Our Common Denominators

[Elliott] Happy Sabbath, brethren! Thank you, Carly, for that beautiful rendition of How Great Thou Art. God is wonderfully great, and some of the conversations going on on the Sabbath day—both online and here in person—have been about the greatness of God and His creation, and what a privilege it is to be part of the early crew that’s called to assist Jesus Christ.

Today, I’d like to thank Ray Clore for the sermonette and the need for us to be breaking bread together. The Bible often calls that breaking bread—you take a loaf, you peel off a piece, you pass it around, and you share, and you talk. And as he mentioned in his sermonette, the Bible is full of that type of opportunity. And David Permar, in his lively announcement, reminded us that tomorrow we have an opportunity to break bread together at a church picnic.

So I looked up the word picnic in the Oxford Languages Dictionary, and the definition they give is, “An occasion when you have an informal meal, especially outdoors.” So there is a gathering of God’s saints to come together, break bread, and have an informal meal together. I hope everyone is able to participate in that if you’re able. It reminds me of Acts 2—following the conversion of the first people on Pentecost, what did they do? They came together, they shared food, and they ate together. Those are wonderful times.

It really struck me how he said we’ve gotten away from that. And we really do in this culture. We’ve lost the art of fellowship and conversation around food. So maybe we can all start tomorrow at the picnic in re-establishing food, relationships, and discussion. That would be a wonderful thing.

People around the world live in various countries, and they’re all a little unique. The people God made in His image have various cultures, various languages, different likes and dislikes, clothing styles, music styles, even the way songs are sung and performed. Sometimes the foods they like are so unique and so different that other cultures just say, Wow—you eat that? And yet here we all are, healthy human beings around the globe.

Everyone made in God’s image really has a few things in common. One is that they want peace, they want families, and they want food. That’s pretty much it. People around the world want to live in peace. They want to go about their lives. They want families, and they want to eat. And with those things, they can be pretty content. Even Jesus talks about being content with those things, and He said, don’t worry about it if you’re one of mine, because I’ll provide you with those things.

But when we think across the globe, we see that some of these people are moving about. We call them migrations or diaspora or various names for people moving about. And it’s almost like ocean currents. You see the currents of humanity down through time that have moved about.

Some examples we see in the Bible include Abraham in the Old Testament. He started way over in Ur, in the Babylon area, and he moved to Canaan. Then he went down to Egypt. Then he moved back, expanding his operations in Canaan and setting up there. His descendants later moved down into Egypt under Joseph, where they lived in the fertile land of Goshen. From there, they came back into the land of Canaan, where others had already moved in—the Phoenicians, for instance. People were always moving about.

We find that the twelve tribes, because of their unfaithfulness, began to migrate. They began to push and move about. And as empires rose and fell, some of those peoples transitioned across various parts of Europe. Meanwhile, down in Africa, tribes were also moving about and have continued to move about down through time. The same thing took place in the Americas and Latin America—tribes in motion, indigenous peoples in motion. Then European colonization inserted cultures into other cultures in various continents around the world.

Later, the expansion of the British Empire from one little island spread its values, food, language, and customs into half the world’s territories. As that contracted, you had European migrations across into the Americas. And today we still see migrants moving everywhere.

How do people feel about that? Every country is a little concerned when you have other cultures, other languages, other ethnic groups, other races moving in. It’s interesting to watch how people relate to their personal demographics or cultures.

Whenever any of us move about, we like to take something with us. I remember at age 17, I was in Europe, and I just longed for a hamburger. And there weren’t any hamburgers. Somebody made something they called a hamburger, and I looked at it and thought, Really? I don’t think so. We’re not going there.

It’s funny—in Africa, in East Africa especially, there is a staple diet among about 50 tribes that I know of. It’s called ugali in the Kiswahili area. It is basically white cornmeal, but instead of baking it, they boil it. That boiled cornmeal is compact, a little sticky, but soft, and everybody gets a plate. Whether you’re little or big, you get a mound of ugali on your plate. With it you might have potatoes, maybe a little meat or vegetables.

If you’re a Kikuyu tribe, you’re going to want more vegetables, and other tribes say, Those people eat vegetables. If you’re Luo, you might have fish because they live by Lake Victoria. Others might say, The Kikuyus put peas in their potatoes—ooh, who would do that? The differences are endless. But everybody loves ugali.

Now, when some of the East Africans moved to North America—in Canada, or even here in the U.S.—I often meet them in airports where many of them work. I’ll listen for the structure of the language, and if I think it’s East African, I’ll go talk with them. And invariably, I’ll ask, So, do you miss ugali? They’ll say, Ah, you just can’t live without ugali. Or I’ll ask, Have you found ugali? Yes!

We found a place, we know a store, we know some place where we can get ugali powder—you know, this stuff—and it’s, you know, there’s a brand of it. It’s got to be just right. It can’t be this yellow corn that everybody likes in North America. And, you know, you just have these things.

Now, if you’re Indian, you have various spices, and those spices vary from region to region. There’s Pakistan, there’s India, there’s Sri Lanka, there are all types of divisions. Everybody has so many things that they like. If you’re from Asia, well, you have Asian food—but all Asian? I mean, come on. The people in China, Northern China, the Mandarins, they don’t like the other kind of Chinese food. And don’t talk to us about what the Japanese eat, you know, and various things like that.

So what you have then is you have cultures who move along, and they like their food, they like their music, they like their culture. And as they come into different areas, they might form a Chinatown where they’re more comfortable, or a Little Italy—up in Chicago, you have various defined areas there where cultures will kind of come together, and they’ll feel more comfortable like that. And so it is that when you find in God’s creation similarities, those tend to come together.

I’ll give you a couple of others. Little children like to be around little children. Last Sabbath, I was holding a five-month-old baby girl, precious little gal, and she was a little—all these adults here—you know, and I was showing her around. Then a little boy came along. He couldn’t talk, but he could babble. So I sat down in a chair where the two could be at the same height, and they were just, oh, blah blah blah blah, and looking at each other in the eye, blah blah blah blah. They were so excited to see somebody that was like them, about their same size.

It was interesting as well that there in Oklahoma, we were watching a deer herd, my wife and I, and it was a complex deer herd. It had some mamas, had some babies, it had a young buck that hadn’t left the herd yet. But the kids from different moms liked to hang out with each other. These little spotted fawns, you know, they’re only about that tall, but they kind of saw other spotted fawns, and they liked to be with the fawns. And so it is that people have certain similarities, and they kind of seek out similarities of their own.

So when we have then individuals who attempt to maintain their cultural environment, sometimes this creates a bit of a challenge because humans are eccentric. And my culture, my group, doesn’t like necessarily your group. That’s how human nature is. And so there can be disrespect of others’ identities, cultures, races, languages, dress. Some of the customs that go along with a certain different type of culture can be criticized. And thus, segregation takes place. Alienation.

If you look at some of that in Bible times, you’ll remember that the Israelites were in Egypt and they were despised. The Egyptians despised shepherds. There was a long history for that because the shepherds that used to be across Northern Africa had to retreat from there when the Sahara Desert began to take away the fertile grasslands. And so they came in and convinced the farmers along the Nile and up in Goshen that they were this aristocratic class of priests and only they could get you to heaven. And so people began to hate shepherds and what some of that stood for. And so you saw how the Israelites were treated by the end. They were despised by the Egyptians—at least by some of the Egyptians—and even some of their children were being killed.

And so it is the same yesterday and today. But what I want to get to now is there is one Creator of humanity, and He’s created all humanity in His image and His likeness, and He loves all of His creation. The Creator of humanity advocates respectful relationships, harmonious relationships—and that’s between all people.

Let’s go to Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 17. A little bit about our God here, even as the Israelites were being essentially persecuted and despised because of their unique ethnic and religious beliefs. We find here in Deuteronomy 10:17 it says, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality.” Just focus on that—no partiality. “Nor takes a bribe.” He’s not going to be encouraged to like anybody more preferentially than anyone else.

Deuteronomy 10:18 “He administers justice for the fatherless, for the widow, and loves the stranger.” Loves the stranger. You know, God has agape love for those who are different or unique to whoever the current group is. Everybody else is a stranger. And it says, “Giving him food and clothing.” God gives everyone of all races food and clothing.

When I think of some of the spices that people use around the world, it’s just amazing—all the things that God has created so that people can have their uniqueness. You know, back in the Spice Islands, like Zanzibar, the island of Zanzibar, used to be a trading hub for spices that were brought in from all around the world. And you can go there today and still buy samples of all kinds of spices.

It’s just things that God made. And then individual cultures take those spices. You might associate saffron with Spain, or you might associate curry with various groups, or hot things, or pepper—so many different spices. I bought one time, I bought a selection of those spices and brought them home to my wife. And we were all looking at them thinking, So what do we do with these? We’ll get out the salt and pepper and, you know, whatever we would use, garlic powder and things like that. But what do you do with this? I don’t think we ever did anything with it.

But when we traveled overseas and were with somebody in their home and they’re cooking up this, I’m in there, What spice do you use? What do you mean, what spices? The African: What do you mean, what spices? I mean, what spices? We just put the stuff we use in it. And in Hong Kong, I’m, you know, Mary, this is so good. What spices do you put in it? Well, I don’t know, just, you know, the usual stuff. But to me, it’s so unique and so rare. And I want to learn the recipe because I wouldn’t know how to make it. And I don’t.

So there’s that. But the wonderful thing is, as all of these ethnic groups come into various countries, you can go to a restaurant of their culture and you can get authentic food from countries around the world. And that’s a blessing that we see now as we travel almost anywhere—the various ethnic peoples will bring in foods that are so wonderful and so enjoyable. And you can think of some of the ones you like to go to. We call them by the name of their country. What do you want to eat tonight? Let’s go to this kind of a restaurant or that kind of a restaurant.

Deuteronomy 10:19 “Therefore, love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Now, He’s speaking there to those who had just come out, who had been belittled, put down, made to make all these bricks and all that stuff. “Love the stranger, for you were strangers.”

Now, I like to ask you a question. Where are you from? You know, wherever you are right now, we all got where we are from somewhere else in time. Because humans move about. We just move about. If you’re in Singapore, you didn’t grow up—your people didn’t grow up—in Singapore. That was a part of Malaysia. If you’re here in the United States or in Canada, your people immigrated from somewhere else, probably, quite possibly.

In our hymn, By This Shall All Men Know, it brings together several verses of what Jesus taught in John 14:15, I believe, where He says, “By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” But in that hymn, it pulls together many of the verses and the teachings of Jesus Christ and has us sing them. It’s quite an interesting hymn in that regard. But it is ways to love one another as He loves humanity.

In Acts 3:25, we hear from God’s inspiration that we are part of this called-out ones. And here He is speaking, He says, “You are sons of the prophets.” You know, the church is built on Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, and on the apostles and the prophets. And we are the sons, as it were. We’re part of that family reign. They’re like father figures to us.

“And the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed’”—Jesus Christ—“all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Jesus Christ’s coming and His dying, and the opportunity for everyone to be called like you and me, goes out to all the families of the world. And when we stop and think about even in the United Church of God, which is one portion of God’s church in this time, look at all of the different families of the earth that are blessed right now.

Now he goes on in verse 25 to say that this prophecy is already being fulfilled. It will be fulfilled all through the human experience, “but to you first, having raised up His servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you.” (Acts 3:25) So this One who is going to bless all the families of the earth, “to you first,” those who are being called as firstfruits today, God sent Jesus to bless you “in turning every one of you away from your iniquities.” So we see this partial fulfillment, even dropping down to verse 23. This body of Christ is comprised of saints, those who have God’s Holy Spirit, those who are in the process of coming to conversion. You children are included in that family relationship with God and will continue to grow and form a part of the new covenant at baptism. But we’re comprised of saints from all nations, tribes, and languages.

Acts 26:23, “that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles.” So the place where He was proclaiming light was among the Jewish—and so you see “Jewish” in italics—light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. Jesus came and He began proclaiming this, and the apostles have picked that up, the Apostle Paul to the non-Israelite people, and that began to really spread around.

Now when Jesus Christ returns, the hallmark of His millennial reign is what? Blessings to all people, all nations. That is another rollout before the Second Resurrection, when all people everywhere will be blessed. But when we think of the Feast of Tabernacles, or we think of the Millennium, we think of that period of time and all the blessings, what is it about? It’s about the blessings that come to everyone through loving, respectful relationships.

Let’s go to Isaiah 19:24–25 and just look ahead to that time, and notice a critical element of this millennial period: “In that day”—in the future, when we’re reigning with Christ—“in that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.’” So you can see in that future, that’s how things will begin to roll out as people have respect and honor for one another within their culture, within their favorite foods. But people will then be one with God and His way of life.

That’s a wonderful thing.

The United Church of God is comprised of people from many, many, many different nations, tribes, and tongues, and it’s a wonderful thing to go and be with them. And I’m sure you’ve experienced this as well. But when you go into a country and you insert yourself into the rural areas of that country and you find church members—a little group, maybe they’re meeting in a hut, maybe they’re meeting in somebody’s home, depending on where they are in the world—but here they are meeting, and they’re speaking a different language. And maybe they have a little translator there for you, and they’re translating what you say. This is always fun. But you’re looking at people—they’re dressed different, they look different, they talk different, and they’re definitely eating different. Okay?

And what do you have in common? Well, when they start talking to you, after you get through the How’s your family? and some of the things like that, they come down and they say, Look, you know, I’m really challenged. I’m finding out that I’m selfish in my nature, and I’m finding out that it’s hard to love other people, and it’s challenging to obey God and keep His commandments in the culture in which I live, and I’m working so hard. And I put my arm around and say, I’m so happy to hear you say that, because that’s what I’m going through. And that’s a wonderful thing. That is just a wonderful thing. We are all brothers and sisters.

You know, the church is growing. Next week, some of us will be going to assist church leaders from India, Pakistan, Myanmar—which was Burma—Sri Lanka, Mizoram. We have a literature request trickling in here and abroad from South Korea now, Hungary, Turkey. Senior pastors are translating literature into more and more languages. And one thing that’s helping us with some of the more difficult languages in which we don’t have experience is AI. And we can feed literature into AI and have it come back in almost any language that’s on earth, and then take that to members or those skilled in those languages, sometimes to universities, and have it checked and have it accurate.

This is really, really exciting because God is calling, as Revelation 5:9 says, people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. And we’re getting into more and more places where you think it’s almost impossible—almost impossible. But God’s work, when we think of God’s work, it’s not media. That’s not God’s work. God’s work is people. God’s work is people. God’s work isn’t travel. God’s work isn’t just printing something and sending it out. God’s work is people.

I’ve been told, and I haven’t checked this source, but I’ve been told that some 70% of all the people that attend God’s church came there through relationships with other people. And our literature and other things support that. We often say, Oh yeah, you’re talking about—let me share something with you. Or somebody may have a first contact with something online or a piece of literature. But invariably, they’re going to come and find people. And it’s going to be those interpersonal relationships.

Our young adults will find that new people will come and find them if they are young adults. If you’re newly baptized and someone in the audience is thinking—or maybe God is bringing them to repentance—and they hear that somebody just got baptized, that might be the person who gets asked about baptism. Probably not the scary pastor.

It’s probably the last person that just got baptized. They’re going to go say, hey, how did that work? How did that happen? And that person might then take out a piece of literature, like Transforming Your Life, and say, well, let’s talk about it. Let me show you what happened in my life. And that is what I always call pre-counseling, pre-baptism counseling. And I encourage people to do that. And when they come to a place then where things are starting to come together, it’s like, well, let me introduce you to an elder in the church. Let me introduce you to somebody who can help you with next steps.

One thing that some individuals in the church find is they don’t feel necessarily welcome by others in the congregation. And so imagine a new person coming in, or even people that we have here who just don’t feel welcome somehow. Is that a way for God’s church to grow? Why would that be? Is it because they’re a different age? Is it because of different likes? A different background? A different culture? A different race? Do we allow anything like that to not help the body of Christ grow so that every nation, tribe, and tongue can excel?

That’s a good thing for us to think about. It’s been on my mind. Not about others, but how about me? Do I personally—and I would ask you the same question—do I, we all could ask the question, do I welcome, do I make everybody feel absolutely welcome? A brother and sister. God’s work is for people, and we promote agape love to the global humanity. Global humanity. Humidity is pretty high, and so it’s the humanity.

Unity comes from things held in common. Now we’re going to move towards the topic, but that kind of is an introduction. Unity comes from things in common, but I’ve just described a lot of things that we don’t have in common, and those can become little mental barriers. Yet you’ll find when people step across into other, maybe unfamiliar relationships or environments, there’s great appreciation for that. I remember some of the most thankful people have been those who have made the invitation, and someone has taken the time to come to their home, to see their little place. A little hut, or a Palestinian in the old city—oh, come with me, and we’ll go down the alleys, and we’ll go upstairs, and you can see this little cramped corridor. Here’s my wife, and she’s over there cooking, and my kids in this almost little one-room place, and we’re just so thankful that you would come. Sit down. Would you like to have a piece of whatever this stuff is that we eat? Yeah. And they’re so honored, you know?

And the same with if you go to cultures around the world, it’s almost required—unless you insult the family and the community—that you eat some of their food. And you do not say no. You eat some of their food. You can be choosy, but you have to eat something, and it’s so meaningful to them if you’ll eat that little plate of stuff that they have. And you know, do what you can to… they’ll just praise you for it and thank you for it.

When we teach in the world tomorrow, do you think we’re going to teach culture? It’s one thing I’ve never seen in the Bible. God doesn’t really tell people how to do things differently as the Israelites move along or in the New Testament times. There’s no particular code, ethnic code, that you have to live by. God sort of takes people where they are—whether it was Abraham, or whether it was the Israelites, or Babylon. As you come down, here’s what God teaches. Let’s go to Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28 should be a favorite of all of ours. And I remember Mr. Shaby really focusing on this and putting my mind on this. And it’s good for us to go here to Deuteronomy 28:2. He says, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” That’s why Jesus came. That’s why Abraham, who obeyed God—remember, he obeyed all His commandments, statutes, the principles. He was faithful with them and called the father of the faithful.

All right. So when we do that, Abraham was blessed. And through his lineage came the Seed, who would be the blessing to all humanity. How does it work? Sometimes you might ask the question, I wonder in the world tomorrow, what will I teach people? I’m going to teach them. What am I going to teach them? Well, how about we start right here, Deuteronomy 28:2:“And all these blessings shall come upon you, people in the world tomorrow, people in the second resurrection, your children today, your neighbors, new people, the gospel message. Hey, all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.”

It’s kind of like a tidal wave. It’s going to come and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. And consequently, verse 3: “Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.” (Deuteronomy 28:3) And it goes on and on and on about the blessings.

Of course, later in that chapter, it’s like, if you don’t obey the voice of the Lord your God, your life’s going to look like pretty much the world today. That’s pretty much how it’s going to go. So remember to do this. So this is what God teaches. And through Jesus Christ, then, all nations of the earth are beginning to be blessed as they obey the voice of the Lord.

Now, I’d like to get into the meat of this message in the time left, and that is: what are some of the common denominators that those who are being prepared to help Jesus Christ bring blessings—what are some of the common denominators that they share?

What are the things that we have in common? We’ve talked about differences. What are the things that we all have in common? Every race, tribe, language, etc. Well, let’s look at a few from the Scripture. You know, the title of this sermon is Our Common Denominators.

Our common denominators.

I know sometimes we see Old Testament and New Testament, and you might think New Testament is that place where the church was and everybody spoke Greek. You kind of define it as that. Well, let’s break that mold real fast over in Acts 2:8.

Because here, at the start of the church, who was participating? Acts 2:8. Here, we find the Day of Pentecost had come and the sound of Peter preaching and people hearing in various languages were taking place there in verse 6.

So we come down to verse 8 and it says, “And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?” These people had come from all over the place. Places where they had been born, and in their own language. They had to be dressed different. They had different food. They had different… And then he says, “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia.” We’re talking all around the Roman Empire. “Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya.” We’ve moved down into the North African area.

And then going on, parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene and visitors from Rome. Now we’ve passed Greece. We’ve gone all the way to Italy, to the boot of Italy hanging down there, to Rome. Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. This is the audience that the church rolled out to. And they were amazed—amazed and perplexed. Peter became apostle to a variety of nationalities and cultures, being Jews who were there, but they were from a variety of nationalities in which they were living and cultures in which they were living. And then we see through the apostle Paul, it spread out to people of other nationalities.

Solomon, who became Paul, raised churches in distant Greece, down in Corinth, in Turkey like Ephesus. Jesus Christ reviews the seven churches not from Palestine but up from Turkey—what is modern Turkey today. We had a congregation in Rome, in Italy. Just imagine the ethnic differences and languages and cultures in the church right then in the early part of the New Testament period.

So what are common denominators among our diverse cultures in the church? I’m stumbling a little bit today. Well, there are several mentioned in scriptures. The first is found in Titus 1:1–4, and it’s our common faith.

Titus 1:1–4 — Paul, a bondservant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested His word through preaching which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior. And he’s now writing to Titus. Well, now there’s a different name. There’s a name that would in Latin be associated with something in the Roman realm, and he says, “A true son in our common faith.”

So here’s Paul, who grew up in one of the main important cities of the Roman Empire up in Tarsus, had quite an international perspective, and God would use him in an international work. And he now has a son called Titus, and he says we have a common faith.

So that’s one thing that we have in common. Another thing we have in common is our Godhead. You know, not all people in the world know or have the same God. The Bible speaks of God our Father, God your Father, I am God your God. “Your” often goes with God, or “our” often goes with God—Lord, our Lord, right? Our Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Father. That’s how the Bible looks at this. So not everyone right now has the true Godhead in common.

But in 1 Peter 2:4–5, this is something that all of us who are called today by God pray to as our Father in heaven. It says, “As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

And that’s what knits us together right there. We come to Jesus Christ. We are not like the world around that rejects Him, but we are being built into this spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to serve and reign with Him.

That brings us then to having a common spirit. Ephesians 4:4–6. Ephesians 4 speaks of wonderful gifts and the allocation of gifts and responsibilities in the church.

Ephesians 4:4–6 — “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in you all.”

All of those elements then are very, very crucial to us being one. Without those, if we start taking those apart, then we don’t have things in common.

We have then a common citizenship, because those who have and are led by God’s Spirit are sons of God, and the kingdom of God—of which God rules over—then brings us into a relationship within that kingdom as citizens.

Let’s look in Ephesians 2:19–20. “Now, therefore, you are no longer foreigners and strangers”—that’s interesting that he’s talking here to the church in Ephesus, which itself was a port city at the time, and it’s sort of a crossroads of people, and these were not Jews. These were Gentiles living on the west coast of Turkey, and he’s saying—“you are no longer outsiders or foreigners to the church or strangers, but now fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of His household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone.”

See, this really begins to knit us together, doesn’t it? We have so much in common as long as we are truly living the Word of God, truly in the faith. Let’s look at the next—it is our common foundation. 

Ephesians 2:19–22 “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

Dwelling places are the place of God. The dwelling place of God is something that you and I have—and we’ll allude to this in a moment a little bit further. But God dwelling in each one of us makes us something similar. We’re diverse. We’re in this building in various places, various components of a building. It’s like the building that you’re in right now. It has all different types of components. Some are windows, some are doors, some are chairs, some are things to do with water, some things to do with comfort. But we’re all being built together into this spiritual house.

And then we have a church body in common. Let’s go to Ephesians 3:14. “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

So now we have this church that is not only structured, but it’s connected through doing—throRas, dva, triugh the love, the agape love that’s now flowing out, as it says in chapter 4 and verses 15–16. The love by which each part does its share edifies it. It causes growth of the body through this agape love.

These are important things for us to remember as we see each other. We might say, well, that person’s a little different. That person may be a little different than me, you know, blah, blah, blah. No. We’re supposed to really be growing here into oneness.

We have a family spirit in common. It’s been alluded to before, but let’s notice Romans 8, another wonderful chapter for the church. And we’ll just read verses 14–17.

We begin to see some of these things now coming together as common denominators that we share in Romans 8:14. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear”—you’re not some outsider—“but you received the Spirit of adoption” or sonship, “by which we cry out, Abba, Father.”

The word Abba comes from the Aramaic, and it’s evidently a really warm family term, a little less formal. We might say in English, “Daddy” or “Papa.” It’s very much come boldly unto the throne of grace, the Bible says. Come sit on My lap, as it were. Well, at least come and kneel on the glass, as it were, threshold in front of the throne. We’ll get to sit on the throne later, literally, with God and Christ. But it’s that—come boldly.

See, back in the temple, back in the whole temple structure—and I imagine this when I pray and think about this—there are elements to the temple. And if you read about the time of David, they had a few thousand people who were in charge of who came into that area. It’s kind of the key of David. You could come in if you were approved into Jerusalem. It’s kind of like New Jerusalem—you see there are some walls and gates there. Some can come in. You can get into the gate, maybe. Or you could come up to the temple, and there were various places where certain individuals could come a certain distance. Others, if you were a priest, you could come a little further. If you were the high priest, once a year you could come all the way in.

God is telling us, through Jesus Christ: come all the way. Just come right in. Come right into the throne. That is really, really a privilege. What an honor.

And so here in verse 16, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs—heirs of God.” Oh, now we’ve come to a whole new level. Not only are we connected with a Godhead, we’re heirs of the Godhead. And we’re heirs of everything God and Jesus Christ have, because we’re Their children, and we’re joint heirs. You know, Jesus Christ has been given everything, and His bride—as His bride—we inherit everything. We will be with Him. What a wonderful blessing this is.

So we have family in common. Now we also have something else in common. We have a common enemy. All right? Now, our common enemy… Did you just sort of go sour there? Did you just—oh, bummer, got to talk about Satan? Don’t do that, because our common enemy is a good thing to have.

We all kind of faint—we say, “I don’t want trials, save me from my trials.” Well, hang on. We all like trials. Everybody likes trials. I imagine there are going to be some games at the picnic tomorrow. What do you think? And with any game, you actually have some challenges, don’t you? That’s what makes it fun. If you’re going to play a ball game, do you want to just go play by yourself and make all the baskets? Maybe get a ladder and just drop the ball through the hoop? No—that’s no fun. You want some competition. You want some challenge, don’t you?

And so it is. We like games of skill. In fact, we heard a pianist playing our hymns today. And the first time he ever sat down, it probably was like, “How do you make all these keys work?” Well, you like a little challenge, and you work on that, and you work on that, and you get better, and you get better.

So God has given us a challenge, and it just happened to have a great adversary, all right, to give us all some challenge, some pushback. And so we have this common enemy. But guess what? The whole family of God has the same enemy, right? Entire family of God. Not just humans—God the Father has an enemy.

Satan used to be part of the heavenly kingdom realm, the empire, right? And he went south, and he took a third of the angels, and he became an enemy of unity and peace in heaven, and has been a thorn in the flesh ever since—especially to the flesh.

Think about this common enemy. He was Christ’s enemy from the Garden of Eden, right? Jesus Christ, the God in the Old Testament, is working with Adam and Eve and blessing them. And in comes—not through the door, but through the window—a serpent. And he steals them, as it were. And then there’s a righteous line that proceeds from Adam. Probably Adam and Eve maybe got things a little bit better, and some of their grandchildren and others were doing right. And then Satan got them to marry other people and other religions, and by chapter 6 you’ve got a whole mess and a flood. And you start over again.

And it keeps going down through time. You come all the way down to, let’s say, the time Jesus comes on the earth. He’s got the same enemy you and I do. He’s trying to kill Him before He’s two years old. Then He crucifies Him. He interferes with Jesus Christ’s ministry, and He only has maybe 120 disciples before He dies, perhaps. See, there’s all this pushback, all this pressure. But Jesus Christ conquered Satan.

We read in Revelation 3. He conquered, or overcame, and we will sit with Him on His throne if we also conquer and overcome. See, we’ve got to conquer this adversary. And we will. And we’ll do it. We’ll do it just fine.

But don’t think it ends there, because when Jesus Christ returns, who’s His enemy then? Satan. The Day of the Lord—maybe a year? You see, Satan is still deceiving the nations and actually brings them to war against Christ and the saints, and they have this climactic battle of Armageddon. And finally, it’s not until a strong angel binds the devil do you finally get that out of the way for a while.

So I’m just saying that this is an enemy. In 1 Peter 5:8–9—Peter says here in verse 8, “Be sober, be vigilant.” Do some training, get ready, get dressed, put on the whole armor of God—Ephesians 6, you know, buck up. Let’s do this. “Because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

If you go over to Kenya, you’ll find one of the tribes over there is really good at killing lions. They don’t see any problem with that at all. They’re young men—in fact, in order to become a man, you need to kill a lion. They just take that for face value. So we ought to as well. “Your adversary walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in all the world.”

89So we have a common enemy. But we also have the next one—a common salvation.

In Jude 1:3—well, there’s only one chapter, so we’ll just call it Jude verse 3—he says: “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.”

We have to focus on that—our common salvation. We are going to be saved. Our common salvation, our common enemy, makes salvation an interesting challenge, but God is never going to leave or forsake you. And in 2 Peter 3:9 it says, “It is not God’s will that any should perish.” So you’ve got God on your side there.

Now notice, he says, “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered.” What was the first element we dealt with today? It was our common faith. And now we have a common salvation. The thing that links the two—and all those other common denominators we’ve spoken about—is a faith that endures, that contends. Remember the sports illustration? We contend for the faith once delivered. And we’re going to succeed in that. As Jesus said, “He who endures to the end will be saved.” So we have that common salvation.

The good news, of course, is that Jesus Christ succeeded. And we find in the book of Revelation that many are standing before the throne.

Let’s go to Revelation 5:6. “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain.” He was slain during the Days of Unleavened Bread. He was presented to God. He was received. He made it. He became the first of the firstfruits. He showed us it can be done.

Now notice verse 9: “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.’”

He did it. And we will do it.

In conclusion then, we have many things in common—including two more: our common future.

In John 14:1, Jesus speaks of this common future. He uses a word that is only found here in the Bible. “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions.”

The Greek word there is monē. In English it’s translated as “mansion” or “manor.” It’s not just a room. It conveys something ultimate—the ultimate dwelling place. Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” This word only appears twice in Scripture, both in this chapter.

So God is preparing a place—a literal place, though certainly metaphorical as well—but notice the emphasis: it is plural. Many. Everyone will have this special dwelling. It’s described as a mansion.

The only other place that word appears brings us to right here, right now, today. That’s in John 14:23. “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.’

God’s home is a special place. And that word home is monē. God is dwelling in some place that is really, really special to Him right now. And that place is you. He sees you as a mansion, a fitting dwelling place for Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the Spirit.

Brethren, you—we—are so special to God that we are Their mansion now. And They are preparing that type of place for us in Their family.

They are very pleased with us as we seek to love one another as They love us. So let us live loving lives that promote love and respect for God, and for all humanity whom He has created in His image and likeness.