Pickwell-Kirby Bellars 22-11-08
Ephesians 1.15-23
I would like to look at our epistle reading (the first reading we had this morning)
It probably speaks to me a lot because I find it easier to criticise than give thanks for one another – for our Christian brothers and sisters.
However, Paul gives thanks for them for two reasons
1. for their faith in the Lord (do you see echoes of the first Great Commandment here to love the Lord you God with all your heart) and
2. for their love for the saints (yes that’s you and me!) - echoes of the second of the two Great Commandments– to love your neighbour as yourself
Yet so often we take the members of our Church for granted.
Story: Last Thursday Maddy and I visited an old friend who had lost her faith.
Her husband had deserted her for a younger woman, and then divorced her.
Her elderly parents were so infirm that they demanded all her free time.
She stopped going to church because she had to be what she wasn’t!!
People in her church only dealt with success - and she soon slipped away unnoticed.
I wonder if someone in Church had taken time to stand alongside her during that painful divorce that she might have kept going.
If someone at church had offered to give her a day off from her parents.
When we talked it seemed as if she was like the hamster on a treadmill – turning the wheel but going nowhere – FAST
In contrast, St Paul commends the Ephesian Church because of their caring attitude – their love for the saints – and not just some of them!
The Early Church used to have a position in church known as an “angel watcher” – people who would watch out for and greet and welcome new folk who showed up – for they might just be entertaining “angels unaware”
And I was challenged to ask myself:
How does my thermometer towards God read:
“Barely registering or sky high??”
How much time do we spend alone with God?
A few years ago, a survey was taken among US pastors asking how much time do you spend with God alone in a week.
The average reply was 15 minutes a week.
Why – because church WORK is so consuming and can push God out.
And I was writing this sermon in the middle of my holiday!!
Many marriages (and actually our marriages should mirror our relationship with God) break up because one of the two parties become too busy and the other feels neglected
Paul in our reading not only gives thanks for the Ephesian Church, but he also prays for them to have wisdom
“ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation
What for?
AS YOU COME TO KNOW HIM
Paul doesn’t pray for them to do great works – to fill the pews - but to know God
Do you really know God – because it takes time
Paul goes on to say that the reason you should know God is
So that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know the hope to which he has called you
That you may know the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints and the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.
Wow, what a church!!
And yet within a few decades (probably two generations) we find St John in the book of Revelation writing this to the same Church:
St John reports what God tells him to do:
“To the angel (or leader) of the Church in Ephesus write:
These things says he who holds the seven stars in his hand-who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands
I know
1. Your works
2. Your labours
3. Your patience
4. that you cannot tolerate those who are evil
5. that you have tested false apostles
6. that you have persevered for my Name’s sake and not become weary
Nevertheless I hold this against you that you have left you first love (Rev 2)
The Ephesian church has become the big Evangelical Church, things were buzzing
Yet St John writes that they have l;ost their first love for God. Tragic – they started out right but lost their way
We – like the Ephesians are people who measure success in DOING – and by that reckoning the Ephesian Church needed a good pat on the back – but God does not commend them
I have just been reading an interesting book by John Ortberg called : When the game is over, it all goes back in the box
John Ortberg likens many of our lives to a game of Monopoly where our sole aim is to accumulate “stuff”
But he concludes by saying that when we die and the Game is over - it all goes back in the box. And so what will remain?
The only worthwhile thing will remain at the end of our time on earth is
Were we rich towards God and
Have we developed our love for Him?
I was very touched by a story John Ortberg told, because the end could easily have been my story when I was in business.
Ortberg writes (and I have abridged it and translated it into proper English)
“Once upon a time in the Silicon Valley, there lived a very important man.
He routinely logged in 12-14 hours a day work and sometimes at weekends.
He went to the Harvard school of Management, where he got top honours.
He qualified in his chosen field and broadened his horizons by joining thge board of his professional institute. Indeed he joined a number of boards of directors to expand his contacts.
He read business books on keeping up with the sharks and took leadership courses from Genghis Khan.
Even when he wasn’t working, his mind would wander back to his job, which became not just his occupation but his pre-occupation.
He found the forty hour work week such a good idea that he’d often do it twice a week
His wife tried to slow him down to remind him he had a family.
He knew they were not as close as they had once been.
He had not intended to drift away. It just seemed that she wanted time from him and that is just something he did not have time to give. Instead, he gave it all at the office
He was vaguely aware that his kids were growing up and he was missing it. From time to time his kids would complain about the books he wasn’t reading to them and the games he wasn’t playing with them
"I am doing it all for them" he said. "Things will get better soon and our future will be assured."
He knew he wasn’t taking care of his body.
His doctor told him that there were some very serious warning signs – high blood pressure, high cholesterol –and that he had to cut down on the chocolate, red meat and cigarettes – as well as start to exercise.
So he stopped going to the doctor. There will be plenty of time for that he thought once everything settles down
One day his chief operations officer came to see him and said: “You won’t believe this but business is booming so much that we can’t keep up with it. It’s a miracle. But with the present technology we just can’t keep up and make a killing.”
So he put the company through a technological revolution:
New software , new computers.
The buzz phrase was “ 24/7 accessibility” so much so that that he put phones and video conferencing into the toilets
But as he sat at his computer rearranging the company, there was one microscopic detail that he had overlooked.
An artery that had once been as supple as grass was now as dry and brittle as old cement
For more than half a century his head had been pumping 70 mililitres of blood with every contraction , 14 thousand pints each day, 100 thousand beats in 24 hours- all this without him ever sending a memo or giving it a performance review.
Now it skipped a beat.
Then another
And a third.
He gasped for air and clutched his chest. For a moment he was given the gift of blinding clarity.
Even though he sat on the top of hundreds of organisational charts, it turned out that he wasn’t in control of his own pulse.
Funny thing: thousands of employees on multiple continents would obey his every word with fear and trembling.
But a few ounces of recalcitrant muscle brought him to his knees. Now I lay down to sleep
His wife woke up at 3am and he was still not in bed beside her. She went downstairs to drag him up to bed and saw him sitting there in front of the computer head on his desk.
“This is ridiculous” she said the herself “ it’s like being married to a child. He would rather fall asleep in front of his screen than come to bed!”
She touched him on the shoulder to wake him up- but he did not respond and his skin was alarmingly cold.
Panicking she rang 999 with a sinking heart. When the paramedics got there they told her he had suffered a massive heart attack.
His death was a major story in the financial community.
His obituary appeared in the Times and the Telegraph. It was too bad that he was dead because he would have loved to have read what they said about him
Then came the funeral service.
Because of his prominence the whole community turned out.
People filed past the open casket and commented how peaceful he looked. Rigor mortis will do that.
Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down
They’d ask the same foolish question that people ask when a rich man dies: How much did he leave behind.
He left it all - everyone leaves it all!!
People got up to eulogise him. Mostly they talked about his accomplishments because everyone knew about him but no one really KNEW him
“He was one of the leading entrepreneurs of the day”
“He was an innovator in technology”
“He was a man of principles” – he never cheated on his taxes or expense for form or even on his wife”
“He was a pillar of the community, he knew everybody and was a great networker”
They commissioned a large marble monolith in his memory.
They wrote on it
Visionary, Innovator, Leader, Entrepreneur
And at the top they wrote Success
But when it was dark, and no one was around, the Angel of God was sent to the cemetery. Unseen and unheard the angel made his way past all the other tombstones until he came to the man’s wonderful memorial stone
There the Angel traced with his finger the single word that God had chosen to summarise the life of this wealthy, busy, respectable business man – FOOL
God said: You fool this very night your soul will be required from you”
Perhaps there is a parallel in this parable and to our crushing recession.
We are so busy accumulating – that we no longer take a day off to say “Thank you” to God.
Our advertising on TV and on the radio tells us we need more – and more and more
Bigger and better!
The challenge I have this morning is this
Am I making efforts to be richer towards God or am I more interested in getting “stuff”
No one on their deathbed ever said: “I wish I’d spent more time in the office”
The rich man collected many cookies but never got to spend any of them
Being rich towards God begins by giving what God desires – and what he desires most is YOU- your heart and your devotion.
As St John the Divine wrote to the Church at Ephesus:
If you don’t change, if you don’t return to your first love of God – he will remove your lampstand from among the churches.
Jesus told his FOLLOWERS that they are a light set on a hill that shines bright
But if you don’t love God as you first did - all your hard work and effort will count as nothing
You will be giving LIGHT to no one
You will drift away from God if you simply set out to work for him as a servant.
God wants our motivation to be that of a son who loves to spend time with his loving heavenly Father
