Hi everyone and welcome to Monday’s Podcast – my name is Mick Woodhead and with my wife Tricia, we lead this amazing church at STC Sheffield. Today is the beginning of Vision Week at STC – a week when we, as a church family look towards the Vision Jesus has given to us for 2018. This year we invited others to ‘Join Us in Doing Good’, and many have done just that – in 2018 we build on this as we say ‘Join Us in Building Community.’

If you are part of the church here at Crookes please make sure you have taken time to watch the Vision 2018 video as individuals, families, cell/cluster groups. Also, please do take time if you can to listen to the Vision Sunday sermon in church or through the website.

These podcasts offer an opportunity to draw close to Jesus through a Bible-based thought for the day from one of our STC team, followed by a prayer and worship song. You can also read the whole Bible passage for the day on the Podcast link on our website. However, we know many of you cannot always find time to read the Bible passage as you listen on your way to or from work or on the school run. So from today you can also listen to the Bible passage for the day. Keep listening at the end of the worship song and you will hear the reading – STC Podcasts really are a great discipleship resource, why not pass it on to a friend so they can be blessed by Jesus?

REFLECTION

Join Us in Building Community – when our children were young (all grown up now with children of their own) there was a song they would sing from their Sunday kids groups ‘I am the church, you are the church , we are the church together, all who follow Jesus all around the world yes we’re the church together’. Perhaps a bit dated now – not quite Hillsong! – but these words are still so true. It went on to say ‘The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place; the church is the people.’

Church is people, and more particularly people in community. In these Vision Week Podcasts we shall be considering Paul’s teaching in Ephesians chapters 1 & 2; seeing again how the Bible is so relevant for today’s busy, modern world.

Ephesus was the London of its day. A major trading and business centre with a vibrant, busy 24/7 harbour; a cosmopolitan city with many people from many nations gathering there. Paul set up a base there for two years, planted a church and spread the message of Jesus throughout the region, planting other small churches, cluster size, probably meeting in homes . This letter to the Ephesians was read out and studied in these communities.

Today’s reading is Ephesians 2: 11-16. Paul summarises this gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone and describes the nature and role of the church in God’s eternal plan. He says there are two options-

Firstly,, life without Jesus …

‘outsiders to God’s ways’ (v.11, MSG)

‘separate from Christ’ (v.12a)

‘foreigners to the covenants of the promise’ (v.12b)

‘without hope and without God in the world’ (v.12c)

‘far away’ (v.13)

separated by the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ (v.14b)

Secondly, life with Jesus …

‘brought near through the blood of Christ’ (v.13)

‘reconciled to God through the cross’ (v.16)

It is Jesus who makes the difference. We are made alive with Christ (v.5). We are raised up with Christ (v.6). We are saved through faith in Christ (v.8). It is in Christ Jesus that we are brought near (v.13).

The only command that Paul gives us in this passage is simply to ‘remember’ this amazing transformation that Jesus brings to our lives (vv.12–13). So often we can forget that being a Christian is all about what Jesus has done for us, and get caught up in what we are doing for him!