We will be starting a new sermon series this Sunday called “In One Body”. The title comes from a line in Ephesians 2, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” 
This series continues our exploration of the concept of “the Body of Christ” in Scripture, and will walk us through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The letter to the Ephesians, in fact, may not have been a letter just to the Ephesians, but to the Ephesians and all of the Mediterranean churches that surrounded Ephesus. It marks a significant point in Christian history, the point at which the Church began to think of itself as a world-wide Body rather than as a loose confederation of several churches. The organizational notion of a world-wide religion was something that was brand new for its day. Only the Roman Empire could claim such a thing, and technically it wasn’t a religion, per se.
Our annual focus, “We are the Body,” has three stages. The first part of the focus we spent talking about our Identity as the Body of Christ, affirming what is in Scripture and how we are indeed identified with Christ and with each other in this mystery of God. The second part of our focus concerned our Function, as we talked about how God has created us differently for different works – how He has given us different parts of Jesus’ “genome” so that together we can exhibit signs of life. This last part of our focus is on our Relationships. Just as different parts of the body interrelate to serve the whole, that is the case with us.
From now to November we will be looking at how we relate with those whom God has brought us together with in Christ. We will talk about how we relate within the Body, including in our home church and denomination as well as those outside of our faith traditions but who are still Christians. We will discuss how we relate within our families and neighborhoods, as the vocational places where God has set us. And lastly, we will explore how God wants us to relate with the world through mission.
All of this begins with our series “In One Body,” and we hope that you can be with us every Sunday of the series, from now until September 2.