Ephesians: Tear Down These WallsShembull

One of my favourite movies is the Guy Ritchie classic Snatch. 

The movie threads what seems like completely unrelated stories into one grand climatic conclusion that draws all the separate stories together into one. You’d have no idea watching the movie that it’d end the way it does. It’s brilliant! That’s because behind the narrative is a master director with a vision for how the stories are connected and how the movie ends.

Behind the history of the world stands our God, the master director, who’s had a plan from the very beginning, and is directing history towards its final climatic conclusion. God is working towards bringing everything in heaven and on earth together in Christ (1:10). 

God is working towards a cosmic renewal, regeneration, and remaking of our groaning world (Romans 8:18). There is a time coming when God will peel back the thin veil that exists between heaven and earth, the two shall merge, and God will make all things new. He will make all of the sad things come untrue. 

And we are a part of his plan. God has orchestrated history, eras, and times in order to send Jesus to redeem the world and make it new. And God is writing us, the church (and you as an individual), into his story. 

The church is God’s foretaste of the future (3:1–13), displaying God’s wisdom, his genius "directing". We are called to alert the world to the universal reign of God through Christ. As Jesus is our Lord, head of the church, the cosmos will also soon come under his authority. This is where history is heading!

When we look around at our world, it’s easy to think that God has lost control. The chaos that fills our news feeds everyday can leave us feeling anxious and hopeless. The good news is that God has a plan. He is moving history towards re-creation. We can trust him! 

And we can play our part, helping our fractured word see and hear: "God loves you and is committed to making everything right."