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Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God\u2019s grace in its various forms (1 Peter 4:10).

Last week, we began a four-week series growing out of the Vibrant Congregations Conversation that Immanuel Christian Reformed church had over the summer. The first week was focussed on the spiritual discipline of waiting. Today, we turn our attention to our tagline, \u201cTogether in Faith\u201d. One of our church historians has traced this phrase all the way back to 2006. For the next several weeks, we will explore how this expression can be lived today.

We begin with our text, \u201cEach of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God\u2019s grace in its various forms\u201d (10).

There is a principle in this text that is fundamental to healthy church life: God gives Christians gifts so that we pass on his grace to others. This turns the modern notion of church on its head. Many of us have learned to ask, \u201cWhat is the church doing for me?\u201d This tends to be our primary inquiry when it comes to the church. To put it differently: the church exists to serve the Christian.

Such thinking does not line up with what the Bible says. You will notice how selfish this tendency is. The idea that \u201cI\u201d am the centre of the universe has leeched into the church. It is one of the elements responsible for the decline in church attendance and for the tragic fall of some leaders. In contrast, the Bible pictures the church as the gathering of those who have received from God and who therefore freely share his grace with each other.

\u201cTogether in Faith\u201d assumes that every Christian experiences relationship in two directions. The first is the vertical: God reaches us in Christ, with a continuous stream of grace. Each Christian lives within this river of God\u2019s favour, responding to him with love, worship, and obedience. The second relational direction is horizontal: between people. The practical expression of worshipping God is in love shown to our neighbours. God\u2019s favour flows through us towards others.

When we picture the vertical and horizontal relationships together, they form a cross. Visually, our congregation has linked the phrase, \u201ctogether in faith\u201d with a cross. Naturally, Christians associate a cross with Jesus. Yet, it is not wrong to imagine the cross to be these vertical and horizontal relationships. In Ephesians 1-3 Paul delves deep into the love of God for us in Christ. The rest of this letter is about how we, having received that love, are to live in love with each other.

When light shines through drops of water, the ray is refracted into its various colours, and we see a rainbow. So, it is with God's grace. As God's grace shines through His people, it gushes out in a multitude of gifts. God\u2019s design is that we use these gifts, expressions of his grace, to bless others. When the gifts are stewarded as such by God's people they are as beautiful as the rainbow.

Years ago, Paul Simon composed \u201cI Am a Rock\u201d which begins with, \u201cI am a rock/I am an island/I've built walls/A fortress deep and mighty/That none may penetrate/I have no need of friendship\u2026\u201d It\u2019s an apt expression of a philosophy that still prevails. But by the grace of God, the church is the antithesis of such a life.

Before that song, someone else wrote, \u201cGod seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye\u201d.

Loved by the Father, recipients of the Son\u2019s grace, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the church is the community in which God\u2019s favour is received and stewarded in a rich expression of colours. Because we are not yet perfected saints, our stewarding of this grace is not as rich and full as it should be. When the streams of grace are damned up by human selfishness, we still continue walking Together in Faith believing that this grace is strong enough to overcome our missteps.

We move forward with this confidence:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21).