Beauty is found in contrast. We’ve all seen the commercials where a diamond is set against black velvet and know for something to shine it needs something that doesn’t. Dawn is compared to darkness, feasting with famine and love with loss.
This contrast in the Book of Ephesians in the Bible takes the form of outsiders and insiders, or according to Paul, strangers and saints. Those who aren’t part of the church and don’t yet know Jesus as strangers and aliens. They don’t think Jesus is someone they need and seem to be living just fine outside the promises and rescue of God.
But being a stranger isn’t a neutral place to be if God (a supreme being with all power and authority) exists. If someone lives in a compound in the desert but doesn’t acknowledge the authority of the IRS or basic laws, there’s going to be a problem. It’s the same with living our way apart from God with the breath he gives us and obedience he requires.
But what’s interesting is that God doesn’t want strangers to simply become compliant, good people. He wants us to become saints. He wants us to experience two realities at the same time, “grace” and “peace,” both which point to our relationship with him.
Ephesians 1:1 says this: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
So peace with God is not a homily hummed in a building but the reality that you and God can exist together, not only with no conflict but with a true desire for each other. It’s a oneness that no accusation or mistake could take away because those sins have already been taken away through a sacrifice.
And grace that also marks this relationship isn’t the nod God gives those who claim him but the overwhelming gifts of love we receive when he rescues us. It is the offering of his son on a cross, eternal life, the Holy Spirit, adoption, communion, church, glorification, and hope. It is the one-way love he shows his adopted children every day.
And its grace and peace that turns strangers into saints, outsiders to insiders. So rather than settle for thinking you and God are good with each other, consider the invitation to be part of his family through the sacrifice of his son on a cross. Because at the end of the day, God doesn’t want peace that only removes the conflict but true peace that fulfills and transforms us eternally through his presence.
Fred Kingman is student pastor at LifePoint Church.
