It's fun to thumb through old photo albums. From a shelf you pull down one from 1975 and discover again why men should never wear plaid or striped pants. Another from the year 1986 celebrates the beginning of the big hair era and, as the big books pile around you, you realize each year that passes is telling. Some years are marked by a graduation, a wedding or the pain of a funeral you'd just as soon forget, but it is true, each year brings something. For us at First Congregational-UCC, this year brings something incredibly significant, and this significant year starts with what Paul eloquently states here in Ephesians. Paul's theology is as beautiful as all the recent snowfall here in the county and while the Apostle explains our relationship to God through Christ Jesus with freshness like our new snow, there's more. In all his writing there is one word he raises several times. This one word is both the very essence of our lesson and the hinge point of our new year here. The word Paul brings to us is unity.

For those whose curiosity has been piqued by the sermon title, what will make 2010 happy is what I've just appropriated from Paul. What will make the 2010 happy for us is unity.

Now unity for a church with united in its title should not be difficult. After all, we are First Congregational - United Church of Christ.

But maybe for some this will be difficult. I started out talking about photo albums because this will be a significant year only if we are unified. This will be a significant year if we hear not our own voices of distance or of doubt, but concentrate on the one voice that has guided this church all along, and that's the voice of God. This will be a significant year if we don't hear this self-promoting view, "what's in it for me?" but embrace our mission statement which is to love God and serve others.

To love God and serve others further, which is what we are here to do, let's move into scripture and the first of our sermon points. As God brought us to himself through Jesus Christ as we have read in verse five, we, with the wisdom and understanding Paul sites we've been given in verse seven, need to bring others to Christ.

When we love God and serve others, how is that going to happen? With wisdom and understanding, how exactly are we, much like the Jews and Gentiles Paul talks of, going to bring others to Christ? To answer that, today I'm putting the first and second sermon points back-to-back. Here is our second point. To fulfill God's own good pleasure (as stated in verse 9) which unarguably to bring others to Christ, we are called not to block, but to build.

That's right. To bring others to Christ we have to start building; and the building I'm talking about now is literal. The building I'm talking about begins with your heart in the right place. The building I'm talking about begins with commitment to the New Year and a new, deeper, richer relationship with Christ, and I don't mean a relationship where you talk now and again when convenient and God listens. The building I'm talking about begins with your being real and your being ripe, ripe like good fruit on the vine.

The building I'm talking about isn't exhausting, tiring or difficult. No, the building I'm taking about begins with this uniting Paul talks about. It begins with the inheritance we heard about. It begins with putting Christ first. And putting Christ first begins with those plans out there in the Narthex. It is clear. For us to bring others to Christ, we have to show that we follow God not just with our lips, but our hearts—and our hands.

Think about the 2010 photo album again. Imagine what can come from Paul's words here as we begin to shape this year's memories. Holding to what Paul requires of us, what mental and actual pictures will a new photo album contain of our church community? What pictures will you be in? In these pictures, will you be standing by or stepping up? And what will your expression be—will memories show you glad, or grumpy?

Yes, visualize that album. As a church, will snapshots show distress, disagreement and dissension, or will a future photo album be filled with one God designs, and that's a desire-filled community linked in unity? Again, hear these words from Paul. Through our wisdom and understanding, we are to be in unity. In unity, we are called to bring others to Christ. To do that, we can no longer limp along or play dead like we've been doing for ten, fifteen, even twenty years now; no, we have to physically grow.

Had we done this the first time, had we put our trust and faith with God rather than in our own thinking when the first building project came about some twenty years ago, we wouldn't be facing this situation now. Building both spiritually and physically is what God wants for us because building both spiritually and physically brings about unity, and, with more square footage added when first proposed, we'd be enjoying more space, and more space will bring others to Christ.

We've been given the opportunity for growth a second time. It's coming around again because enough of us aren't settling for a half-baked commitment to Christ. Enough of us are saying that handicapped accessibility and learning space is necessary. Enough of us are saying this isn't a weekly social club. Enough of us are saying we are not going to listen any longer to earthly concerns that can be overcome; enough of us are saying it's time we invest in what we study and in what we believe, and that's a God that, through challenges and triumph, will get us through.

Will this opportunity come about a third time? I don't know. I do know, however, that enough of us want to be a part of church that learned from its past. Enough of us have learned to find peace, love and trust with each other through God and that momentum, there in the pews around you, is what enabling this building. That momentum, driven by God, will set us free from a box currently too small.

To fulfill God's own good pleasure which unarguably is to bring others to Christ, we are called not to block, but to build.

And each of us here today can build today. Here's what I mean.  To build, we simply need to trust more. And this trust in Christ leads to point three in our notes today. Like the Jews Paul is speaking to, God's purpose for us today here at First Congregational-UCC is to trust in Christ and bring praise and glory to God.

Trust Christ. He will see you through. He has seen you through. Think back on a time in your past. We've been talking about photo albums and if you actually have to go and find an old one of yours do so. Open an old photo album. Flip through its pages. Whether you could name it then or not, Christ was with you. Christ has been with you.

And Christ is with you now because we are chosen by God. You'll find it there in verse eleven. There's nothing you can do to earn God's choice—you can't work for it—but you can accept it, and in accepting Christ, or in accepting Christ more than you ever had before, you can build. And that's what this year is all about.

Paul says God 'chose us' to emphasize that salvation depends totally on God. In other words, we did not influence God's decision to save us; he saved us according to His plan. And his plan includes unity.

Some may wonder here in verse eleven if God chose some and not others. It would make it easy to assume that the origin of evil in the world comes from those God does not choose, but that's an easy way out. Here's an example of this. God didn't choose a boy named Adolf some years back, and, as a result, we have a Hitler whose crimes against humanity still smell from the fires in those horrific concentration camps.

That's not God. Again, think of unity. Think of Paul's words here. God does not choose some. God chooses everyone.

It flips around though. Do you choose God? And to choose you have to trust, so do you trust God? If you trust God then you'll unite with God, uniting with God presents countless opportunities for health, love, and this growth I was talking about earlier.

This is my own theology here. I espouse that if little Adolf and others like him who've committed unspeakable crimes as adults had been in unity with others who have hearts and souls linked to our loving God, then those heinous acts that should make us cry would never have filled a history book, and they never would have filled a history book because they never would have happened.

Who knows what small boy or girl in our local community—a boy or girl we may or may not know—needs this unity Paul speaks of. These can no longer be words, First Congregational-UCC. There has to be action.

Link with God. Trust God. Let God build within you, and, in turn, build with God and build for God. Trust in Christ, as our third point states, and bring praise and glory to God.

Someone shared within the past three months that this building—just the physical one now—will either happen or it won't. He or she said that words here don't matter. People have their minds made up.

I argue that. I think words do matter. I think these words from Paul not only matter, but also they guide, instruct and represent us. We unite under one cause of building. And this unity comes from words that matter, those words being this scripture here today.

In conclusion, here's one last word on this photo album and words that matter. Like it or not, we've all been in a group photo. Be it five or a group of twenty-five or more, what's one thing the photographer always says after first looking through his or her lens? It's the same thing God says when looking through his lens. "That's it. Come together a little bit more. Yes, closer."

Now that's unity.