July 13, 2003 -SixthSunday after Pentecost
Samuel 6: 1-19
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Ephesians 1: 3-14
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Mark 6:14-29
“TheFully Loaded Christian Life”
Introduction
You’ve just sat down in your new fully-loaded Mercedes Sports Coupe. Ah, that smell of new leather with a slight waft of scrubbed factory rubber. This car is fully-loaded with every available option, from the customized seat configurations to the new docking bay for your I-Pod. How do you feel? Excited… calm… joyful.
May I suggest to you that these emotions are the very same ones we will experience when we come to understand that just like that fully-loaded Mercedes, we are fully-loaded Christians.
My text this morning is Eph. 1:3-14.
Before we proceed, a few brief comments about the letter to the Ephesians. This is most likely an address that the Apostle Paul, the New Testament’s most prolific writer, penned to a church planting movement consisting of multiple churches, with its center in Ephesus.
Ephesus was the first century cultural center of western Asia, located in present-day Turkey to the east of the Aegean Sea. The Aegean Sea is connected at its southern end to the Mediterranean Sea. Think of the boot of Italy, then move right to the Ionian Sea, then further right to Greece, then further right to the Aegean Sea, and then further right to Turkey. Now move inland a ways and you’ll be in Ephesus.
The church planting movement in Ephesus possessed deep theological understanding, but more importantly was very effective in penetrating and redeeming the culture around it, and had few internal problems. The passage we are reading is Paul’s opening words to this movement. Now why would Paul begin his address with a review of the spiritual blessings we have in Christ? Perhaps it was because Paul knew that to give this group a better understanding of how God had blessed them and equipped them would propel them forward in their ministry together. When we know we are blessed to the maximum possible extent, we are then free to serve without concern for ourselves.
This whole section is one continuing sentence in the Greek with which Paul wrote. That Paul would not pause to come up for air as he describes the blessings any believer has in Christ ought to intrigue us. In fact, the whole first section of the letter, beyond our passage for today, and through 3:21, is in the form of thanksgiving and prayer. This speaks to the abundance God has given to each of us as believers.
The theme is clearly stated in v. 3. This verse says essentially this: we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. I would like this morning to focus on three related questions concerning our blessing:
Where? in the heavenly realms
How? with every spiritual blessing
For what? For the praise of his glory
Onward then, to the first question…
Body
Paul tells us in v. 3 that our Heavenly Father has blessed us in the heavenly places. Where exactly are these heavenly places, what are they, and of what practical significance to us might they actually be?
To understand this phrase we can first look at how Paul uses it throughout the letter to the Ephesians. In Eph. 1:20, Paul says that the heavenly places are where Christ is seated next to the Father’s right hand. Then a bit later, in Eph. 2:6, Paul tells us, that, surprise, we ourselves are seated with Christ in these same heavely places. Later, in chap. 3:10, Paul says that the heavenly places are where the manifold wisdom of God will be made known to the rulers and authorities that are there. Clearly this is a reference to the IRS. Finally, in 6:12, Paul tells us that the heavenly places are where our true struggles take place:
NIV Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
At first glance, all of this may appear little more than so much spiritual gibberish. Granted, Christ probably is seated next to the Father, but we certainly can’t be seated there, because we’re seated here. Just maybe there are some spiritual forces out there which can wield influence, but surely they need not rule over our lives, Stephen King notwithstanding. Or… are we thinking too literally here? What if we could be two places at once. This is possible, even within a materialist worldview, as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us. Heisenberg cut a hole in a piece of cardboard, and then proved that a photon could be physically located on either side of the hole simultaneously. This is part of a field of study called quantum mechanics.
Now, let’s take this quantum thinking and apply it to this notion of the heavenly places. What if we can be in two places at once, and in fact are in two places? What if, while we were sitting here in pew number 4 of the 1CC of Wauwatosa, we were also seated in the heavenly places with Christ? Further, what if the heavenly places were something that actually permeated all of our material reality. If this were the case, then whatever happened there would have profound implications for what is happening here, for what happened there would have precedent over what happens here. Not even the power of an empire, whether American, British, Roman, or Babylonian, can contest with this. Now, granted, this won’t help with your next IRS audit, but if we recognize that we have been blessed in the one set of places that will stand forever – the heavenly places – the immediate problems of our lives will dramatically shrink to their proper perspective.
One way we might find out if indeed we are presently seated in the heavenly realms with Christ would be to attempt to make use of the access we have to the Heavenly Father. Might I suggest that each of us pick our most pressing concern. Maybe it’s financial, maybe it has to do with a son or daughter, or a friend in dire need. If we are indeed seated next to Christ, within earshot of our Heavenly Father, we might then ask him to move in the situation we’re thinking about. Let’s go ahead and ask him to move this week. Then next week, when we’re back together again, we can compare notes, and see if indeed we are merely seated here, in these pews, or, if indeed we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ.
Now, thus far we’ve defined our theme as this: we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We’ve just then asked the first of three supporting questions: where are we blessed. Now we will move on to the second supporting question…
Well.. the short answer is through the Holy Spirit. So, here are the keys to your new life … enjoy. Oh, what’s that? You’d like a rundown of some of the onboard options. Well, alright then. I’ll itemize a few of the onboard options with which you’ve been outfitted.
The first option you’ll enjoy is being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Your Heavenly Father has chosen you in the same way he chose the nation of Israel from among the other nations of the world. This refers to the fact that you have been selected as part of a smaller collection from among a larger collection. You are now a collector’s edition person. The church of which you are now a part is intended to be a called-out people of those who are incorporated into Christ just as the Jews are a called-out people of those incorporated into Israel. Note also that your Heavenly Father made this decision before the foundation of the world was laid. In other words, he predestined you for this.
Before we go further, a note on predestination is in order here. Please understand that by predestination I do not mean a corporate predestination of the car lot on which we stand, as if you were free to drive onto it if you chose. Nor do I mean a prevenient (enabling) predestination which you must then act upon in order to activate. Rather, I mean a true choosing of you as an individual. This speaks to our inability to save ourselves, as well as to God’s decision to save us. As Jesus said in John 15, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”
But how, you may ask, would God’s sovereignty and our free will fit together? I don’t know, but my personal opinion is that the Bible teaches both. The best way to hold God’s sovereignty and our free will in tension may be to think of two sides of a mountain that ascend into a cloud, where the actual point of resolution exists, but is obscured from view. In any case, while you and I both continue to ponder these great mysteries, let’s move on to the next option on your vehicle.
The second option you’ll enjoy is being redeemed through the blood of Christ (v. 7). By redemption I mean deliverance. Further, as the very next clause of the verse indicates, our redemption entails the forgiveness of our sins. By forgiveness is meant a cancellation; by sins is meant those offenses we have committed against God and against one another. Note that these are things we already have as believers in Christ. This is why Paul speaks of our redemption coming “according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us” (vv. 7,8).
The third option you will enjoy is being informed about the mystery of God’s will. How can we really know God’s will, you might be thinking to yourself. Answer: because it’s stated right here on the page in v. 10: “plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Isn’t it nice to know that all the brokenness with which we are all too well acquainted is going to be put back together in the end to the glory of God’s own Son?
So fully-loaded is the vehicle of your Christian life that time does not permit me to explain the other options you have on-board. But you have this owner’s manual, and you can read about the others: being included in Christ (v. 13); being sealed with the Holy Spirit (also v. 13); and being written in to a… , shall we say, rather substantial inheritance (v. 14).
The best way to become more familiar with all of this is of course to play around with all of this stuff. It’s okay to play… even here. You might want to play around with the various controls. Then take’r out for a spin. Go ahead and put the pedal to the metal of your faith. This car will take whatever you throw at it, and turn it into a symphony of power and grace.
When you get back to the garage, you might just want to sit for a minute after turning off the engine. The best part about having a fully-loaded vehicle such as this is to enjoy the sheer blessing of it all. The pop of the cooling engine. The reflection of the trees on the hood. Be in the moment. Enjoy your blessing. There is nothing left that you have to do.
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We are looking at three supporting questions. The first question was where we’ve been blessed. The second, which we’ve just concluded, is how we’ve been blessed. The third and final supporting question then is this: for what have we been blessed.
For what are we blessed?
We are blessed not so that we would continue to live for ourselves, but rather so that we would live for the praise of his glory. This phrase occurs three times in our passage, in v. 6, v. 12, and v. 14.
Is God really so great that we should live our entire lives for the praise of his glory? Consider how his glory is described as part of the heavenly city that is to come, which is the New Jerusalem, in Rev. chapter 21. The city described here would be 1,400 miles in length, width, and height. That’s New York to Chicago to Dallas to Miami in length and width, and if we assume Mt. Everest at 3 miles high, roughly 500 Mount Everests high. Yet, in a city as large as this, there will be no lights. Not needed, for the very radiance of God’s character will be its light. Listen to how the Apostle John puts it:
“RSV Revelation 21:22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates shall never be shut by day -- and there shall be no night there; 26 they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.”
As a college student, I once heard a talk by former missionary, author and speaker Elizabeth Elliott, entitled, “What do you live for?” The talk consisted of three simple but pointed questions: “What do you live for? How do you get it? Is it worth it?” Precisely.
At youth camp this week, I saw one of the kids wearing a t-shirt with the following written on the back:
Power will leave you heartless;
Lust will leave you loveless;
Money will leave you comfortless;
Jesus will never leave you, regardless.
Again, precisely.
As Paul said to the church in Corinth (2 Cor. 5:15):
And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
What do you live for? The praise of your own affirmation, or the praise of his glory. He did not equip you with the vehicle we have described so that you could go on living merely for yourself. The joy is in the journey together to the praise of his glory.
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We’ve now looked at three supporting questions: where, how, and now, for what? The answer to the what question is this: we are blessed for the praise of his glory.
To conclude, I have seen personally how our Heavenly Father uses that with which we’ve been equipped spiritually to bless the lives of others. My wife Heather and I have a dear Russian friend named Natalie in Irkutsk, the Siberian city in which we used to live.
One day, Natalie came to our door frustrated and angry about her life. She said, “Steve, I think my life is pre-determined, and its pre-determined to be awful. I said to her in response, “Natalie, if you say that, you are denying the existence of God.”
A year or so later, Natalie was back at our apartment, even worse off than she had been previously. She was about to lose the little room in which she had carved out a living for herself. Her Mom was gravely ill and needed to move from another city to Irkutsk for medical treatment. There was no money to solve either of these problems. As Heather and I listened to Natalie describe this, we didn’t know what to do either. It was truly an awful situation. Yet Heather said, “Natalie, can we pray with you about this?”
A month later, Natalie received a phone call from Heather’s home church in Munster, IN. They had been so moved by Natalie’s plight that they decided to adopt both Natalie and her Mom. They collected a sufficient amount of money which they sent to Natalie to help purchase an apartment for her and her Mom. At the same time, Natalie’s Mom became the first person in her city to be given permission to privatize and sell her apartment. To make a long story short, God had moved miraculously twice, once through the church in Munster, and secondly through the city administration where Natalie’s Mom lived.
Natalie came back to our apartment, in tears, after purchasing her apartment and getting her Mom moved in with her. The woman who had in so many words denied God’s existence now said this: “Guys, I really thank you for your help. But I must tell you, I know that all of this did not come from you. It had to have come from God, for that is the only way to explain this.”
This is the God we serve. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, and he will continue to pour out blessing into the lives of others, just because he loves doing it.
What then remains for us to do in response? May I suggest it is the opening part of v. 3. For what Paul says is not merely that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. What he actually says is this: Bless the Father who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. My invitation to you today is this: in view of the blessings we have in Christ, let us together bless our Father in return. Let us stop living in selfish pre-occupation with petty concerns, and rather, let us release ourselves to live for the praise of His glory.
Amen.