Ephesians 4:15-16 English Standard Version

15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Families are complicated. There are big families, small families, connected ones and fractured ones. Not all families have a head of household in the traditional sense. That is getting to be more the case these days for all the wrong reasons.

We cannot look to our personal family history for an example of how this body of Christ is to pull together. The head of this body is God. He is perfect in love and He does not make the mistakes that the head of our families made.

In our family history we grew up to go away and find a life of our own. We were to become matriarchs and patriarchs in our own right. In the body of Christ we are never meant to grow apart, but to grow up to be closer united by this common love which is uncommon.

Families these days get fractured because we run around doing our own thing. We busy ourselves finding our way in the world, trying to make it, change it, and cutting out a piece of it for ourselves and our posterity.

Not so with this body of Christ when we discover that we are equipped with gifts that are meant to draw us closer together into a finely tuned instrument.

What makes it difficult for us to see in this new family is that our brothers and sisters in Christ are located all over the world. Most of them we have never met but Christ knows them all and is the head of their body too. 

In that way we feel like a fractured family but we are not. We all answer to Christ.

A key phrase above is “when each part is working properly”.

Exodus 14:31 English Standard Version (ESV) Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

Exodus 14:31 My Literal Version (MLV) We saw the great power that the Lord used against Sin, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his apostles.

There is no MLV and I have taken liberty to invent it for only one purpose. When we were enslaved by sin we did not see the chains that took away our freedom. We look to the work of the Cross of Christ and hear the words of salvation but do not instantly connect the freedom we gained with putting sin to death, ending its reign of terror.

It is much easier to see Moses leading the slaves away from Egypt than it is to see Christ has removed our chains to sin.

1 Peter 1:22-23 English Standard Version

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

Our flesh was born in sin and there is nothing we can do about that.

We are born again in the spirit and there is nothing we can do about that.

We are now free to choose to obey the truth because of His abiding love.

Love is always going to give you a choice. Sin does not. Freedom is all about choice.

Galatians 5:1,13 English Standard Version

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.