciously, we backstab co-workers, despise siblings, and lose patience while parenting. Parents and children, husbands and wives, split up and cannot reconcile. Even the church is not immune, as we see in the multitude of church splits and divisions. The harmony of human relationships in the Garden of Eden has been lost; sin has splintered us and shattered our very world.

It is because of this interpersonal shattering due to sin that the passage we are looking at this morning must be examined not in the context of individuals but in the context of the human race, of us as a people. If we approach verses 3-10 from the perspective of individuals, verses 8-10 make very little sense in the flow of chapter 1. In verse 4 Paul discussed election; in verse 5 he discussed predestination and adoption. Then in verse 7 Paul discusses redemption. Election, predestination, adoption, redemption; we automatically expect Paul to next discuss the blessings of sanctification and glorification. Instead, he seems to go off on a random tangent about the headship of Christ in eternity.

But verses 3-10 are written not from the perspective of individuals, but from the perspective of the corporate people of God. Look at verses 3-10. In verse 3 “He chose us, the we should be holy and blameless.” Verse 5 “he predestined us for adoption.” Verse 7 “in Him we have redemption through his blood.” Paul is talking about us, we, the body of believers. It is only in the context of community, a people who have been shattered and splintered from one another that verses 8-10 make sense. Paul IS talking about our glorification and sanctification, but his focus is not on individuals but on us as a body and the actions of God to mend our brokenness as a people. Paul’s point in verses 8-10 is two fold: First, even though we are shattered, we as a community will be glorified, thus we have Hope in our Future Harmony. Second, even though we are shattered, we as a community are being sanctified, and so we Celebrate our Current Community. Despite our brokenness, we have Hope in our Future Harmony and Celebrate our Current Community.

Let’s look first at our Hope in Future Harmony. Paul indicates in verse 9-10 that our hope lies in the fact that God has a plan and God has revealed that plan.

God’s plan is laid out in verse 10. “The plan, for the fullness of time, is to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The key phrase is that God is working to ‘unite’ all things in him, that is Christ. The word translated “unite” literally means to sum up. It gives the idea of gathering or reuniting. When we sum something up we take many and make it into one. In the context of our brokenness because of sin, summing up is an appropriate idea because it involves taken the many broken pieces and putting them back together, gathering and reuniting and summing them up as one in Christ.

When my grandmother passed away several years ago my mother asked if she could have my grandmother’s tea cup collection. For as long as I could remember my grandmother would display her tea cup collection on the wall of her dining room. Whenever we as grandchildren would run through the dining room you could hear the tea cups on the wall clattering, which would often bring shouts from parents to quit running. My mom had grown quite attached to that collection, so she asked if she have them after her mother passed away. My Uncle had already taken the tea cup collection, but when he realized my mom wanted it he shipped them to her. My mom was extremely excited to receive the tea cups, but she was utterly disappointed when she opened the box. My Uncle had done such a bad job of packing the tea cups that over half of the tea cups and platters in the box were broken. When my mother expected to open to a box of tea cups, all she found was pieces.

The same is true of us. We expect relationships built on intimacy and trust, but all we get instead is broken pieces. But now, Paul tells us that God plans to put those pieces back together. That which has been shattered into a million different pieces by the affects of sin, God plans to unite in Christ.  Instead of a box full of splintered pieces, we will be reunited, summed up in Christ, along with things in heaven and things on the earth. When the fullness of time, the end of days, comes in the Future, God plans to restore all of creation to its original Harmony. God plans to restore us as a people, eliminating the tarnish of sin which exists on our relationships.

Unfortunately, Paul is not saying that EVERY relationship we have will be repaired. Sadly, Paul is not preaching a universal salvation where all humanity ends up restored in heaven. Verses 3-10 of this chapter all explain the blessings that have been given to those who are “in Christ.” It is those who are “in Christ” that are referred to when Paul says “us or we.” Even here, when Paul says that God plans “to unite all things in Christ” he is referring to those people who are “in Christ” and to creation in general, both things in heaven and things on the earth. The truth is that some people are not “in Christ” and will not find themselves in a perfect restored community with Christ and his Body of believers. They will be summed up under the authority of Christ, but they will continue to experience brokenness and separation from Christ and those who believe in Him. That’s a painful thought when we realize that many of those damaged relationships we have now will never be repaired but be eternally separated and broken. God’s plan is not to undo every affect of sin, but to remove the brokenness those of us “in Christ” exhibit as a people.

No longer will we be shattered from one another by selfishness, backbiting, hatred, anger, distrust, or sin in general. Instead, those of us “in Christ” will have harmony with each other. We will be made into a perfect community, the perfect body of Christ, a holy temple in the Lord, which Paul says in Ephesians 2. We will be the perfect, spotless, and holy bride of Christ of Ephesians 5, the restored and perfected Church, the body of believers. We will truly be WE. We will be summed up in Christ in the perfect harmony of the Garden of Eden. God has a plan to unite us and all creation once again in Christ. He has a plan for our Future Harmony.

But Paul tells us in verse 9 that not only does God have a plan for Future Harmony, he has also revealed this plan to us. In the course of Paul’s argument in verse 8-10, it is this idea of revelation which is his main focus. While Paul rejoices in what God’s plan is, He rejoices even more so that God has revealed that Plan because if he had not revealed the plan, we would have no way of knowing it. Paul says in verse 9 that God’s will is a mystery to us; it is unknown except in the mind of God.  But God has not left it as a mystery to us; He has not left us in the dark but has told us exactly what he plans to do. Even here in Ephesians he has inspired the Apostle Paul to tell us what the plan is, a plan for Future Harmony, and that gives us hope.

There are many things that God does in our world that we do not know or understand. We may never fully comprehend why God allowed the massacre at Virginia Tech or other school shootings. We may never know why God allowed Hurricane Katrina to devastate the Gulf Coast. We may never know why God allows such awful things to happen in our world, but through the words of the Apostle Paul we do know this: the chaos, disorder, and brokenness of our world will end. God has revealed to us that He has a plan. The world is not out of His control. In Christ God will in the Future restore the Harmony of our world. When we open our box of tea cups and find only pieces we have the hope that God will put one day put those pieces back together into a perfect community which will exist as the church, the body and bride of Christ for all eternity.  

It often seems that no matter how hard we try in our families, we only find brokenness. We read books on marriage, attend parenting seminars, we give it all the effort we have and yet the brokenness of sin continues, we still only have pieces. But Paul tells us that we can take hope it that fact that while no, we cannot always put the pieces back together, God can and will put those pieces back together in Christ. He will restore harmony in the form of an eternal perfect community fellowshipping with one another and will Christ for all eternity. When marriages continue to struggle, parenting seems impossible, and we remain selfish and broken, we take Hope in a Future Harmony where there will be no brokenness. Our hope in a Future Harmony allows us to press on, despite our current brokenness, looking forward to the perfect community we will one day experience.

Two weeks ago, Boston once again hosted its famous Boston Marathon. Over the last couple of decades the runners of Ethiopia and Kenya have dominated marathons like the Boston marathon so much so that they are simply expected to win. I once heard of a Kenyan runner who was asked what his secret was, what was it that enabled him to run so far so fast? His answer was surprising. He said from the moment he started the race he focused on the sprint at the end. His focus on the end gave him the will to continue.

This is how we are to live in our relationships with each other. When it seems as though all we experience is that brokenness of our relationships, we look to the end of the race, the end of time, the summing up of all the broken pieces in Christ. We will once again have a box of perfect tea cups, when in Christ we will experience perfect relationships with one another. When we cannot seem to communicate with our spouses, when bosses and teachers seem to take joy in making us miserable, and when our children choose to do whatever they want regardless of what we tell them or how we discipline them, we find the strength to continue despite ongoing brokenness knowing that we have Hope in a Future Harmony.
 
Not only do we have Hope in Future Harmony, we also Celebrate our Current Community. Again, God has a plan for our Current Community and God has revealed that plan.

While we have a Hope in Future Harmony, we must realize that not only is there a future aspect of God’s plan, there is a present aspect as well. Paul tells us in verses 9 and 10 that this plan of God’s is a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ. While the phrase “fullness of time” indicates that the final completion of God’s plan lies in the future, it does not mean that God is not at work now. It is not as if God is waiting until the very end of time to finally do something. He is already working our His plan in our world now to put the pieces back together.

Paul says specifically that God’s summing up or uniting of all things takes place in Christ. It is no accident that verse 8-10 immediately follows verse 7. In verse 7, which we looked at the last time we studied this passage, Paul speaks of God delivering us from the prison of sin. Here in verses 8-10, it is that same sin which imprisons us that also shatters us, splitting us apart from one another and from creation. In order for God to reverse the splintering effects of sin, sin has to be dealt with, and God dealt with it in verse 7 with the death of Christ on the cross. Not only is it the blood of Christ which frees us from the prison of sin, it is through the blood of Christ that we have begun to experience the reunion of a shattered people. Today, right now, right here, our gathering as the people of God to worship is evidence that the plan of God to unite all things in Christ has begun. It certainly is not perfect, but it has begun. In Christ, we have been made into one body, the church, and that community is slowly being sanctified and made holy and will one day experience the Future Harmony which we already discussed.  In Christ, God is already at work to accomplish His plan. It is not yet finished, but it is already in process.

This too is the mystery that God has revealed to us. God has revealed to us that He is at work already. But while he revealed to us His plan for a Future Harmony because it was unknown, He has revealed to us our Current Community because it is unexpected.

By the time of Christ, David’s Kingdom was simply a bedtime story that Israelite parents told their children. Yet, throughout the Old Testament prophets, God repeatedly spoke to His people about the future reuniting of the shattered people of Israel, the return of the King to sit on David’s throne. The Israelites kept hope in the promises of God to bring that Future Harmony. Joel, Isaiah, Obadiah, and many more spoke of the restoration of the kingdom and the fact that this kingdom, a perfect kingdom would even include Gentiles. One day, a light would shine on the Gentiles and they would come to Mount Zion, the city of God. Every Jew looked forward to such a time of future harmony.

Yet to suggest to a Jew that prior to that future harmony they would be in a spiritual current community here and now with Gentiles would have been met with disbelief. Why did Israel need a new present community? Israel was a community, let the Gentiles create their own community! The Jews would rather have had their farm animals as part of their community than Gentiles! They wouldn’t even eat with them. Sure, restore Israel and bring the Gentiles, but create a New Israel that included Gentiles. That’s Ridiculous! And yet, however unexpected it may have been, God did just that: he united Jews and Gentiles in a spiritual community here on earth under the authority of Jesus Christ. That is the whole point of chapter 2 of Ephesians: God brought us Gentiles, who were aliens from the covenant people, and made us one with Jewish believers in Christ. We are one body, one church, one community.  

And all too often we approach our current community in the same way as the Jews. We forget that the mystery which God has revealed to us is unexpected and that we do not know who those people will be that God calls into this community. The Jews did not expect Gentiles to join them in a community and we often make that same mistake. We assume that we know who is not going to come into the community. A Jew assuming a Gentile would never become part of Israel would be like us assuming that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims or atheists cannot come to Christ. If, however, we understand that God is uniting us, unexpectedly, into a community in Christ then that God MAY call them into community with us. Again, Paul is not advocating universal salvation. He is not leading us to conclude that Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims or atheists ARE a part of the community, he is pointing out that they MAY become part of the community. Not all Gentiles came to God, but the Jews assumed and expected that no Gentiles would come to God. We too forget Christ broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile and he can do the same today between us and others. We should be treating everyone as those whom God may call rather than treating them as those God has already condemned to Hell. Rather than acting as if they could never come to the community, we should be active in invitation, working to bring people into the community whom God may call.

On a more personal level, we often treat unsaved family members and coworkers as if they could never come to Christ. True, it is sad to think that some relationships, perhaps with estranged children or close relatives may never be repaired, but there is also the possibility that such relationships may be restored.

I myself have two uncles, one on each side of the family, who rejected Christ and the community of the church. My mom’s brother, the one who sent the broken tea cups, shattered his own life, leaving his wife of thirty years, leaving the church where he was a pastor. He married a woman who was clearly not “in Christ” and became pastor of a Unitarian/Universalist church, as he would say, guiding others on their quest for “what is truth.” He rejected Christ as the only means of salvation and was becoming more interested in Eastern religions. In many ways, it seems like our relationship with him would be eternally broken. But after several years of marriage, my uncle’s second wife abandoned him, and while this was devastating, it was just the wake up call he needed. God convicted him of his sin, causing him to mend the broken relationship with his first wife. He even moved nearer to his first wife so that he could take care of her while she struggled with cancer. He was fired from his church in Maine because he began preaching that Christ was the only means of salvation. The relationship that seemed forever broken was put back together. My uncle is now a part of the community in Christ. On the other hand, my dad’s brother has never returned to Christ. His life remains broken by the ravages of alcohol, but that does not mean we as a family have given up. We understand the unexpected nature of God’s plan, a plan which brought my mom’s brother back. We work towards reconciliation with my dad’s brother because it is possible that God may call him back as well. We must realize that we do not know who God will bring into our community, and so we work to invite everyone, seeking those who are far off that God may call.

Not only do we act as though no one else can come into the community, we often show that we have forgotten our current community in the way we treat other churches and denominations, as though they are not part of the body of Christ. We are one with many of them and yet we treat them as outsiders, as though we were still separated and divided. We even do the same with each other right here in Cornerstone. While we enjoy being here on a Sunday morning, we forget to celebrate that current community as soon as we leave the sanctuary. We fail to be involved in Shepherd Groups or Growth groups such as the women’s or youth ministries. Instead we pitch community to the wind and act as divided individuals. But if we truly understand that God is uniting us in Christ and that we have already been united into a community of believers, we would get involved in Shepherd Groups, we should go to the Sunday night prayer meeting this evening, we would go to youth group or women’s Bible studies, not because we feel we need another Bible study but because we understand that we are a community. We are the body of Christ, the church. We are his community and He is uniting us in Himself. Not only do we invite people into the community, we involve ourselves in the community because we understand that Christ has made us one. We are a community in Christ, God is already repairing our brokenness; we are being united to each other. So let’s stop acting as splintered people and instead celebrate our current community, getting involved in the community of the church, inviting others to that community, because in Christ, God is making us one.

We began this morning with the story of King David, a man’s whose life and the lives of those around him were shattered by the effects of sin. Within four hundred years, the line of Kings would end. But then, Jesus Christ, the eternal son of David appeared. And as he ascended into heaven after defeating sin and death on the cross and rising again he declared “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” The King has returned. Our King Jesus Christ is Reigning, and he has begun to repair our brokenness just as he repaired the line of David. And because of that, we Celebrate our Current Community as the people of the King, looking forward in Hope to that Future Harmony people of the King will be perfectly summed up in Christ.