Tomorrow, Christmas day, we celebrate Jesus’ birth. Leaving aside the accuracy of the date, it is an important day around the world. As the ultimate strategic planner, the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit had a plan and purpose in mind. A plan that would be established through Jesus’ birth and subsequent death and resurrection. This plan began to come to fruition with Jesus earthly birth, a plan to begin building something, and we are part of that something.
The plan was to build a family, a family made in His image, representing, or re presenting, Him. This is seen clearly in scripture.
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Ephesians 3:8–12 (NKJV)
I will highlight a section of this passage, “the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There was a mystery unveiled to Paul, the building of a spiritual house through those born again through Jesus. After the Fall it began with the calling of a man, Abraham, the building of a nation through his descendants, the raising up of the Messiah through this lineage and culminating in the full unveiling of the mystery. This mystery involved a revealing of God’s wisdom to the opposing powers in the heavenly places, the ongoing revealing of Jesus to and through the church to the world. An eternal purpose that will be finalized at Jesus return.
If we have been born again, we are part of what is being built. We have been called into fellowship, participation in a divine plan that was once a mystery and has now been unveiled. We see it expressed earlier in Ephesians.
19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19–22 (NKJV)
We are all part of the same building; the church Jesus is building. We display His wisdom before opposing spiritual forces in heavenly places when we focus on building up His body and bringing in new members. Most of us are called not to foreign lands but to our friends and neighbours. This Christmas let’s honour what Jesus did by being expressions of the living Christ to all we encounter. Let us be living stones offering spiritual sacrifices as a spiritual building.
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4–5 (NKJV)
