When Love Takes You In

When Love Takes You In

Let’s turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 1:3-6. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will _ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves Jesus Christ. I want to talk to you today about what it means to be a part of God’s family and how important it is for us to find our family identity in Christ. Recently there was an article in the September 19 edition of the Washington Times entitled Aboard Flight 564. It reads, As it was a t most US Airports, last Saturday was the first near normal day at Denver International since the terrorist attacks. On United Flight 564, the door had just been locked and the plane was about to pull out of the gate when the captain came on the public address system. I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don’t have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we’re on our own. The passengers listened in total silence. He explained that airport measures had pretty much solved the problem of firearms being carried aboard, but not weapons of the type the terrorists apparently used, plastic knives or those fashioned from wood or ceramics. Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up make that claim, don’t believe him. If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say, This is a hijacking or words to that effect here is what you should do: Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person_ pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes _ anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has an accomplice or two do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to the floor and keep him there. We’ll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there.

Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few accomplices but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them. The Declaration of Independence says We the people and that’s just what it is when we’re up in the air: we, the people’ and that’s just what it is when we’re up in the air: we, the people, vs. would-be terrorists. I don’t think we are going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but some time down the road, it is going to happen again and I want you to know what to do. Now, since we’re a family for the next few hours, I’ll ask you to turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and ask them to do the same. The end of this remarkable speech brought sustained clapping from the passengers. He had put the matter in perspective. If only the passengers on those ill-fated flights last Tuesday had been given the same talk, I thought, they might be alive today.” After I read this, I began to think about the pilots last word about being a family and how a crisis seems to bring out the family in us and in the event of a disaster we would do whatever it takes to save peoples lives

We too are aboard a flight we call life. A journey that is often sabotaged by hijackers and terrorists that attempt to take us off course towards a path of destruction and death. How do we live in a world where terror and evil exist? How can we bring out the family or the community in us so that we can survive the schemes and plots of the devil? Many folks live a life of lonliness and isolation never finding the support, or help or encouragement that they really need to make it. Some how the events of the past month have put a whole new perspective on what’s really important. We are living in an new age of uncertainty. When the people on the hijacked planes knew they had minutes to live, did you notice that nobody called their boss, or their stockbrocker or their banker. They called their homes to say, ‘I love you and I love the kids.’ If they couldn’t control the length of their life, at least maybe they could control the breadth and depth of their life. So what begins to come into focus when you think about living a life that matters are people. More specifically, family. I think the same thing is true about us that the pilot said about his passengers. We come in here week after week and for the next several hours, we are family. When I look around this room, I see people that matter, people that God may be able to use in helping and encouraging us, or praying or ministering to a specific need. I see family and community. Because I know that although we can’t see it physically, there also people in this very room who are being terrorized by fear, depression, being overwhelmed with thoughts of suicide, homosexuality, or any number of things. One of the core values of bc is that God’s dream is the home. He is called our heavenly father not our heavenly CEO or president. Home, whether our church home or natural home should represent a place where you can be accepted, welcomed, loved unconditionally.