Right now, our nation feels so fractured. Politics. Economics. Social issues. Just turn on the news for about four seconds. Any channel. Any network.

In our own community here in Midland, we’ll choose sides and draw lines and fight about anything. Everything. City and county government. The school district. Construction. Budgets. Just glance at your Facebook and your feeds.

Our own families and neighbors seem awkwardly distant.

The whole world is focused on the distinctions and differences between us and it’s using our digital devices to highlight those differences to divide us.

Right now it feels like that if you don’t live where I do for as long as I have, we can’t be on the same team. If you don’t look like I do or speak the same language as I do or vote like I do or worship like I do or if you and I are different races or different nationalities, then we can’t be on the same side. We can’t be for each other. If we don’t have those things in common, then we must not have anything in common. We can’t.

That is decidedly NOT what Christians believe.

We believe that all of us are inseparably bound together. We belong to each other. We are connected to one another deeply. Thoroughly. We are connected by much bigger things, much more important things, eternal things–the things that truly matter. We believe all Christians are connected by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We all need and receive and rely on the grace of God. We are all saved by and continuously cleansed by the blood of Christ. We are all given gifts by and daily nourished by the Spirit. And we’re all called and sent by God on the same mission of the Church, to partner with God as he redeems and restores and reconciles all people and all things together in his Son Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We don’t all vote the same. We don’t all have the same income levels or education levels. We weren’t all born in Midland; we come from everywhere. We are different ages and different generations. We weren’t all raised the same way. We don’t all have the same experiences and backgrounds that have shaped how we think and talk and act. We don’t all see eye-to-eye on some church issues like women’s roles and musical instruments. We don’t all have the same interpretations of Revelation or Genesis 1-11.

God’s grace is bigger than all those things. The blood of Jesus is more important than all those things. The power of the Holy Spirit is deeper than all those things. And all of us share those eternal things in common.

Yesterday at GCR, we talked about our connections to one another in Christ. And we did our own version of the old youth group thing in which our connections are made visible by yarn. Yeah, we threw yarn at each other across our Worship Center in the middle of the sermon!

We used 20 spools of yarn in ten different colors to represent all the things that connect us together. The yellow yarn was the grace of God. The red yarn was the blood of Jesus. The blue yarn was the power of the Holy Spirit. We had different colors representing God’s love, God’s promises, the forgiveness of sin, and the mission of the Church. Some of the yarn stood for the truth of the Gospel, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Ten non-negotiables. Ten eternal truths to which we all hold and share in common.

Once we overcame our apprehension, once enough of us got hit in the head with a spool of yarn, once we all relaxed a bit and gave ourselves to the exercise, it was glorious! By the end of the game, each of us in that Worship Center were holding onto at least three or four strands of yarn that represented the Gospel truths that save us and connect us from one end of our church to the other.

I told GCR, “The things in our lives that matter most, the biggest things, the most important things, the eternal things, the things that truly matter–the things I know YOU hold most dear–are the very things that connect all of us in this church together. We all have these things in common.”

But this is the line I really hope everyone remembers: “There’s nothing outside of these eternal bonds and beliefs that should ever distract us or divide us from the Gospel truth of our connections.”

The everlasting truth of God’s amazing grace is that he so loved the world that he came here to us. He redeems us by his blood and restores us by his love and he connects all of us together in himself. All of us. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.

We are all eternally connected. Let those who hear, understand. Let those who understand, commit to living in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Jesus.

Peace,
Allan