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Walking Tall

Sunday May 26, 2024

Sunday May 26, 2024

If you are born again, you are alive with Christ! If you are born again, everything listed in Ephesians 1:3-14 is true of you! In those twelve verses the phrase: In Him or in Christ is stated. Before we even touch Ephesians 4:1-3, I want you to marvel over what it means to be in Christ. In Jesus, I can now know the God for whom I was made. In Jesus God no longer sees my sin, but the righteousness of His Son. In Jesus, I am becoming more and more like the person I was born to be. In Jesus, I have redemption and am now a child of God instead of an enemy; here are eighteen other reasons to celebrate what it means to be in Christ.:
In Christ, I am justified freely by His grace (Rom. 3:24)
In Christ, I am now Gods child (1 Peter 1:3)
In Christ, I am forgiven of all my sins (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:14)
In Christ, I have peace (John 14:27)
In Christ, I am loved by God the Father (John 16:27)
In Christ, I belong to God (John 17:9)
In Christ, I will never be forsaken or abandoned by God (John 10)
In Christ, I am treasured by God (1 Peter 1-2)
In Christ, I am the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21)
In Christ, there is for me NO condemnation (Rom. 8:1)
In Christ, God is working all things together for my good (Rom. 8:28)
In Christ, I have obtained an inheritance that only God alone can give (Eph. 1:11)
In Christ, I am a new creation the old is gone and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17)
In Christ, I am a son/daughter of God (Gal. 4:6)
In Christ, I am no longer a stranger or alien, but a fellow citizen with the saints (Eph. 2:19)
In Christ, I am a member of the body of Christ (Eph. 3:6)
In Christ, I am set apart for the mission of God (Eph. 2:10)
In Christ, I am loved by an everlasting God (1 John 4:19)
Paul begins verse four with the word, Therefore. When you read your Bible, this word serves as a clue that in light of what has been written, what you are about to read next is in response to what proceeded it. Another way to say it is: In light of Ephesians 1-3, this is how you are to behave. How are we to behave? Since we are alive in Christ, we are to walk as the spiritually living. Since we are not the only ones made alive in Christ, we should walk together as the living. I want to look at both of those points Paul makes in the verses that follow.
How to Walk as the Living
Paul begins with these words: Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you (v. 1a). So far in his epistle this is only the second place when Paul tells his readers to do something. The first time Paul told the Ephesians they had to do something, it was in 2:12, remember that you were. Remember what Paul? Remember who you were and who you now are! In Ephesians 4:1, Paul is not telling these Christians to remember their identity in Christ but to walk in step with their identity as those who have been called out of death into life with Christ.
There are two words I want you to notice that I will call, The Two Ws of the Christian life. The first word is walk, and the second word is worthy. The Ws of the Christian life serve as evidence that you are alive in Jesus and no longer dead in your sins. When Paul uses the word walk in his epistle, he is referring metaphorically to the way a person lives out their life ethically. Paul uses the word walk thirty-two times in his epistles, eight of which are used in Ephesians, and every time it is used metaphorically!
In Ephesians 2:1-2, our walk was governed by a Christless life: And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. In Colossians Paul also described the way the Christian used to walk, listen to the way he uses the word, walk in Colossians 3:5-7, Therefore, treat the parts of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. Jesus used the same metaphor in describing what will happen to the one who follows Him: I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life (John 8:12). Listen to the other ways Paul uses the word walk in his epistles:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. (Gal. 5:16)
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:4)
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. (Eph. 5:12)
Here, in the verse before us this morning, we are commanded to, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.
The second W word of the Christian life is the word worthy. The Greek word Paul uses is axiōs, and it literally means worthily. The word worthy means to have worth or value in the same way a scale measures the weight of something. So, picture a scale in your mind; on the one side of the scale you have all of the doctrinal goodness that is true of you in Christ from Ephesians 1-3, and on the other side of the scale is the weight of your new life in Jesus applied in the way you live out that doctrinal truth. Martyn Lloyd-Jones describes what Paul is saying in this verse in the following way: The Apostle is beseeching them and exhorting them always to give equal weight in their lives to doctrine and practice. They must not put all the weight on doctrine and none on practice; nor all the weight on practice and just a little, if any at all, on doctrine. To do so produces imbalance and lopsidedness. The Ephesians must take great pains to see that the scales are perfectly balanced.[1]
Let me say it in another way: Orthodoxy is right doctrine, and orthopraxy is right-practice. Here is where it gets real for you and me! In evangelical churches, you will probably run into two types of people who claim to be Christian: the first is the kind of Christian who can quote chapter and verse from the Bible, seems to have their theology nailed down and dialed in, but has little to show for it in the way they live out (practice) their Christianity. The other person you may run into seems to be a really nice Christian but has little understanding of the Bible or what passes for right doctrine.What we learn from Ephesians 4:1 is that our metaphorical Christian scale needs sound and solid doctrine from the Bible that is balanced by a life that is shaped by a growing understanding of the Word of God. Let me say it another way: as a Christian, you should be growing in your understanding of who God is and what it means to follow Jesus, and as you grow, your life will demonstrate that growth in equal measure.
The Way We Walk Together as the Living
So what does it look like to, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called? It looks like verses 2-3, which is a life with, all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Two themes flow out of Ephesians 4-6 and that is, 1) unity between the redeemed and 2) the godly life lived out. In verses 2-3, Paul provides a list of five character traits that the one who is truly alive in Christ ought to long and strive for as he/she follows Jesus. What Paul lists are five characteristics that ought to be on the side of the scale that is labeled: practice.
Humility. Think about your salvation and what it cost Jesus to redeem you. You who once stood before a holy God as a child of wrath living in the lusts of your flesh and mind (vv. 2-3), God made you alive in Christ (v. 4-5). Could there not be any clearer statement to shatter any hint of pride in you: but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us made us alive together with Christ. If you understand the doctrine of Gods grace and mercy, then you will understand that the grace you received was not free and the mercy you received was not deserved: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9). There is no room for pride in the blood-bought and redeemed life of the Christian.
Gentleness. To be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, and to be a disciple of Jesus is to follow and imitate His ways. We have been redeemed by and follow the One who invites all: Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:2829). To be gentle is to be meek, but that does not mean that Jesus was weak. Moses is described in Numbers 12:3 as, very humble, more than any person who was on the face of the earth. If you know anything about Moses, he was a courageous and gifted leader who bravely stood before the most powerful man of his day to demand that he let the Hebrew slaves go. We who were far from God, he found us and met us in our sin! Consider Romans 2:4 and the kindness of God: Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? When it comes to the way we treat others, we ought to be known for our gentleness, and when it comes to the sins of others, the Word of God is very clear: Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well (Gal. 6:1).
Patience. The Greek word Paul used for patience is makrothymia which also means forbearance or long-suffering. How do you develop long-suffering as a Christian? We develop patience in the Christian life through the things we suffer. Listen, suffering is the fire God uses to purge the dross from our lives. Find a person who has suffered much and you will find a person who is either bitter or empathetic towards others. W. Tozer, a pastor known for his prayer life, once said of the person who wished to be used of God: It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God raises up storms of conflict in relationships at times to accomplish that deeper work in our character.
If you dont buy into what Tozer said, consider what we read in Romans 5:3-5, And not only this, but we also celebrate in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom. 5:35). If you are serious about following Jesus, you will experience the suffering God intends for your good and His glory.
Patience in the life of the Christian will not only come by way of suffering, but it comes through confidence and trust in a good and sovereign God. The more you grow in your understanding of who God is (orthodoxy) the greater your patience will become (orthopraxy).
Bearing with one another. The fruit of godly humility, gentleness, and patience is the desire and hard work of bearing with one another. The Greek word for bearing here can also be translated as tolerate, put up with, or endure. To the scattered and suffering Christian located in what is now modern Turkey, the apostle Peter instructed: Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). Christian, you are a work in progress and the goal of becoming holy and blameless is not complete in you and will not be until a death or a resurrection, yet God is patient with you; oh, how easily we forget the 10,000 ways God endures us while He remains committed to the good He is doing in us! If God endures you, how is it that you are unwilling to endure your brother or sister in whom God is committed to do the same thing He is doing in you? How often and to what degree do we continue to wrong Him who endured the cross for our redemption? How easily we forget our Lords words from His Sermon on the Mount: For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses (Matt. 6:1415).
Unity. Paul does not just tell us to be united, but to be, diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The way the NASB translates diligent is not a bad translation, but in the original language (spoudazō) the word is better translated as zealous or eager. I think the way the NASB translates this verse loses the edge and urgency that Paul meant to communicate to the Ephesian Christians.
Listen, Paul is urging you, Christian, to be zealous and eager to maintain the unity we share as those who have been redeemed through the slaughtering of the Lamb of God so that we can be the children of God. As His Church, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit as His redeemed people. This is the unity of the Spirit that we are to keep within the community of faith in such a way that it is visible to the world around us! This is why Jesus commanded: I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another (John 13:3435).
Oh, the petty things we allow to disrupt our union as Jesus Bride! The things we fight about and break fellowship over grieve the heart of the One who was crushed and cursed so that we could be reconciled to the God we sinned against. Peter OBrien wrote of this verse the following indictment that would do us well to heed and respond to in repentance: To live in a manner which mars the unity of the Spirit is to scorn the gracious reconciling work of Christ. It is tantamount to saying that his sacrificial death by which relationships with God and others have been restored, along with the resulting freedom of access to the Father, are of no real consequence to us![2]
We have spent 20 weeks together in first three chapters in Ephesians, and some of you are still on track for reading through the Bible in a year. I have been with you for over five years now, and I have seen so much growth in many of you regarding your theological understand of God. I love that many of you honor or have grown to honor the Bible for what it is as the Word of God. I love that I can hear pages of your Bibles turn as we engage the Word of God each and every Sunday together! I am so proud of you and your growth dear brothers and sisters! My question for you this morning is simply this: What are you doing with your orthodoxy?
Permit me to close our time with some questions to think about: How has your growth and understanding of who God is through His revealed word deepened your humility? How has it tenderized you towards others? How has your theology of Ephesians 1:3-14 and 2:1-10 made you a more patient person? Has your right awareness and understanding of Gods choosing, redeeming, and sealing of you as His reconciled child created in you to extend the same mercy and grace that you received to others who God is working through and with? Has your zeal for knowing God fostered a zeal to find what you disagree with, or has it created in you a zeal to maintain and celebrate the primary things you agree upon?
[1] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:1 to 16 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 24.
[2] Peter Thomas OBrien, The Letter to the Ephesians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 280.

Sunday May 19, 2024

Questions from Ephesians 1:1-3:21
If God chose me before the foundation of the world? Do I really have free will?
Yes. But the real question is this: Is your free will limited to your spiritual condition? In the second sermon of our Ephesian series, I preached an entire sermon on the infamous Ephesians 1:4-6, and in that sermon, I answered what it meant to be chosen by God, here is what I said: To be chosen means that God predestined you to something. Predestination means, to determine something ahead of time before its occurrence.[1] So, according to these verses, before God invented dirt, He planned for your adoption as a son or daughter through all that Jesus would do on your account for your sin on a cross that we all deserved.
It is very difficult, within the context of Ephesians to explain Ephesians 1:4-6 any other way than to take at face value the clear and direct language he used in these verses; Paul could not have been any clearer: He chose us in Him [Jesus] before the foundation of the world He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. So, where is our free will in these verses? I will tell you where it is; your free will is somewhere between Ephesians 1:4 and 2:10.
We are chosen before the foundation of the world according to Ephesians 1:4, we were dead in our offenses and sins according to Ephesians 2:1, and it is, by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God according to Ephesians 2:8. The in-between in these verses is that you were born and lived before Jesus in your spiritual deadness, and your will was only free to operate within the nature of your spiritual deadness, until Ephesians 2:4-5 happened to you, which was this: But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ.
So, here is how your free will expressed itself while you were dead in your offenses and sins: you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest (vv. 2-3). In Ephesians 2:2-3 we are given a list of how our free will expressed itself:
We followed the prince of the power of the air (the devil).
We were disobedient.
We lived in the lusts of our flesh.
We indulged the desire of our flesh and mind.
We were children of wrath.
I dont know any other way to understand Ephesians 1:4-6 and 2:1-3 than to read 1:4 at face value: He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. There was no other way for God to save us than to do what we are told that He did in Ephesians 2:4-5, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ.
Now listen to me: God made us alive, but He did not believe for us! What this means is that your will was once limited to your spiritual deadness until God made you alive in Christ. The thing that God did for you in Ephesians 2:5-6, enabled you to experience and participate in what Paul describes in 2:8, which states: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
If God chooses who will be saved before the foundation of the world, why did He command His disciples: Go and make disciples of all nations and to, teach them to follow all that I commanded (Matt. 28:19-20)?
The reason why Jesus has commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations and the reason that it is a sin not to do so, is because the way He has chosen to make the spiritually dead, alive in Christ is through His Word proclaimed through your mouth and your actions. The means by which God has chosen to create something out of nothing and to raise the dead has always been through the authority of His Word proclaimed and the power of His Spirit. Permit me to show you from the Bible how and why this is so:
In the first two verses of the Bible, we read in Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light and there was light (Gen. 1:12). Psalm 33:6 describes what happened in Genesis 1:1-3 this way: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their lights. God spoke (proclaimed) as the Holy Spirit (i.e. The Spirit of God) was hovering over the surface of the waters and created everything out of nothing!
In Romans 10, we are given the means by which God will make the spiritual dead alive:
But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heartthat is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Whoever believes in Him will not be Put to shame. (Rom. 10:811)
You cannot believe unless you hear the Word of God, and you will not believe unless the Spirit of God exercises the same power that created the galaxies and raised Jesus from the grave! What other possible thing could Paul have meant when he wrote in Romans 10:14, How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? This is why Jesus commanded His people: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:1920).
How can I know for sure that I am a Christian?
Listen carefully to Ephesians 1:7-8 again: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. There is only one who is able to provide redemption and forgiveness of our sins, and it is Jesus Christ alone. There is no other way! In Ephesians 2:12, it says: remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the people of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. In other words, apart from Christ there is no hope, and you are without God. A positive way of spinning this verse is this way: If your hope is in the Jesus who died for your redemption and the forgiveness of your sins, then you have hope and you have God.
You can know for sure that you are a Christian if you are sure that the only hope you have for the forgiveness of your sins is faith in the Jesus who was born of a virgin, lived the perfect and sinless life you could not live, died a death for sins you are guilty of, and rose from the grave on the third day. Listen to what Jesus said to someone who was very religious but not yet a Christian: And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:1416). To add to this, we are told in 1 John 2:23, Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
The evidence that you truly have embraced Jesus as your redeemer and savior includes faith in all that He is, but also a love for God, His Word, and a desire to live a life that pleases Him.
Love for God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed (1 Cor. 16:22).
Love for the Word of God: If you love Me, you will keep My commandments (John 14:15). Here is another passage to consider: The one who says, I have come to know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever follows His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says that he remains in Him ought, himself also, walk just as He walked. (1 John 2:46, NASB 2020)
A Desire to Live a Life that Pleases God: Here are three passages that need little explaining:
My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Fathers hand. (John 10:2729)
In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:1718)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:2223)
Think about what is said in Ephesians 2:1-5. The difference between the dead and the living is evidenced by the posturing and behavior of the creature. The evidence between who is dead and who is alive is seen in how the dead and the living walk. Is this not the point of Ephesians 2:10? You were chosen, you who were once dead have now been made alive with Christ: we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand SO THAT WE WOULD WALK IN THEM. We just sang that same glorious truth:
I was breathing but not alive
All my failures I tried to hide
It was my tomb 'til I met You
('Cause when) You called my name (and)
I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness into Your glorious day
You called my name (and) I ran out of that grave!
Ephesians teaches us that we were saved to become holy and blameless (1:4) and created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (2:10). How do I become holy and blameless and what are the good works I am supposed do?
We were saved to be holy and blameless. This does not mean that we still do not struggle with sin, for we are told in the Bible, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us (1 John 1:9-10).
However, as I said the last two Sundays, your process and progress of living a life that develops and grows towards holiness and blamelessness must include an increasing dependence upon a bowing in surrender before God the Father (3:14), an abiding in God the Son (3:17-19), and a reliance upon the power of God the Spirit (3:16). The only way that will continue to happen is when you continually lay down your pride before the Father, a hunger and thirst of Jesus as your righteousness, and walk in step with the things of the Holy Spirit. Permit me to give you some ways you can do this:
The God who is able has spoken and has given us His word. If you want to know His thoughts, then you have got to listen to His word (the Bible). The more you read the Bible, the deeper your understanding of God will become. And the deeper your understanding of God develops, the more childlike your faith will become. Here are some ways you can begin to listen to God.
Pick a book in the Bible (i.e. the gospel of Mark) and read it. Then after you have read it, read it again more thoughtfully. After you have read it more thoughtfully, read it again. You will be amazed by what you will see in Gods word and how it will speak to you by doing this practice.
Make the Sunday morning gathering a priority. God has ordained the preaching of His word to build and encourage His people. Sitting at home with a steady diet of YouTube channels and people you always agree with will starve your soul. You need to be with Gods people who may not see things the way you do and to sit under the preaching of Gods word from a pastor you may not always agree with.
Join a Life Group. You need a community of friends who love God and His word that love you that you can have speak into your life.
The Jesus who lived the life you could never live and died the death you absolutely deserved has commanded you to follow Him. Think carefully about what Jesus said: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:27). Clearly Jesus does not want you to hate your family, but what He does want is your allegiance above anyone and everything else. But to follow Him, you have to pursue Him. Pursuing Jesus requires you to hear, obey, and practice His ways.
Let me show you something that may help you understand Ephesians 2:10 better; I want you to see what Jesus commanded us in Matthew 28:19-20 against the backdrop of what Paul wrote concerning the good works that, God prepared beforehand that we would walk in them.
What Paul wrote: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)
What Jesus commanded: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:1920)
The good works that God wants you to walk in is the mission Christ has commanded us to be engaged in. The word Go can be translated: as you are going make disciples. As you live in your neighborhood, as you are at work, as you are in the Starbucks line waiting to get your coffee, as you are living in your little world as one who was once dead, but is now alive with Jesus make disciples.
I promise that if you listen to Gods word and yield your heart and life to it, and if you seek to follow Jesus, you will increasingly become aware of your limitations and Gods power available to you through His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will never contradict the Word of God and He will never minimize the call to follow Jesus.
I want to do something in conclusion that I think will help tie together everything I have said this morning, and I would like to do it in the form of responsive reading. I am going to read some passages in the Bible, and after each passage, I will have you read in response Ephesians 3:20-21.
Responsive Reading
Pastor Keith:
You were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ. (Ephesians 2:15)
Congregation:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:2021)
Pastor Keith:
You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of Gods household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:1922)
Congregation:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:2021)
Pastor Keith:
For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:1419)
Congregation:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:2021)
Pastor Keith:
Therefore, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:16)
Congregation:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:2021)
[1] From Lexham Research Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament.

Sunday May 12, 2024

Susanna Annesley was born on January 20, 1669 and was the youngest of her 25 siblings! Her father was the Rev. Dr. Samuel Annesley and was later referred to as the St. Paul of the Nonconformists who stood against the unbiblical practices of slumbering national church.[1] To give you some sense of the kind of Christian home Susanna was born into, the Annesley home was visited by some of the spiritual giants of their day, such as Richard Baxter, John Owen, and Thomas Manton. Susanna said of her childhood: I will tell you what rule I observed when I was young and too much addicted to childish diversions, which was this never to spend more time in mere recreation in one day than I spent in private religious devotions.[2]
It has been said of Susanna that her knowledge of the Bible was superior to that of many of the pastors of her day and her love for and devotion to God was reflected in her time in the Bible and prayer. On November 12, 1688, Susanna married Samuel Wesley who had become an Anglican priest. Together the Wesleys had at least 17 children (some believe they had 19 children), and of those children, only 10 survived infancy; one child was crippled, and another did not learn to speak until he was six years old.
If 10 mouths to feed and children to clothe was not enough for both parents, Samuel Wesley was a poor steward and manager of money, not a very good husband to Susanna, and was frequently away from home for long periods. I read that during her lifetime as both a mother and a wife, Susanna was sick often, there was little money for food, and debt plagued their family and household because of Samuels poor management of money. Samuel was once thrown into debtors prison because their debt was so high. Twice the homes they lived in throughout their marriage were destroyed by fire along with much of what they owned. Someone slit their cows udders so they wouldnt have milk, killed their dog, and burned their flax field.[3]
Susanna had little time between her duties as a mother, the need to work their gardens, milk their cows, educate their children, and manage their home, all with little help. However, she managed to spend about two hours a day praying because she believed in the God of Ephesians 3:20-21. Because it was nearly impossible to find a quiet place to pray, she used her apron and told her children that when they saw her head covered with her apron, they were not permitted to disturb her because she was praying.
Of Samuel and Susannas ten surviving children, God would use John and Charles profoundly to reach the lost and impact the world they lived inmostly due to the foundation of the Word of God laid by their mother and the prayers prayed on their behalf. John Wesley would grow to become a great evangelist whom God used to preach to nearly one million people in his lifetime. Charles would be used by God to write over 9,000 hymns, of which many are still sung in our churches today.[4] One of those hymns is a favorite of mine: And Can It Be, That I Should Gain. Consider three of its five verses:
And can it be that I should gainAn interest in the Savior's bloodDied He for me, who caused His painFor me, who Him to death pursued?Amazing love! How can it beThat Thou, my God, should die for me?
He left His Father's throne aboveSo free, so infinite His graceEmptied Himself of all but loveAnd bled for Adam's helpless raceTic mercy all, immense and freeFor O my God, it found out me!Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
No condemnation now I dreadJesus, and all in Him, is mineAlive in Him, my living HeadAnd clothed in righteousness divineBold I approach the eternal throneAnd claim the crown, through Christ my ownAmazing love! How can it beThat Thou my God, should die for me?
Now, like a well-aged, perfectly seasoned steak cooked by a master chef, Ephesians 3:20-21 is before us, and every bit of these two verses is meant to be savored. So, lets savor one of the great doxological statements in the Bible: Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
This statement in Ephesians 3:20-21 is in response to what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in the life of the one He has chosen, redeemed, and secured as His child. Paul has brought us to the threshold of where our understanding and imagination can go, that we who were once dead in our offences and sins (2:1), can know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled to all the fullness of God (3:19). In his sermon on this same passage, James Montgomery Boice wrote in response:
This is beyond comprehension; we cannot even begin to imagine how we can be filled with Gods own fullness. We stand on the edge of the infinite. And yet, Paul is still not satisfied. He has prayed that God will do something we cannot even imagine; and now, having exhausted his ability to speak and write along that line, he bursts out in praise to God who, he says, is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (v. 20).[5]
So, what are these verses teaching us? What hope do they provide you? I believe that the answer is profound yet simple.
God is Working All Things Out for Our Good
How is God working all things out for our good and how do we know He is working all things out for our good? Well, let me begin by answering how we know that He is working all things out for our good. For starters, our God can work all things out for our good!
Paul begins verse 20 with six simple words: Now to Him who is able. God is able because He is not an idol. The Greek word used for do is poieō, which means to do, make, cause, or appoint. In other words, God is not like the stuff or gods that people worship; He can do what they cannot! He is not made with hands or created through any persons imagination. He is God! The God who is able is He who declares of Himself:
Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, My plan will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure; calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of My purpose from a distant country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, I will certainly do it.
Listen to Me, you stubborn-minded, who are far from righteousness. I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off; and My salvation will not delay. And I will grant salvation in Zion, and My glory for Israel. (Isaiah 46:913)
God alone is able to choose, redeem, and keep any He wills for the purpose of lavishing His rich mercy, great love, and all-sufficient grace upon any that He grants salvation. God chooses, redeems, and keeps because He will accomplish all His good pleasure (Isa. 46:10b).
Because God is able, He can do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. God is not like the compromising parent in the grocery store that will offer or give whatever the child wants just so he/she can get the child to shut up. God gives His children what is good for them and what they need. Sometimes what we want lines up with what He knows that we need, but there are times that what we are convinced we need is not what we need at all because it ultimately may not even be good for us. However, if we are surrendering ourselves to Gods will (vv. 14-15), if we are desiring a dependance upon the Holy Spirit (vv. 16-17a), and we are walking in union with Christ (vv. 17-19), then what you think you need will begin to line up with what God knows you need. That is not all though, for the thing you do not know you need to ask for, God knows, and He is, able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think
Listen, when your thinking begins to line up with the heart of what God wants for you, you will find yourself asking for the very thing God desires for you. This is what Jesus said would happen if you abide (remain) in Him: If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). When you surrender to the will of God, when you are depending on the promised Holy Spirit to guide you, and when you are taking in the life of Jesus so that His life will be reflected through your life, what you ask or wish for will begin to line up with what God knows you really need, and what you need most is the thing that God has called you into.
The power that is working within us, is what made your salvation, redemption, and regeneration possible. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who provides a resurrecting and miracle working power that Jesus promised to each of His follower. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will be our Helper who will be with His people forever (John 14:16-31), will guide His people into all truth (16:5-15), and will empower His people to accomplish Christs mission to redeem the nations (Acts 1:8). The power that was responsible for the creation of the universe and resurrection of Jesus is the same power the indwells every true follower of Jesus to live and walk in the good works God prepared beforehand for His people to walk in (Eph. 2:10).
God is Working All Things Out for His Glory
Why is God working all things out for our good? Why did He choose you? Why did He redeem you through the blood of the Lamb? Why did He seal and empower you to live a life that honors Him? The answer is in the first five words of verse 21, To Him be the glory. The prophet Isaiah said of the glory of God: For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another (Isa. 48:11). In Romans 11:36, Gods glory is described in His worth: For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or Who has first given to Him, that it would be paid back to him? For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Rom. 11:3436).
So, to Him be the glory in what or who, Paul? His answer is three-fold: in the church, in Christ Jesus, and to all generations forever and ever. Why on earth would we think that God would want to do anything through us? Because He is for His glory, and because He is for His glory, He is for your good. What is your good Christian? Your good is that you get God! The greatest and most loving thing God can give you is Himself!
For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name shall be great among the nations, and in every place frankincense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of armies. (Mal. 1:11)
I, I alone, am the one who wipes out your wrongdoings for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (Isa. 43:25)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:36)
In light of all that we have discovered and been reminded of throughout our time in Ephesians, maybe you have asked the question: Did God go too far? Did God go too far by choosing me of all people before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4)? Is God the victim of a poor investment because he chose me before the foundation of the world for good works He prepared beforehand? I dont know if you have ever asked questions like these, but if Ephesians 3:20-21 teaches us anything, it is this: God is not limited because He is infinitely sovereign, and because He is infinitely sovereign, He does not invest poorly. He has redeemed you who were once dead and now has made you alive for His glory and your good! And brothers and sisters, He is doing the same thing all over the world. He is being glorified in the Church by what He is doing in the Church and through the Church. He is glorified in and through the redemptive work of Christ who made our salvation possible! He is being glorified and forever will be glorified because of Who He Is!
God is He who, is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us for His glory and our good! The more of Him you discover, the more you will trust Him to do what He alone is able to do in His time and according to His good will. I heard someone say it this way: The deeper our understanding of God goes, the more childlike our faith will become.
I heard a song written by people I never heard before titled, Christ be All. I must have listened to it a dozen times or more this week because it is so good! There are two verses from that song I believe serve as a suitable way to conclude this sermon; I believe it echoes the spirit of Susanna Wesley and the longing of each of us in this room:
How great is God?His grandeur endlessHow frail I come before His throneI am lost in love relentlessThat Christ be all, and I his own
May Christ be all, and I be nothingHis glory shines in vessels weakMay Christ be all, and I be nothingThis is my hopeNot I, but Christ in me
On golden shores of sure salvationI will run to meet my KingFree from shame and all accusationHe'll give HimselfNothing I'll bringHe'll give HimselfNothing I'll bring
[1] Arthur Dicken Thomas, Jr., Knowing Doing: Profiles in Faith (C.S. Lewis Institute; 2003).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Sharon Glasgow, Susanna Wesleys Prayer Apron (Epworth Villa; May 9, 2019).
[4] Ibid.
[5] James Montgomery Boice, Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library, 1988), 113114.

Purposed and Treasured

Sunday May 05, 2024

Sunday May 05, 2024

In light of our journey in Ephesians so far, what does it mean to be a Christian? If you are a genuine and legitimate Christian, then the following is true of you:
God chose you before the foundation of the world for the purpose of becoming holy and blameless (1:4-6).
You have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus who died upon a cross for sins you committed, and through His death, the riches of Gods grace has been, is being, and forever will be lavished upon you (1:7-12).
You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that God will complete the work He started in you and the promise of a power to enable you to complete the work that He has called you into, related to His mission to redeem creation (1:13-14, 19; 2:10).
Because you are a Christian, God treasures you as His inheritance that He will receive out of His great purpose and love for you (1:18-19a).
You are secure as a Christian because the One who redeemed you upon the cross, conquered death by walking out of the tomb, is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, and is the King of kings and Lord of lords who is, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come (1:19b-21).
As a Christian, your hope rests in a Jesus under whose feet, all things are in subjection because He is head over all things the Groom of the Church (1:21-22).
You are a Christian because, like the rest of the world, you were once dead in your sins, and thereby a child of Gods wrath! However, that is no longer who you are because God, whose mercy is rich, love is great, and grace is sufficient, made you alive in Christ Jesus (2:1-4)
If you are a Christian, it is not because of anything you have done, but solely by the grace of God through faith exclusively in Christ alone (2:8-9).
You, Christian, were redeemed through faith, by grace, because of Christ for, good works, which God prepared beforehand so that you would walk, not in the course of this world, but in good works God saved you for (2:10).
Because you are now a Christian, you have been brought near to God and belong to another people group, which is the people of God (2:13-22).
Your identity as a Christian is not in how you feel, who you are attracted too, your political affiliation, nationality, or the color of your skin; your identity is now in Jesus as the cornerstone of your life and the Bible as the foundation on which you stand within the community known as the Church (2:19-22).
As a Christian, the multifaceted wisdom of God is being made known through you and the people you now belong to, which is the Church of Jesus Christ. Angels marvel over your redemption and demons are terrified over what God is doing through you (3:1-12).
You belong to Christ as the Bride of Christ dear Christian! When God sees you, you are now the object of His affection; He is working all things out for His glory and for your good, in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus (3:11), which means that He is for you and not against you (3:1, 13).
You, Christian, are being built up into a beautiful templea holy and living temple where the presence of God dwells (2:21-22)!
Paul begins verse 14 with, For this reason. For what reason? For the fourteen reasons I just listed and so much more!
There is something so important the apostle wanted the Ephesians to know and experience, and it is something that we need to know and experience today. Paul touched on it in his prayer in 1:18-19, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe (Eph. 1:1819a). He again informs these Christians how he is praying for them:
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. (Eph. 16-19)
These two prayers serve as bookends for the first half of Ephesians; it is in these remaining verses in chapter 3 that Paul shows us how it is that we can know the love of Christ, but also experience the width, length, height, and depth of that same love of Christ.
Surrender Fully to God (vv. 14-15)
There are only four places in the whole New Testament that I am aware of where the Greek word for bend (kamptō) is used. Is Paul describing his physical posture while praying for the Ephesian Christians, or is he describing his overall posture as a Christian? Scholars are torn over what it is exactly that Paul is describing here, but I think it is both because of the first three words of verse 14: For this reason. For all the reasons mentioned from the beginning of this epistle to 3:13, I bend my knees before the Father.
It makes even more sense to conclude that Paul is speaking for both his posture in prayer and his posture in life before God the Father because of the other ways he used this same Greek word. It will serve us well to see the other ways he used the word bend because it will also help us understand how we can experience the very thing Paul prays for. Here are the first two ways kamptō is used:
For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow (kamptō), of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth (Phil. 2:910)
For it is written: As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee will bow (kamptō), and every tongue will give praise to God. (Rom. 14:11)
The fourth place kamptō (bow) is used is in Romans 11:4 when Paul quotes what God said to the prophet Elijah: I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. In the Old Testament book of 1 Kings, Elijah had an encounter with 400 prophets of Baal. The short of it is that the prophets of Baal where utterly humiliated when God miraculously intervened on behalf of Elijah to prove to all who were there that there was only one true God, and it was Yahweh. The king and queen of Israel had made Baal worship the religion of the nation and it had seemed most had turned to Baal (see 1 Kings 18).
It wasnt long after Elijah experienced God do the impossible that Jezebel threatened to murder Elijah. Elijah fled and went into hiding within a cave even though he had experienced God do the impossible. It was in the cave that God assured Elijah that even though many of Israels prophets turned to Baal, there were still 7,000 who had not bowed their knee to Baal. In other words, for the 7,000 prophets of Yahweh, there was only one Lord.
There is another reason why Paul bends his knees before the Father, and we see it in verse 15; it is the reason why God has both the authority and the right to bless whomever He wishes with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3), chooses whomever He wants before the foundation of the world (1:4-6), redeems those He has chosen through His Son (1:7-12), and seals those whom He treasures (1:13-14). That reason is He is God, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name (v. 15). He has the right and prerogative to do what He will because He alone is God, He alone is the Creator, and He alone is Father to the redeemed!
In ancient Israel, it was the father who gave the name to a child. The significance of verse 15 is that although it is true that God holds all the rights of Creator, it is those whom He redeems through Christ that He has given a new name. What is this new name? Listen to Revelation 2:17, The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it. I am not entirely sure what the new name means that the Christian will receive, but I believe the point Paul is making is that the posture of the Christian is a bend of ones knees before the Father in recognition that there is no God like Him and a very keen awareness that because of Jesus Christ, the Christian can claim 1 John 3:1 for himself/herself: See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him (1 John 3:1). You, Christian, share the mystical union with Jesus that every Christian shares who is now in heaven or presently on earth. We now belong to the people of God as members of that family in heaven and on earth.
Depend Deeply Upon the Holy Spirit (v. 16-17a)
So Pauls prayer for the Ephesians continues: that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (vv. 16-17a). Do you see the connection between these verses and Pauls statement about his posture before God the Father? If you are Christian, you already have Christ and the evidence that you have Christ is through the sealing of the Holy Spirit that God did when you became a Christian by faith in Christ alone.
Let me say it another way: When you believed in Jesus as the only way and means for the salvation of your soul, God sealed you with His Holy Spirit as a guarantee that you now belong to Him as His child and at the same time as proof that you are also His inheritance (see Eph. 1:13-14, 19a). Remember what I said when we looked at Ephesians 1:13-14; I said that when you were sealed by the Holy Spirit, you now have all of the Holy Spirit that you will ever need. The question is whether or not the Holy Spirit has all of your heart. Paul is essentially saying the same thing in Ephesians 3:16-17a.
All of the strengthening and power that is available through the Holy Spirit, you already have in you because you, dear Christian, have all of the Holy Spirit that you will ever need. The question is how lined up is your inner self with the Father and the Son? What is the inner self you ask? The inner self is the center of your being, it is the most important part of you spiritually because it affects everything you do outwardly. Let me share with you something from the Bible that may help add clarity to what Paul is talking about here and why what he is saying in these verses is so important from 2 Corinthians 4:16; Paul refers to the inner-self as the inner-person in these verses:
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:1618)
So, here is why what Paul is saying is so important for us to understand: The more you depend upon the Father, the more you seek Him, the more of your joy you find in and through Him, the more of you His Spirit will have. You can only do that by knowing Him more and better! The only way you will know God more and better is if you listen to Him through His Word (the Bible) and communicate to Him (through prayer).
Listen to me very carefully: Christian, you can know and rightly believe that you have available to you the strength and power of the Holy Spirit you are convinced resides in you because you believe Gods Word to be true! However, you will not experience the strength and power available to you through the Holy Spirit if you are not bending your knees before the Father with your mind, heart, and will. This is the point Paul also makes later in Ephesians 5:18, Do not get drunk with wine, in which there is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your hearts to the Lord. One person said it this way: A person whom the Spirit is working powerfully in is someone who will be changing deeply. When the Spirit of Christ makes himself at home, he constantly renovates our hearts to make us a more appropriate dwelling for the Lord Jesus, because the Lord Jesus is not merely dropping in briefly.[1]
But that is not all, brothers and sisters, there is more!
Walk in Union Uncompromisingly with Christ (vv. 17-19)
So what do I mean by walking in union uncompromisingly with Christ? There is a simple but very full word that sums up verses 17b-19, and the word is Abide. How does the Holy Spirit get more of you? How will God get more of your heart? The answer is, by abiding in Christ. Paul is not saying to the Christians in Ephesus that they do not have all of the love of Jesus; he cant be saying that because of all that he has already said! He already said that if you are a Christian, it is only because of the truth that, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (Eph. 1:7-8a). Regarding this same love, Paul wrote that God, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (2:5b-7).
Christian, you have all of the love of Christ that you will ever need, but are you living in the reality of that love at the very center of your life? How do you do that, you ask? Well I am glad you asked. You do that by, being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. This is what it means to abide (to take up residence in) Christ. Here is what Jesus said about abiding in Him: I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Jesus also said, If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him (John 14:23). This is what it means to be rooted and grounded in love. What love? The love of God that is ours in Jesus! It is more than just head knowledge that Paul is praying for, he wants these Christians to experience and live in that love in such a way that only the Holy Spirit can make happen.
R.C. Sproul said of these verses: We need divine power to have a deeper understanding of the dimensions of the love of Christ.[2] What are the dimensions of the love of Christ? Paul kind of tells us in verse 18, the width and length and height and depth. A comprehension of these four spheres of the love of Christ is to understand and experience, the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (v. 18). What is the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge? It is more than an understanding that as Christians,
Christ is seated above us as our Lord and Savior (1:20-22)
You, Christian, are seated beside Him (2:6)
We rest upon Him (2:20)
Christ indwells us (3:17)
Jesus fills us (3:19).
What is this profound love that belongs to the Christian? I believe the following story is an appropriate way to drive home Pauls point:
In the last century, when Napoleons armies opened a prison that had been used by the Spanish Inquisition, they found the remains of a prisoner who had been incarcerated for his faith. The dungeon was underground. The body had long since decayed. Only a chain fastened around an anklebone cried out his confinement. But this prisoner, long since dead, had left a witness. On the wall of his small, dismal cell this faithful soldier of Christ had scratched a rough cross with four words surrounding it in Spanish. Above the cross was the Spanish word for height. Below it was the word for depth. To the left the word width. To the right, the word length. Clearly this prisoner wanted to testify to the surpassing greatness of the love of Christ, perceived even in his suffering[3]
[1] Richard Coekin, Ephesians for You (The Good Book Company; 2019), p. 100.
[2] R.C. Sproul, Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Sanford, FL: Ligonier Ministries; 2023), p. 50.
[3] James Montgomery Boice, Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library, 1988), 111.

A Mystery Celebrated

Sunday Apr 28, 2024

Sunday Apr 28, 2024

About one hundred years after the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians another man by the name of Polycarp served as Bishop of the church in Smyrna, located about 35 miles north of Ephesus, was arrested and sentenced to death for his refusal to worship the gods of the Roman empire.
At eighty-six years old, Polycarp was the last surviving person to have known an apostle, for he was discipled by the apostle John. He was greatly revered as a teacher and church leader; he also had suffered the loss of many friends who had gone before him through the death of martyrdom. Although Polycarp heard that the Roman authorities were looking for him so that they could arrest him, he was at peace with whatever was coming. Three days before his arrest, Polycarp had a vision, while praying, of a pillow under his head that was on fire; he understood his vision to be prophetic concerning the way he would die. Polycarp said to his friends, I will be burned alive.
It is said when the authorities finally did find the place Polycarp was staying to arrest him, they came with all of their weapons, and while he could have escaped, Polycarp responded to his friends: Gods will be done. When the Roman authorities stepped into the house where Polycarp was staying, he called for food and drinks for the men and asked if they could give him an hour to pray uninterrupted; to which they agreed. It is said that some of the men who were there to arrest the 86-year-old church leader, regretted it. Polycarp was made to ride a donkey and was ushered into the arena; some witnesses said they heard a voice from heaven say, Be strong, Polycarp and play the man!
When the crowd saw Polycarp enter the arena, witnesses say there was an uproar as people shouted: Down with the Atheists! (this is what Christians were called because they did not worship the gods of the Roman Empire). While the crowd demanded death for the old saint, the Proconsul urged him to, reproach Christ, and I will set you free. To which Polycarp declared: 86 years I have served him, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me? The Proconsul continued: Swear by the Fortune of Caesar. To which Polycarp again replied: Since you vainly think that I will swear by the Fortune of Caesar, as you say, and pretend not to know who I am, listen carefully: I am a Christian!
They sentenced Polycarp to death by burning. They were going to nail him to the stake, but Polycarp insisted, Leave me like this. He who gives me to endure the fire will also give me to remain on the pyre without your security from the nails. So, they did not nail him to the stake, but did tie him to it. As they prepared to light the fire, Polycarps prayer could be heard:
O Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels, powers and every creature, and of all the righteous who live before you, I give you thanks that you count me worthy to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the cup of Christ and the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body, through the immortality of the Holy Spirit. May I be received this day as an acceptable sacrifice, as you, the true God, have predestined, revealed to me, and now fulfilled. I praise you for all these things, I bless you and glorify you, along with the everlasting Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. To you, with him, through the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and forever. Amen.[1]
Because the fire did not seem to touch his body, an executioner was commanded to stab him. Polycarp died about 100 years after the apostle Paul wrote these words that are before us in 2024:
To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. (Eph. 3:812)
There are three truths in the scripture passage before us related to the mystery of God that I want to highlight for your good, and to your encouragement this morning.
Gods Plan is Great (vv. 8-9)
Since the Garden of Eden, and even before time, the plan has always been the redemption of mankind through a second and greater Adam, a more permanent and perfect sacrifice, a greater Moses who mediates a New Covenant. The greater Adam, the more permanent and perfect sacrifice, and the One greater than Moses who mediates a New Covenant is Jesus; however, it was not clear in ages past who or what the mystery was until Jesus was born. This is the mystery Paul is talking about in Ephesians, and this is the point of the opening verses of Hebrews:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:13)
This is the point of what the resurrected Christ said to the apostle John at the beginning of the book of Revelation: When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades (Rev. 1:17-18). Of this Jesus, Paul wrote: To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things (Eph. 3:89).
Paul had become the recipient of the unfathomable riches of Christ for the purpose of sharing the news that the very same grace is available to all who would receive it by faith through Christ. This is the mission of the Church! Jesus said of His followers who make up His Church: You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:13-14). For salt to serve its purpose, it must be applied; the greatest need for the light, is where it is dark. Gods plan has always been for His people to serve as the salt of the earth and the light of the world! Adam and Eve were commanded to fill the earth with people like them who worshiped God. Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests to light up the darkness of the nations and people groups who surrounded them. Regardless of the failure of Adam and Eve or the failures of the Hebrew people, God promised: For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name shall be great among the nations, and in every place frankincense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of Armies (Mal. 1:11). Jesus would make Gods plan possible, and He would do it through His Church (Matt. 18:19-20), and Jesus promised, I will build my church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it (Matt. 16:18).
The heart of Gods perspective plan for the redemption of the nations is that He will do it through the Church. Polycarp understood this, the apostle Paul was convinced of this, and the Church can stand on this truth! It is for the mission of God that we were made for, and it is for the mission of God that God chose you before the foundation of the world, redeemed you through the blood of the Lamb, and sealed you with the Holy Spirit so that you can live out your purpose with power (see Eph. 2:10)! Now, we who have been redeemed by Christ, can enter into the darkness of a rotten world with the full confidence that we go with the One whom God the Father, put all things in subjection under His feet and made Him head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:20-23).
Gods Motive is Central (v. 10)
What is the motive of God? Why did he redeem a people through His Son? Is it only because we are, His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Eph. 2:10)? We are given clues as to why He chose, redeemed, and sealed us throughout Ephesians; Paul tells us three times in the first fourteen verses: To the praise of the glory of His grace (v. 6), to the praise of His glory (v. 12), and to the praise of His glory (v. 14). And now, in Ephesians 3:10, we are told again: so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
So, what is the multifaced wisdom of God that is being made known through the church? It obviously has something to do with the way God redeemed the church: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (1:7-8a). However, note how Gods wisdom is used in 1 Corinthians regarding the way he saved sinners: For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18). But wait, there is more:
For consider your calling, brothers and sisters, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the insignificant things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no human may boast before God. But it is due to Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. (1 Cor. 1:2631)
Do you see it? Do you see now what Paul is saying in Ephesians 3:10? The thing that God has done in your life Christian, from choosing you before the foundation of the world (1:4), to the redemption of your soul through the blood of the Son (1:7-8), and the sealing of the Holy Spirit by the same power that raised Jesus from the grave (1:13, 19) is on display through you before the holy angels and the evil demons! The rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places is the realm of both the angelic and demonic. The angels see what God has done, is doing, and will do in you and they are blown away over the rich mercy, great love, and all-sufficient grace God has lavished upon you through Jesus the Son. We get a snapshot of the way the angels and all of heaven responds to what the Christian has received: Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing. To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion forever and ever. Amen (Rev. 5:12-14).
The demons see the same thing the holy angels see, but they tremble as they look upon the power of God at work in you in great and terrifying fear. The cross that made our redemption possible serves as a reminder of Gods redemptive plan while it also serves to remind the demons that all evil has already been defeated at the cross; you Christian remind the demonic world that their final judgment is coming, and you will stand over them as the Bride of Christ in judgment over them (1 Cor. 6:1-3). Their response is certainly terrifying fear, but also violence towards the saints any chance they get. Polycarp experienced their worst, and although his hair was singed with fire, he was received by the Great and Good Shepard of the sheep with these words: Come Polycarp, you are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:34).
Gods motive is to display His glory through His people, and that is good news! Think about who God is. He is as good as it gets, there is none higher than Himself and the motive to glorify Himself is the motive to give you the greatest reality that has no equal, namely Himself! This is why when it comes to the salvation, redemption, and rescuing of His people, God is clear: For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another (Isa. 48:11).
What this means is that when angels see you, they see the power of God on full display as He is committed to do the very thing He determined to do before the foundation of the world in and through you: In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:1112). The demonic see the same power on display in you, knowing that Gods rich mercy, great love, and sufficient grace is something they will never experience as they wait for Gods perfect justice, infinite wrath, and final judgment.
So, when Polycarp and the countless others who suffered for the name of Christ, understood that because of their identity in Christ, the world could do its worst and still not a hair on the head of the one covered under the blood of the Lamb would perish (Luke 21:18).
Gods Purpose is Eternal (vv. 11-13)
As we inch our way closer to the conclusion of Ephesians 3, we come closer to the second half of this magnificent epistle. If there was a transitional statement to mark the shift from Ephesians 1-3 to Ephesians 4-6, it would be this: Now that you know who you are in Christ, let me explain who you are as the Church. In verses 11-12, Paul gives us a peek into what he will unpack in the second half of his epistle: This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.
What is the This Paul is referring to in verse 11? It is the unfathomable riches of Christ Paul received and was commissioned to bring to the Gentiles through the foolishness of the Cross preached. It is the unfathomable riches of Christ that Polycarp was sentenced to death for preaching. It is the unfathomable riches of Christ that the Christian has received and also has been commissioned to bring to all peoples as the Church of Jesus Christ. Listen to me carefully: It is because you, Christian, have received the unfathomable riches of Christ that places you into a third category of a people group that transcends any people group you were physically born into, and that people group is the People of God and tethers you to both Old Testament saints and New Testament saints; it also tethers you to every other person who has received the unfathomable riches of Christ. This is also the mystery Paul is talking about, and this mystery includes the Bride of Jesus Christ, who is the Church! What this means is that the Church has been, is, and will continue to be, the eternal purpose which God carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (v. 11).
Christian, you are the Church and because you are the Church, Jesus is your Groom, and you are His Bride! Christian, you are the apple of the Redeemers eye, and this is why Paul could write that in Christ Jesus our Lord we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him (v. 12). Oh dear Christian, do not think lightly of the people you are now joined to in faith through the Christ who not only suffered and died in your place, but shed His blood to redeem and purchase a Bride for Himself that now includes you! The Church is the Beloved Bride of Christ, which means the local expression of Her such as Meadowbrooke Church and thousands like Her is the way, that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known. In accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him (vv. 10-12).
Warren Wiersbes sage advice is a fitting way to conclude this sermon: This great truth concerning the church is not a divine afterthought. It is a part of Gods eternal purpose in Christ (Eph. 3:11). To ignore this truth is to sin against the Father who planned it, the Son whose death made it possible, and the Spirit who today seeks to work in our lives to accomplish what God has planned.[2] Amen.
[1] John Foxe and The Voice of the Martyrs, Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs (Orlando, FL: The Voice of the Martyrs; 2007), 51-55.
[2] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 30.

A Mystery Known

Sunday Apr 21, 2024

Sunday Apr 21, 2024

One of my favorite films is the movie, Signs, which is a film by M. Night Shyamalan released in 2002. In the film, Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, a former Episcopalian priest grieving the tragic death of his wife and grappling with the existence of God and His involvement with His creation in the aftermath of his wifes death. In an article published on March 24, 2024 about the film, Niall Gray and Zachary Moser summarize the movies message which is not so much about hostile and invading aliens, but how all of the characters play an important part in the movies overall plot and:
Merrill is a failed minor-league baseball player, Morgan is asthmatic, and Bo leaves half-drunk glasses of water all over the house. These traits, and Graham's crisis of faith, are all significant to the film's story, leaning intoSigns' central themes. In themovie's signature M. Night Shyamalan twist, the aliens are defeated due to their deadly reaction to contact with water, and Graham's faith is ultimately restored by his family's survival of the ordeal. The ending comes together, arranging all the clues Shyamalan laid out for a thrilling and thoughtful ending.
Upon the alien invasion, Graham rediscovers his faith when all the things he perceived as random suddenly become significant. This is evidenced earlier in the movie by Graham's speech about how the world is split into two types of people, those who believe in coincidence and those who believe in miracles. Graham's belief that everything happens for a reason is restored, making faith and predetermination a central element ofSigns' story.[1]
There are many reasons why I loved this movie, but what I love most about this movie is that it is really about the purpose and design behind all that Graham believed to be coincidencehis young brothers failure as a minor-league player who could destroy a ball if he connected with his bat, his sons severe asthma, or his little daughters weird behavior of leaving half-drunk glasses of water all over the housewhen in fact there was purpose and design behind all of it; there was even purpose in the way his wife died.
I think that my oldest son, Nathan, was nine years old when I introduced him to the movie. Nathan was captivated by the movie, but I could tell that he was growing more and more distressed as he watched the story unfold. At some point I got up to check his pulse, which was high because of the scary and hostile aliens. To put his anxious heart at ease, I explained to him the many signs that were in plain sight in the film to show him that the family would be okay in the end.
In Ephesians, Paul shows us that the redemption and salvation of people from all nations was not a coincidence, but Gods plan from the very beginning. The mystery was not developed by the apostle nor was it created out of someones imagination. It is not the kind of mystery we think of based on the way the word mystery is used in English. The way Paul uses mystery in Ephesians is not the way it is used in a Scooby Doo episode. What Paul means by mystery is that although Gods plan was visible, it was beyond the realm of human understand and needed divine revelation for it to be understood. Just as my son needed me to show him the open secret that was always before him since the story began.
The Glory of the Mystery Revealed (vv. 3-7)
So what is the mystery Paul is talking about in Ephesians? Well he tells us in verse 4, it is the mystery of Christ that has been revealed to the apostles and the prophets in the Spirit (v. 5). But what about Christ is it that was so mysterious in ages past? Wasnt Gods plan to redeem and save lost sinners clear enough throughout the ages?
After Adam and Even sinned against God, there was no sugar-coating how God would eventually deal with the great serpent, the devil: And I will make enemies of you and the woman, and of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel (Gen. 3:15). Wasnt God clear enough when He promised Abraham, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. (Gen. 12:2-3)? Would it not have been obvious that the descendant of King David was the one promised to Eve, when God guaranteed: When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever (2 Sam. 7:1216). The descendant promised to David, who would sit on His throne forever, would be the child promised in Isaiah 9:6-7, of whom, There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.
But what are we to do with Isaiah 53? If Davids descendant will sit on the Davidic throne forever, then who is the One described in verses 5, But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; the punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.? If that were not confusing enough, how about the description given of the descendent of David in Jeremiah 23:5-6? How can Davids descendant be described in this way: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will live securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, The Lord Our Righteousness. How can sinful David have a righteous human descendant who will also bear the Divine name of Yahweh?
All of this was always before the people of Israel. The mystery is that Jesus was the Descendant promised to Eve, Jesus was the seed that would come through Abraham who would bless the nations, and Jesus is the descendant of David who will sit on his throne forever. Jesus is the King who will establish lasting peace as the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace. Jesus is the One who is the rightful heir of the Davidic Crown who would first have to suffer the sinners cross. Through the cursing of the cross, Jesus is the righteous Branch who was more than just a man, but the God-man who bears the title: The Lord Our Righteousness.
The mystery of Christ is that the Law of God points lost humanity to their need for the Son of God (Gal. 3:24). The mystery of Christ is from the Passover to the Feast of Tabernacles, all seven Jewish feasts point to Jesus. The mystery of Christ is that He is Gods Yes to all His promises (2 Cor. 1:20-22). However, this mystery that was always before the people, was not made known to mankind until it was revealed through the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets (v. 5). Jesus is the glory of the mystery revealed, and it was the mystery of Christ that Paul was called to preach to the Gentiles, after the gospel of Jesus Christ met him on the Damascus Road where Paul went from death to life in the same way the Christians in Ephesus went from death to life (vv. 2-3). What is the glory of the mystery of Christ? It is what Paul wrote of in Ephesians 1:7-10, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
The Treasure of the Mystery Revealed (vv. 8-12)
The mystery of Christ for Paul was the treasure Jesus spoke of regarding the kingdom of God: The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells everything that he has, and buys that field (Matt. 13:44). While Paul was seeking to bring harm to Christs Church, Christ found him and it was there on that road that he not only experienced the grace of God, but a grace that the One he sought to destroy lavished upon him!
When Paul described himself as, the very least of all saints (v. 8a), he did so because he understood and was mindful of just how far he was from God. In the opening verses of his letter to Timothy, Paul wrote of himself: It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost (1 Tim. 1:15). But, because of Christ, Paul had become both the recipient of the unfathomable riches of Christ and an ambassador for the One who also bears the name, The Lord Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:6) to preach to the Gentiles, the unfathomable riches of Christ (v. 8b).
Paul was responsible for the death and persecution of the Church. He was on his way to continue to persecute the Church with the approval of the same religious Counsel that crucified Jesus, and then the unthinkable happened, this is how Paul described what happened to him:
But it happened that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus at about noon, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And I answered, Who are You, Lord? And He said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything that has been appointed for you to do. (Acts 22:1-10)
Paul went to Damascus where he called upon Jesus to be both savior and Lord of his life, and he was never again the same as a result. However, he was always mindful that it was only because the rich mercy, great love, and sufficient grace of God that Jesus met him where he was. We can hear it in the way Paul responded to Jesus: And I said, Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in You. And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing nearby and approving, and watching over the cloaks of those who were killing him. And He said to me, Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles (Acts 22:1921).
For what purpose was Paul saved? Why did Jesus meet him on the Damascus Road? He tells us in Ephesians 3:9-10, to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. It is the same reason why God saved the Ephesian Christians who received this letter! Why did God choose them before the foundation of the world (1:4)? Why did He redeem those who formerly worshiped Artemis (1:7)? Why did he make these people who were once dead in their offenses and sins, alive with Christ (2:1-5)? The reason why God saved Paul, the reason why God saved those in Ephesus, and the reason why God saved you Christian is the same: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (2:10). The mystery is not only Jesus, but the plan of God to redeem people from all people groups through Jesus as the seed through whom all the nations will be blessed.
The Hope of the Mystery Revealed (vv. 1-2, 11-13)
I will speak more on these verses next week, but for now, I want to point a few things out to you. First, notice what Paul says in verse 1, For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Paul didnt identify himself as a prisoner of Nero or the Roman Empire, but instead, he understood himself to be, the prisoner of Christ. Do not miss the significance of that statement! For the reason that Jesus was the cornerstone of Pauls life and that the gospel was bringing both Jews and Gentiles together as one temple, being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (2:19-22), Paul was a prisoner not because Nero or the Roman Empire wanted him there, but because of the Lordship of Christ and the eternal purpose of God almighty (3:11).
I will unpack this more next week, but what I want you to hear today is that if you are a Christian, whatever you have suffered, are suffering, or will suffer is not a coincidence. Because you are a Christian, you can be sure that there is a greater design in your suffering because, like Paul, you also are the recipient of, the unfathomable riches of Christ. This is why Paul encouraged his readers with these words: Therefore I ask you not to become discouraged about my tribulations in your behalf, since they are your glory.
Think about all that we have learned of ourselves and what it means to be the Church from this epistle so far. Jesus is the glory of the mystery that was never a secret and always in plain view from the very beginning. Christian, God chose you in Jesus before the foundation of the world, that you would be holy and blameless (1:4). The promise to Eve to crush the head of the serpent is your promise in Christ! Gods promise to bless Abraham is your promise in Christ! Gods promise to King David that his descendant would sit on his throne forever is your promise in Christ! All of the promises of God to His people are now yours in Christ and he intended to make you a recipient of those promises, before the foundation of the world.
If God has taken great care to make sure you heard the Gospel so that you would receive the Gospel, do you really think that every tear and every pain is a coincidence? It is not! If Ephesians 1:3-14 is true, then you can know that there a good and benevolent God working all your past, present, and future sorrows for His glory and your good, the glory of the mystery is Jesus and treasure of the mystery is our union to and with Him. There are bright designs behind your hurts!
God moves in a mysterious wayHis wonders to perform;He plants His footsteps in the seaAnd rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable minesOf never failing skillHe treasures up His bright designsAnd works His sovreign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;The clouds ye so much dreadAre big with mercy and shall breakIn blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,But trust Him for His grace;Behind a frowning providenceHe hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,Unfolding every hour;The bud may have a bitter taste,But sweet will be the flowr.
Blind unbelief is sure to errAnd scan His work in vain;God is His own interpreter,And He will make it plain.
[1] Niall Gray, Zachary Moser, ScreenRant: Signs Ending "Swing Away, Merrill" Scene Explained (In Detail)

Only One Foundation

Sunday Apr 14, 2024

Sunday Apr 14, 2024

On October 3, 2004, I preached my first sermon as a candidate for Northwest Baptist Churchs next Senior Pastor. Northwest was considered one of the most dysfunctional churches within the Rocky Mountain district, and although I knew this about the church, there was no way I could fully appreciate just how dysfunctional it really was. So, a very green and 30-year-old version of the pastor that stands before you today preached a sermon on boasting in the Cross of Christ before a congregation with a median age of somewhere in the 60s; my sermon text was from Galatians 6:11-18 and the title of my sermon was, Boasting in the Cross.
On October 17th the congregation of Northwest Baptist Church voted to call me as their Senior Pastor. Because I was unsure about moving our family from Pennsylvania to Colorado, I needed more time to pray about it before agreeing to serve as the Senior Pastor of that little church in Denver. Earlier that day, just after the church service at Calvary Baptist Church where I was presently served on the pastoral staff, Bob and Shirley White had given me a gift for Clergy Appreciation Month. I only opened the wrapping paper so that I could thank Bob and Shirley; the gift was a book, and the title of that book was, God as He Longs for You to See Him, by Chip Ingram. I left the book in my office, which was only across the parking lot from where we lived at the time (a house we affectionately nicknamed: Little House on the Parking Lot).
Because I needed time to pray, I walked across the parking lot and into my office at Calvary Baptist Church to be alone with the Lord. As I sat down, the book that Bob and Shirley White had given was there in front of my face. As I began to pray, I asked God to give me some indication as to what He wanted me to do; as I was praying, I opened Chip Ingrams book and noticed that Bob and Shirley had written a note on the inside cover: To our dear Christian brother, Keith, who has inspired us through his messages to see and know God as He really is. We love you and may God bless you, Roi Maw, and Nathan. Bob and Shirley White; October 16, 2004.
Bob and Shirleys little note also served as Gods way to encourage me to say yes to Northwest Baptist Church; but also served to encourage me to say yes to Meadowbrookes call to become your pastor oddly enough, on the first week of October nearly 14 years to the day that I read Bob and Shirleys note for the first time. I am still convinced as I was twenty years ago, that the best that I can give you is the God of the Bible. I could try to cater to felt needs, but all that really ends up being is a guessing game, and besides, what would that do anyway?
I am not going to look at Ephesians 2:19-22 in sequential order like I normally do with a scripture passage but will look at these verses in the order a builder would build a building.
We are a Jesus Called Community
When it came to the structure of a building, before anything could be built, the cornerstone had to be laid. It was the first stone laid because the dimensions and shape of the rest of the building were dependent upon the shape and size of the cornerstone. If the cornerstone was off, so the rest of the building would be off! If there was anything wrong with the cornerstone such as its dimensions, the way it was cut, or its integrity as the toughest and strongest of the stones used in the building, the structure would be compromised. In the ancient East, the cornerstone was the most expensive of all the stones used in a building because it was the most important part of the building. When it comes to the nature of the Church, Paul says that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone (v. 20b).
Against the backdrop of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, stood another temple. Only the temple Paul referred to was living, organic, and holy. Today, it is still being built and it will continue to be built with Jesus as the cornerstone until He is finished building and beatifying His Church. We, the Church, are the great wonder of all of heaven and it is concerning our salvation that we are told: angels long to look (1 Pet. 1:12). Think about who you are Church! In Jesus, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3). In Jesus, we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). Through Jesus, we have been adopted as sons and daughters (v. 5). In Jesus, we have redemption through His blood (vv. 7-8). In Jesus, we have obtained an inheritance from God that no one can destroy (v. 11). In Jesus, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit that no one can break (v. 13). We were chosen, redeemed, and sealed all to the praise of the glory of God (vv. 6, 12, 14); which means that the Ephesian Church displayed a glory even greater than the power of 300 billion suns!
The prophets and the apostles, through the Scriptures, pointed to Jesus: The prophets point towards Jesus and the apostles point back to Jesus. Long before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah declared: Therefore this is what the Lord Godsays: Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a tested stone, A precious cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. The one who believes in it will not be disturbed (Isa. 28:16). Concerning Jesus, the apostle Peter wrote, And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:4-5).
As the cornerstone, Jesus is Gods final and most perfect revelation of Himself: God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world (Heb. 1:1-2). As we have learned in the previous verses, it is because of Christ and through Christ that both Jew and Gentile can become one new people group through faith in Him alone. It is through Jesus that we now have access to God the Father (2:18).
If you are a Christian, then Jesus is your cornerstone! Think for a moment of what that means. Jesus is the cornerstone because He is the Christ (Isa. 9:6-7). Jesus is the Christ because He is the Great I AM who is the Bread of Life (John 6:35-51), the Light of the World (8:12; 9:5), the Door for His Sheep (10:7-9), the Good Shepherd (10:11-14), the Resurrection and the Life (11:25), and the True Vine (15:1). Jesus is the cornerstone because only He could claim to be, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (14:6). If you are a Christian, then Jesus is your cornerstone by which the entirety of your life is being shaped by Him, and as He is shaping you, so too He is shaping all who truly belong to Him.
We are a Word Formed Community
The prophets and the apostles represent the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, that we as the temple of God (household) are being built upon. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible claims at least 3,000 times to be The Word of the Lord. And, in all its 66 books and the hundreds of years and many different contributors who were guided by the Holy Spirit, it is without error.
In a very real sense, we are a people of the Book, but not just any old book! Consider some of the things that the Bible claims about itself:
The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward (Ps. 19:7-11).
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
The Old Testament and the New Testament are not two separate books nor are they two separate volumes. The Old Testament and New Testament are one book, one story, with one theme: Jesus! This is why Jesus said of Himself, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17); Jesus is Gods Yes to all Gods promises (2 Cor. 1:20). Jesus commanded His disciples after His resurrection and before His ascension: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20). Do not miss that He commanded us to teach all that He has commanded. The foundation on which Gods people must stand has always been on the Word of God.
Our greatest need is to know God and to be known by Him. The way to know God is through His word, for it is the primary means by which He has revealed Himself. Every time you open your Bible and read the words contained in it, you hear the same voice that was powerful enough to create billions of suns like ours or greater; God has given us a book with His words in it to move and shape us as His people. The words of that Book bear the authority of the Living God and have the supernatural ability through the power of Gods Spirit to speak into your real needs, or as Hebrews 4:12 testifies: For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. You, my dear Christian, must allow your heart to be saturated by it, and the only way to do that is to open your Bible and allow God to speak into your life through His Holy Word, for that is the principle means by which He speaks to His people.
Now, permit me to briefly say a word about the preaching of Gods Word as it relates to Gods people: On this side of eternity, God has ordained the preaching of His word as the primary agent for supernatural transformation. This is why we read in the Bible: How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom. 10:14, 17). If Romans 10 is not enough for you, consider 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
God has ordained the preaching of His Word to be one of the principle means to equip and strengthen His people for service in His name to the nations. When the proclamation of Gods Word is done responsibly by those who honestly labored over His Word through careful study and prayer then I believe what John Calvin once said is true every time we gather on a Sunday morning: God has so chosen to anoint the lips and tongues of His speakers that when they speak the voice of Jesus comes out (Calvin, Institutes, Book Four). This is why the apostle Paul instructed Timothy who was called to the Ephesian Church as their pastor:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encouragewith great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Tim. 4:1-4)
When we gather under the preaching of Gods Word, there is a God-ordained and supernatural work that Gods people subject themselves to. There are things that happen under the preaching of Gods word during corporate worship that cannot be explained but it is the work only God is able to perform through the authority of His Word proclaimed by the power of His Holy Spirit performed that will often blow your felt needs to ashes so that Gods word is able to address your real needs.
We are a In-it-together Community
Paul will address what it is that God is doing with His people in the verses and chapters to follow, so I will keep this brief. All I want you to see in verses 19 and 21-22 is this: God has always had a plan for your holiness and blamelessness in Christ, Christian. Through Jesus, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of Gods household (v. 19). God is committed to the very thing He has purposed to do in and through you when He set His affection upon you and chose you before the foundation of the world; His purpose in choosing you is that you would be, holy and blameless before Him (Eph. 1:4). When you were dead in your offenses and sins, God made you alive and every other Christian, alive together with Christ. Why did He do it? Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
You were dead! You were an enemy of God! Now you are Gods child! Now you are, of Gods household in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (vv. 20-21). What does this mean? It means that because you are in Christ, God is for you and not against you! It means, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6)! It means that no matter how used up you were, no matter how damaged you were, no matter how ugly your sins were He is making you more and more holy and more and more blameless! Listen. And the way that God is doing it is with Jesus as your cornerstone being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
In Ephesus there was a more glorious and more beautiful temple that made the great temple of Artemis look like a dung heap! It is a temple that continues to be built today and it is the place where the demonic fear because it is a living temple where the Spirit of God dwells; those who are far and near make up that temple. Meadowbrooke Church, we are also a part of that temple. It is because the preeminent Jesus is our cornerstone, and the foundation of His Church is the inspired teaching of the apostles and the prophets, the best and lasting gift I can give you is not a feeble attempt to cater to your felt needs, but the God of the Bible through the faithful preaching and teaching of His Word.
So, on that note, I leave you with the words of a beautiful Hymn about a beautifying Bride:
The church's one foundationIs Jesus Christ her Lord;She is his new creationBy water and the Word.From heaven he came and sought herTo be his holy bride;With his own blood he bought her,And for her life he died.
Elect from every nation,Yet one o'er all the earth;Her charter of salvation,One Lord, one faith, one birth;One holy name she blesses,Partakes one holy food,And to one hope she presses,With every grace endued.
The church shall never perish!Her dear Lord to defend,to guide, sustain, and cherish,is with her to the end;though there be those that hate her,and false sons in her pale,against the foe or traitorshe ever shall prevail.
Mid toil and tribulation,And tumult of her war,She waits the consummationOf peace forevermore;Till, with the vision glorious,Her longing eyes are blest,And the great church victoriousShall be the church at rest.
Yet she on earth hath unionWith God the Three in One,And mystic sweet communionWith those whose rest is won.O happy ones and holy!Lord, give us grace that weLike them, the meek and lowly,On high may dwell with thee.

No More Walls

Sunday Apr 07, 2024

Sunday Apr 07, 2024

At the end of World War II, at the Potsdam Conference on July 17, 1945, it was decided how Germany would be divided by the American, British, French, and Soviet Allied leaders. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation to be controlled by the United States, Britain, France, and Communist Russia (the Soviet Union). The city of Berlin was split up by the four powers even though it was located within the zone controlled by Russia. Because West Berlin was formed by the American, British, and French sectors, East Berlin would be marked by its stark ideological differences shaped by communism because of its control under the Soviet Union.
In 1949, Germany split into two independent nations known as the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) as a democracy in stark contrast to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) that was marked by the communism of the Soviet Union. In 1952, the East German government closed its border with West Germany; to keep people from escaping East Germany to the West, a wire barrier was constructed around West Berlin on August 12-13, 1961, with the plan to build a permanent wall designed to divide neighborhoods, separate families, and keep any influence of a freedom loving West from a restrictive and oppressive East. The Berlin Wall would eventually grow into two walls measuring 96 miles long and 13 feet tall. Anyone who attempted to gain freedom from East Berlin by entering West Berlin was shot.
By 1989, more than 100 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall and hundreds more who tried to escape from East to West. There were 302 watchtowers along the 96-mile-long wall that separated the free from the burdened. On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Regan delivered a speech in West Berlin, a speech I remember well when I heard as it aired on television when I was only 13 years old. President Regans speech has been nicknamed the Tear Down This Wall speech from a line in his magnificent speech; I want you to hear just a sampling of this marvelous and important speech for a reason that will become clear in this sermon:
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar. As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
On November 9, 1989, Germans from the East and West gathered and began tearing the Berlin Wall down. On October 3, 1990, East Germany and West Germany were no more; Germany was reunited as one free nation.
The Christian Has Been Brought Near to God (vv. 11-13)
There are four things that were true of the Christians in Ephesus; these four things are true of you if you are now a Christian; these same four things are still true of you if you are not a Christian. Because most of you in this room are Christians, I will refer to these four truths as something that once was true of you.
You at one time were Christless (vv. 11-12a). There were two types of people in Ephesus and in the world: the Uncircumcision and the Circumcision. The Uncircumcision were the Gentiles in the world while the Circumcision were the Jews who prided themselves on being the physical descendants of Abraham. The Uncircumcised Gentiles were convinced that they were very different than the Circumcised Jews, and the Jews felt the same way about the Gentiles. However, there were two things that these two groups did share in common: Both groups believed that so long as they were religious enough, they would be prepared for what comes after death, and both groups were dead in their sins because both were Christless.
You were homeless (v. 12b). What I mean by homeless is that the Jews had known about and looked forward to the promises of God made to the descendants of Abraham. For example, when God called Abraham out of the city of Ur, He made the following promise to both him and his wife, Sarah: Go from your country, And from your relatives And from your fathers house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you into a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). The Jews had grown to assume that the promise was not for Gentiles and failed to realize that it would be through the Jewish people that the Gentile nations would experience the blessing made to Abraham. It was not that the promises were not for the nations also, but that the Gentiles were not aware of such promises.
You were hopeless (v. 12c). What were the promises given to the Jews really for? They were promises concerning Gods plan to redeem Adams fallen race. Think about the promises made to the Jews for a moment! How would all the families of the earth be blessed? The Child promised in Isaiah 9:6-7 would be Jewish and would come through Israel, and this promise is for the nations:
For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.
So how were the Gentiles in Ephesus without hope? They were without hope because unlike the Jews, they were unaware that unlike emperor Nero of Rome who was reigning at the time Ephesians was written, there was coming a true and better King who would do what Rome could never do: There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. For the Gentiles, Rome was as good as it would get is the same way that many today believe that life before death is as good as it will ever get, which is pretty hopeless!
You were godless (v. 12d). Finally, the gentiles were godless in the sense that they were left to their idols because they did not know God. This does not mean that the Jews were not godless either, for if they were without Christ, then they were also Godless. To be Godless is to be without God. Do you know what happens when you are Godless? You will find a way to place an idol in the place only God was meant to reside in your life. You will find something that promises the sort of things that only a real God can give and provide; such as joy, satisfaction, contentment, meaning, and purpose to your life and you will be robed of the very things that idols promise to give. The God whose image you bear is the only being who can provide lasting joy, satisfaction, contentment, meaning, and purpose to your life.
If you are a Christian, you are no longer Christless. Because you are no longer Christless, you belong to the people of God and are no longer homeless when it comes to the promises of God. Because you are now the recipient of the promises of God through Jesus, you are no longer hopeless. Because your hope rests in Jesus for your salvation, Paul declares: Now in Christ Jesus you who previously were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ (v. 13).
The Christian Has the Peace of God (vv. 14-18)
Gods plan for the salvation of sinners always included Gentiles. Before instructions for the construction of a temple that would serve as the center of worship for Israel where the presence of God would be experienced by His people, God instructed Israel: Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel (Exod. 19:5-6). In other words, Israel was commissioned to be Gods priests before the nations to lead the nations to God. Through the prophet Malachi, as He did throughout Israels history, God reminded His people that the redemption of the nations was always the plan: For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name shall be great among the nations, and in every place frankincense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of armies ( Mal. 1:11).
So, what is this dividing wall the apostle Paul refers to in verse 14? The temple that King Herod built for the Jews included a place known as, The Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles was the place within the Temple Walls that allowed Gentiles to gather and worship the God of the Hebrews, but they were forbidden to go any further than the outer court because they were considered too dirty to come any closer to the inner courts, only the true Jew was permitted to into the holier place that was closest to the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was. There was a wall that stood about 4.5 feet high that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts and signs that were posted that stated in Greek: No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.[1]
The Court of the Gentiles is also the place where Jesus taught while in the Temple (Matt. 21:23; 26:55; Luke 19:47; John 7:14). The Court of the Gentiles is also the place where money was changed because the required coinage for people to use for the Temple tax had to be Tyrian shekels (aka the shekel of the sanctuary) because of the uneven value of other coinages and the idolatrous images on other coins. During Passover, it is estimated that over 200,000 lambs were sacrificed for the sins of the people; the Court of the Gentiles was the place where people could purchase their sacrifice. The Court of the Gentiles was where the money was made and exchanged, and for many, became more important than worship itself. The Court of the Gentiles was not in the original plans God gave His people for the Temple (see Numbers 15:14-15), nor were they ever a part of Gods plans for the place where His people would worship Him. Here is what Isaiah said of the place of Gods worship:
Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to attend to His service and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it, And holds firmly to My covenant; Even those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.
It was the Court of the Gentiles that Jesus entered into during Passover week before He would die on the Cross as the perfect and true Lamb of God, and was enraged over the way Israel had perverted the Temple:
And He entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple grounds. And He began to teach and say to them, Is it not written: my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. (Mark 11:15-17).
They crucified Jesus because the Jews who were convinced that their religion was enough, but what Israel failed to see was that their problem was the same as the problem of the Gentiles. There exists before all of humanity a far greater wall than the one that separated the Gentiles from the Jews in the Temple! It is a wall that only One Lamb can remedy and of all the peoples of the nations that should have known that such a wall exists, it should have been those who had before them from the commandments, writings, and the prophets, the covenants of the promise (v. 12). The wall is greater than any other wall, for it is the great wall of mankinds sin and guilt before a Holy God and there is nothing that the Jews or the Gentiles could do to tear it down, nor is there anything that you and I can do to remove the wall. For the Jew, the Law simply pointed to the wall of our own sin and that there is only One who is able to tear down the wall (see Gal. 3:23-29). Jesus tore down the wall by going to the Cross, He redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us (Ga. 3:13). It is only through the blood He shed for sins we are guilty of that, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings (Eph. 1:7).
The wall was our sin, the hostility was ours before a Holy God, and our only hope for a peace with Him was and is the Prince of Peace! This is why Paul wrote, For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace (vv. 14-15). How did He do it? Through His cross: and that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the hostility (v. 16).
Conclusion
Through Christ, the wall that alienated and separated us from any hope of knowing God or being known by God was blown to ashes through the Cross! The Christian, regardless of culture, skin color, or language, is now reconciled to the One whose image we all bearHe is our peace! Christian, because the wall of your sin was torn down by the Lamb of God, you share the same thing that the Chinese Christian, the Korean Christian, the Indian Christian, the Burmese Christian, the Iranian Christian, the Sudanese Christian, the Canadian Christian, and the Mexican Christian all have that you now have through Jesus Christ: Access in one Spirit to the Father through the Son! What better news could there possibly be than what we read in these verses:
For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace; and that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Regardless of your ethnicity, the thing that you share with every other Christian rescued, ransomed, and redeemed by the blood of Jesus is that we now belong to His Tribe and our colors are the same because we are covered by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God! To be a Christian is to be the Church, and to be the Church is to be the People of God! Your identity is no longer in the nation you live, the color of your skin, the language you speak, or the culture that has shaped and formed you. No! Your identity is now in Christ!
If you are not a Christian, the great wall of your sin still stands, and your greatest need remains! There is only One who is able to remove the wall of your sin, so why wait any longer to be reconciled to God through the blood of the Lamb of God?
[1] One such sign is on display at the Israel Museum and a second in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Far and Away

Sunday Mar 31, 2024

Sunday Mar 31, 2024

In a culture that devalued women, Jesus not only valued them as equally created in the image of God in the same way as men, but the value He placed upon them is seen through the New Testament writers as followers of Jesus. For example, the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were all written by men who were sure to point out that it was a man by the name of Judas who betrayed Jesus and it was the male disciples in Jesus life who left Him and fled when He was arrested. However, it was the women in Jesus life, along with John, who were present while Jesus hung on a cross to die. If you were making up a story about a Savior in a male dominated society that viewed women as, in the words of Socrates, Incapable of reason and making rational choices, you would by no means portray them as being brave enough not to flee and hide like the rest of the disciples did. It is also worth noting that if Jesus resurrection was a made-up story told by a group of men, you definitely would not make women the first eyewitnesses to His resurrection! The inclusion of women in Jesus life serves as further proof that not only is the Bible for both men and women, but additional evidence that Jesus did rise from the grave.
However, before Jesus rose from the grave, He was crucified and did indeed die! He was handed over by the religious leaders of His day to be sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate for treason, and although He was innocent of such crimes he was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Before He was forced to carry His cross, He was beaten, flogged, mocked, and beaten again. Jesus stood mangled and hemorrhaging before a jeering crowd who demanded with shouts: Crucify, crucify him! (see Luke 23:18-25). When Pilate told Jesus that he had the power to release him, Jesus replied: You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above (John 19:11). Pilate washed his hands in a bowl of water symbolizing his innocence and ordered that Jesus be crucified.
Jesus was forced to carry His cross to the place of his execution known as Golgotha. Once He reached Golgotha, Jesus was stretched out by force upon the cross where His hands and feet were nailed to the wooden beams that made up His cross, where He would hang until His death. For six hours he hung on that cross and while on the cross, three of the seven statements that came out from His mouth that will serve as my main points this resurrection Sunday morning, were as follows:
While the crowd mocked him and the soldiers gambled over his clothes, as Jesus hung on the cross stripped of His cloths and humiliated before the masses, He said: Father, forgiven them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
While dying on the Cross under the wrath of God for sins we are guilty of, under the unrestrained justice we all deserved for our sins, Jesus cried: My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matt. 27:27)?
Just before He breathed out what air was left in His lungs, in case there was any confusion as to who was in charge, Jesus declared: It is finished (John 19:30).
Jesus died. To prove that he was dead, one of the soldiers thrust his spear into the side and heart of Jesus, a man by the name of Joseph asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, and then His body was prepared for burial, placed in the tomb, and a stone was rolled in front of the entrance of the tomb to seal the grave shut. While in the tomb, Jesus was not unconscious and he didnt have a twin brother who pretended to rise from the grave; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wanted to be impeccably clear that Jesus physically died on the cross and that His death was very important and very significant. Three days later, Jesus rose from the grave! The women in Jesus life were the first to see and witness His resurrected body, while the men in His life refused to believe it until Jesus appeared to them as well. They, and every other person who encountered the risen Christ, would never be the same!
If Jesus remained in the tomb after His death, then all we would have to look to was a dead martyr. Jesus did not stay dead though, and His resurrection is proof that all that He said and did was legitimate and true. Jesus went to the cross to die a death each and every human deserved to die. To the Corinthian Church, Paul wrote to a group of people who had seen how a resurrected Jesus transformed lives:
Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:14)
Jesus lived the life none of us could and died the death that every single one of us deserved, and His resurrection from the tomb validates His death for our sins and triumphant victory over sin and death as true. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16).
Jesus Resurrection Proves that We Can be Forgiven by God (Eph. 2:11)
It is the power of the gospel that the Christians in Ephesus experienced! Ephesus was the home of one of the seven wonders of the world: The Temple of Diana (Artemis). Horrible things happened in that temple and people from all over the world came to Ephesus to experience what the goddess Diana offered, and Ephesus economy benefited under the oppressive demonic power of Artemis, until the gospel came to that city.
Those who became Christians were identified by those in the city as belonging to the Way after something Jesus said about Himself: I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6). We are given a small glimpse of the kind of effect the gospel had upon Ephesus and the worship of Diana in Acts 19. Demetrius, a silversmith who made a living off forming silver shrines of Artemis, was particularly angry over the way the gospel impacted his business; listen to his complaint about the apostle Paul:
You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all. Not only is there danger that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be regarded as worthless, and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence. (Acts 19:2627)
To those who heard about Jesus, repented of their sins and idolatry, and surrendered their lives to Him, Paul wrote: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (Eph. 1:7-8a). Because of Jesus, these Ephesian Christians had a new identity that was now rooted in Christ instead of Artemis! Against the backdrop of a demonic temple, Paul wrote these words:
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Eph. 1:2023)
To those rescued out of the paganism of Artemis through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:11-12a, Therefore remember that previously you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision which is performed in the flesh by human hands were at that time separate from Christ. They were at one time dead in their sins; under the guise of Artemis, they once, walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:1-3). But through the cross of Christ, they have been made alive with Christ because of the rich mercy, great love, and sufficient grace of almighty God!
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you have placed your faith and trust in Him as the only means for the forgiveness of your sins, then you who, were at one time separate from Christ (2:11), have been forgiven by God through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
Jesus Resurrection Proves that We Can be Reconciled to God (Eph. 2:12)
On the eve of His execution, Jesus was abandoned and left alone with no one. If that were not enough, there was One more person who abandoned Him to leave him completely and desperately alone. We learn who that person was with Jesus words from the cross: My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Mark 15:34). Why would Jesus say such a thing from the cross? Because it was on the cross that Jesus was cursed in our place, which was the plan all along. It is the reason why John the Baptist cried out upon seeing Jesus in the early days of our Saviors earthly ministry: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! While Jesus endured the humiliation of the cross, He experienced exactly what the prophet Isaiah described in Isaiah 53:5, But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; the punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
When Jesus cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He, in that moment, experienced the cursing of His Heavenly Father for sins we are guilty of. From the moment of conception, ours is a nature that gravitates towards opposition against our Creator. Oh, we are fine with a god of our own making, but the God who spoke the galaxies into existence, whose power fashioned more than 300 billion suns with a command, before whom the pure Seraphim shield their faces with one set of wings and cover their feet with another set of wings, while calling out to one another concerning God almighty: Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of His glory (Isa. 6:1-3), we run from that God! Why? Because, as the Bible declares: There is no righteous person, not even one; there is no one who understand, there is no one who seeks out God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:10-11, 23). That is the problem with humanity and that is why Jesus said, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). For our sin, Jesus was cursed so that you and I would not have to be, this is why the Bible states, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal. 3:13).
Aarons blessing is now for you Christian: The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord cause His face to shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His face to you, And give you peace (Num. 6:2426). Aarons blessing is for you Christian, because Jesus drank every last drop of Gods wrath on your account by becoming a curse in your place. Jesus experienced the antithesis of Aarons blessing, which if the voice of God could be heard on that day Jesus hung from the cross: The Lord curse you, and abandon you; The Lord turn His face from you, and condemn you; may the Lord stand against you, and withhold His peace from you.[1]
Jesus because a curse in our place because we were, strangers to the covenant of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, you have been reconciled to God!
Jesus Resurrection Proves that We Can Become the Children of God (Eph. 2:13)
The final statement from the cross came in the form of a final declaration: It is finished! All that was required for our redemption was accomplished on the cross! We who were hostile towards God, stood as an enemy of God, who walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2-3), we who were once children of Gods wrath have now been reconciled to God and experience only His pleasure. If you are a Christian, then Ephesians 2:13 is for you: But now in Christ Jesus you who previously were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
The cross of Christ was enough to save lost sinners and the resurrection of Jesus is proof that all who are far and away from God can be forgiven by God, reconciled to God, and made a child of God through the Christ of the cross who lived the life we could not live, died a death we all deserved, and conquered sin and death on the third day by rising from the grave! Concerning Jesus: There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among mankind by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). This is the gospel, and it is, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16)!
[1] I heard this for the first time at the 2008 T4G Conference delivered by R.C. Sproul. For more see: https://www.ligonier.org/posts/god-cursed-him.

Friday Mar 29, 2024

There is no sermon manuscript for this Good Friday Service.

Meadowbrooke Church

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