Ephesians 3: "POWER!" July 29, 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Just a quick reminder we are back to our regular schedule this week. Prayer at 9:30am EMU Site, Service at 10:15 and 11:00 at ALIVE! in Lenawee County.

Tomorrow we are continuing our journey through the Letter of St. Paul to the church in Ephesus. This week we will be looking closely at Ephesians 3:14-21 often called the Prayer for Ephesians. It begins with one of the only two words that the Bible uses for the posture we are to have physically in Worship. To bow and to be on our knees or before the Lord. The only other option is to stand with hands raised as the priesthood of all believers. He goes on to pray that they know who they are in Christ and that they are able to allow the MYSTERY of God's Glory, LOVE and POWER through HIS SPIRIT, fill them to overflowing! In the first part of Ephesians 3 Paul refers to the MYSTERY of God's plan and purpose in Christ to unite Jews and Gentiles in one covenant. He uses the word MYSTERY 4 times and uses the word "together," 3 times in 3:6. He ends this important section by saying we can, in Christ and through faith in him, approach God with freedom and confidence. So it is no surprise in this prayer he prays that we may be strengthened with POWER through his Spirit, so that Christ may DWELL in us. That we should be rooted and grounded in LOVE having power with all the saints to grasp how wide, long high, and deep is the LOVE of Christ. This is a MYSTERY that he prays we will KNOW (intimate relationship), this love that surpasses all knowledge (beyond comprehension yet experienced in Christ) that we my be filled to the measure of all fullness in God! GOES WITH OUR MISSION STATEMENT: "TO KNOW CHRIST AND MAKE HIM KNOWN." If this isn't enough, he ends with this MYSTERY statement "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his POWER that is at work within us." In case you were trying to measure the fullness he blows the idea out of the water with the word "immeasurably MORE than we ask or IMAGINE!" He uses the Greek word "Dunamis" or POWER (the word we get "dynamite" from) 3 times in this prayer to let us know where our knowledge, strength and works (Greek word "Energeo") come from Christ through the Holy Spirit's POWER!

Tomorrow we also have a special treat at EMU. We have a young couple from the University Christian Fellowship (King of Love) next door who are going to be going to Indiana to study and prepare for two years to respond to the calling, on this young newly married couple, to do College Ministry. They are a great example of my desire for our College ministry. Jonathon and Sarah will share tomorrow. May we inspired to see what the Lord can do with willing hearts and minds that seek HIS WILL and plan! Many students come to College and have a plan. Yet the Lord can do even immeasurably more with them than they think or imagine...

Thanks to all those who helped with the Picnic last week. I thought it went great! Thanks to those who help with Ann Street Music Room I just got to hear another great concert! Thanks to the those who organized and took time out to attend the shower for our daughter Sarah! We are looking forward to the arrival of our grandson Josiah in the next month!

Please check out the kitchen at the EMU site you will be impressed!

Please keep the Upward Basketball Camp in your prayers! This is our co-sponsored outreach in place of VBS. We have more children this year and many without a church home. If you feel that you can help please talk to Paul ASAP.

Please keep praying for the Stewardship in our congregation..... we are so blessed with great opportunities but also challenges. We are restructuring things to find better ways of reaching the campuses of EMU, WCC and Concordia. Also the communities surrounding us. I know the Lord has a plan please be intentional about praying that we are discerning HIS will and plan for us.

Congratulations to Paul Knickelbein, as he has been accepted into the Specific Ministry Pastor program and we will be going to St. Louis and the Seminary for his orientation the last week of August. Congratulations VICAR Paul.

Please keep Paula Butler in your prayers as she is recovering from Surgery at St. Joseph's and asks for our prayers during her recovery.

Check out the announcements:
LOOKING AHEAD

We still have another month of summer, BUT it’s time to look forward to September. On September 9, we will start our
Sunday mornings with Sunday School for the children and Bible Class for the youth and adults. We will begin all classes
at 9:15am. We look forward to a year of learning and growing in our relationship with Jesus.

PRAYER AND HEALING

The Prayer and Healing Team will be here on August 8 for prayer ministry. They will be in Pastor’s office. People who
would like to be on a healing team should also come.

COLLEGE STUDENT INFORMATION

If you are a college student or a parent of a college student, we need your contact information, please. Please send us
your address, phone and email so that we can keep in touch with you or your student during the school year. You can call
the church office or email Joanne Zuellig at jzuellig@crossandres.org.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

During July, we will collect comb and hairbrush sets for Operation Christmas Child.
During August, we will collect paper (pads that fit in a shoebox) and pencils. We have a red box set up in the
sharing space for your donations. Thank you for your generosity!

UPWARD CAMP NEEDS!

Upward Basketball Camp is coming up on August 6-10. THAT’S ONLY 1 WEEK AWAY!!Your help is needed to help with
a number of things.
People to help set up each morning at 7am at Washtenaw Christian Academy.
People to prepare and serve the picnic lunch at noon on Friday, August 10
Most of all, your prayers are coveted.
Please call Paul Knickelbein at 216-0261 to volunteer in reaching out to the families who participate in this camp.

WEDNESDAY FAMILY NIGHT

Wednesday nights will be devoted to family time and worship here at Cross and Resurrection!

Start Date: Wednesday, September 12
Schedule: Dinner—6-7pm
Prayer and worship—7pm
Small groups, classes, etc.—7:30ish
Close—8:30pm

There will be more information coming your way soon about this great time of fun,
fellowship and enrichment. You are encouraged to participate with your whole family!

Yours in Christ our Loving Lord and Savior,

Pastor Bryan

Ephesians 2 "Being Built UP!" July 22, 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Just a quick reminder to stay away from Downtown Ypsilanti and EMU, if at all possible, tomorrow. They are expecting 20+ thousand people for the Color Race and they are going to be blocking off streets etc...

We are meeting for a family worship and picnic at the Recreation area just north and east of the main hospital at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. It is next to the child care center. Please join us at 10:15. Worship will start at 10:30 sharp and we will start eating at 11:40. The church will provide the hamburgers and hotdogs and the cow will be there:) Please bring your lawn chairs and a dessert or salad to pass.

According to the weather reports it will be partly cloudy and warm. Rain is not forecast until later in the evening.

I don't know if I have mentioned how my friend who now pastors in Spokane Washington, worked to plant a Vineyard in Aurora Colorado and how impacted I was by the work of the Lord in opening my heart and mind to missions through the work we helped him do there. It is making me pause and pray for all the families of those who we killed and injured by a young man who chose, because of our human bondage in our free will to sin, to carry out such a horrific and disgusting act! We will remember these families in our prayers this weekend!

Tomorrow we will continue our journey through St. Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus, which he wrote around 60AD while imprisoned in Rome. We looked at the background and history of Paul writing this letter to the church in Ephesus that he visited on both his second and third missionary journey. We talked about the importance of this Greek then later, a Roman city in Asia Minor,  now Turkey. We talked about the population of around 250000 making it a metropolis and with its harbor about 3 miles inland from the Aegean Sea, a major center for the 1st Century BC. We talked about Paul's ministry to the Jews in the large synagogue for the first 3 months. For the ministry with the people of the "Way," early Christian believers who had received John's baptism but not the Holy Spirit which we see a few times in Acts. In Acts 19 we see the power of the Holy Spirit coming on the believers with signs and wonders following. This is cool! We see the people coming with handkerchiefs and cloth to have them blessed to take back to people who were sick. I experienced this when we were doing sharing in Estonia. We see the burning of about 5,000,000 dollars worth of scrolls by converts. We see the Sons of Sceva, who are Jews trying to use Jesus' name like a magical incantation to cast out demons. They found out, the hard way, that a relationship with Jesus is extremely important. We looked at how people came to the city in order that they could be prayed over and taught then sent out to do missions. This happened over 3 years. We talked about verses 3-14 of chapter 1 known as the Doxology because it is one sentence in Greek and was probably a Creedo or part of the worship in the early church. It eloquently explains how we are extremely blessed by God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this general letter we will look at many important teachings that help us to grow as believers in knowing who we are and what God has planned and purposed for us.

Tomorrow we will look specifically at chapter 2 of Ephesians. Almost all Lutheran Christians have to learn Ephesians 2:8-9 in Confirmation. It is a huge part of our theology! But let us look at the verses around it to understand what Paul is teaching:

2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We cannot fail to see how we are all born sinful and were dead in our transgressions and sins, which we can see lived out by one man in Aurora on Friday. But we don't have to stay there. Listen to the words of promise: "we are saved by Grace and we are God's handiwork to do good works." This is amazing! With words like "because of his GREAT LOVE, raised up, seated in with him in the heavenly realms, incomparable riches of his grace, Gift of God, Created in Christ Jesus!" we know how we are not just slaves to sin! What a great part of Scripture to memorize and hold onto.

Tomorrow we will specifically look at the So What? of "being saved by Grace and being God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do!" In Ephesians 2:11-22 we hear what St. Paul wants us to understand about belonging to the family of God and being saved by grace: remember we talked about the word "Grace" used 155 times in the NT and 100 times by Paul and 12 times here in Ephesians (some say 13 depending on one word you can translate as "grace") He uses the word translated "peace" 7 times or 8 depending on your translation. These are very important.
¹¹ Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands) — ¹² remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I think this is the purpose for which the Lord has placed us here in the 21st Century in South East Michigan! To be built on the foundation of the Christ Jesus, our chief cornerstone, the apostles and prophets (God's Word: Holy Scripture) we are a holy temple in the Lord and being built together. This is not an individual effort but a family activity. May we continue to look at how the Lord is working among us here at C & R and accept that we are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by HIS SPIRIT! This is an amazing gift to us. I pray you will seek those who are "people of peace" in your lives and spheres of influence, family, friends, work, recreation, clubs, etc... to join us in being built up as our Lord desires.

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow, it should be awesome!

Love in Christ,
Pastor Bryan