We are still at the beginning of working our way through one of the most amazing books of the Bible, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It presents the most beautiful picture of the church and the Christian life, a picture that really stretches your mind.
The last two weeks we have been working through verses 3-14 of the first chapter. In those verses, Paul says that the Christians in Ephesus have been blessed by God with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”.
He said, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” It’s not ‘will bless us, some day.’ It’s not, might bless us. Every blessing in the heavenly blessing is here now, for us. Is that worth looking for? Have you tasted that yet?
Read into the passage a bit and you start to see what he means. And it takes some work because the grammar is very difficult. But the rest of the passage lists off things that God has done for us. And it soon becomes clear that when he says “every blessing in heaven,” Paul means our relationship with God himself. God is the blessing. And Paul lays out the blessings in order of blessings from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Last week we looked a bit at the Trinitarian nature of God, one God in three persons. The different persons of the trinity work in different ways, so they are different, but they are so incredibly united. God, in Himself, is pure love, perfect unity, in diversity.
In our last Wednesday night Bible study, we went a bit deeper into the Trinity, working from the Apostles’ Creed. I pulled out a list of verses from John’s Gospel in which Jesus told us what his relationship with God the Father was like. John’s gospel gives us a peek right into the Trinity, and it was just the most beautiful picture of love, with God the Father and God the Son honoring each other, totally transparent with each other, yielding to each other. I’m still glowing a bit inside from the discussion we had. God invites us into that relationship. He calls the church to live like that together. Since we are created in his image, we find our destiny when we learn to live together like that. And that is one big blessing. We can learn to build that kind of love together.
If you were here for the Italian night last night, you had a taste of it. I don’t mean the mostachiolli, although that was good. I mean that you could feel that the room had all these different people in it, some of us very different, but there was love flowing through them and we were one family of God. Did anyone get a taste of that last night? What a blessing.
But we can go farther. It is so important for us as God’s people to sit down in small groups and unite our hearts by studying God’s word together. That gives us a united foundation, one heart and one mind, for serving God effectively. It provides a chance to build the trust to risk coming closer and going deeper. We should all be in some kind of a small group where those connections are made. And if that sounds like a commercial for our Wednesday night Bible Study, it is. I want us to build a solid, united foundation in faith.
Well, Paul goes through the three persons of the Trinity in our passage. Two weeks ago we looked at the blessings that come to us from God the Father. Nobody can list them all, but Paul picked out the way that God has planned good for us from the creation of the world, has been working steadily and with complete wisdom to bring his plans to fruition, never settling for second best, always, like a good father, wanting the best for his children. That’s a great blessing and I hope we all get to know God as Father and learn to submit to the wisdom of his plan for our lives. That’s a blessing. Paul focuses on God the Father in verses 3-6 of our text.
Today we move on to God the Son, but something different happens now. The next section of our passage is verses 7-12, but Paul has God, the Son, in the middle of every action of God in the entire passage in a way that the others aren’t. His primary section is verses 7-12. But the whole passage, in fact the whole book of Ephesians, is permeated with statements that the blessings of the Trinity come to us “in Christ.”
And if you’re thinking, “Oh man, I’ll never figure this Trinity thing out,” let me make it clear right now. You are right. You will never figure God out. There will always be something more and something wonderful ahead. But the Bible tells us real things about the Trinity and today I want you to understand that all these blessings, including the blessings of God the Father’s wise planning and determination to bless us, actually come into our lives “in Christ.” Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is the one who has bridged the gap between a holy God and sinful humans, who makes it possible for all those blessings to come into the lives of fallen sinners like us. It is “in Christ,” in relationship with Jesus Christ, that it all works.
Well, I’ll ask Bob to come and read our text for us. As he does, I want you to follow along in your bulletin. I’ve underlined the times that Paul uses the phrase, “in Christ” or equivalents. And, just to stick his point in our minds, I’ll ask that when Bob comes to those underlined phrases, you join him and read the underlined phrases out loud.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.
In the wisdom of God all those blessings which come in relationship with the Three-in-One God, actually come into our lives in Christ.
Can you just try to follow the Father’s good rules, be a good person, and ignore Christ? According to Paul, that doesn’t work. It is in Christ, which means in relationship with Jesus Christ, that the blessings come.
And you might say, Pastor, isn’t that awful narrow? And I’ll say, yes, it is. Jesus said, in Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” And in John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is narrow. And if you don’t like it, don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger. You’re problem is with the big boss.
But don’t turn your back on what he’s done, because the way he set it up is incredibly wise and loving. When he died on the cross and rose from the tomb, Jesus opened the blockade between God and humans that was created by our sins.
And I suppose it’s remotely, theoretically possible that someone in this room might be smarter than God and thought up their own way that is better than God’s way. And I suppose that it is remotely, theoretically possible that someone in this room may be able to actually live a perfect life so that they don’t need God’s forgiveness. Even if we grant such absurdities for a moment, if God is working to bring all things together and you are going off, separate, on your own plan, then you are gumming up the works. And it’s time to bow your head and say, “God you are God, and I’m not.”
And the more I look at the depths of my heart the more I feel like, apart from God, I would be somebody drowning in an ocean storm, and I’m not going to quibble when God throws me a lifeline. It doesn’t need to be the right color or perfectly smooth in my hands. I need to get out of the storm.
There are so many things about God the Son that Paul could have mentioned, but he picked out three. Each one deserves a sermon, but I’ll just touch on two of the three quickly.
The first thing that especially comes to us is in verse 7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us.”
God the Father made this incredibly beautiful, wise plan to fill the earth with love. And every one of us has turned our backs on that plan, in different ways and to different degrees. And every one of us has set out following our own plan, each in our own different ways. His plan is to bring us back, together, in Christ. That’s the best thing for all of us.
And if I were God, I would be really ticked off with the way we humans have behaved. And it’s clear that he has often been profoundly angry at this. The wrath of God is a very real theme in the Bible. But in his amazing grace, he has made a way to fix it. And that’s the predominate theme. Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross to remove the weight of guilt and sin so that we can try again.
And we can turn our backs on that incredible gift. We can say, “I don’t need to go that way. I’ll make my own way. I’ll pick and choose the parts that I like. I’ll figure it all out myself. I’ll pile up enough good things I do.” But when we do that, we are turning our backs on this incredible gift given to us from the heart of God. And we are turning our backs on God himself, who says that all his blessings come to us, “in Christ.”
It may be that you are recognizing that you are off on some path you have created for yourself, trying to make your own way today. I challenge you to bow to God’s way today, and say, “Yes, God, I confess that I need a savior for my sins. I submit to your wisdom and your love and your way.”
The second ministry of God the son is in verses 9 and 10. “He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
I think you could say that these two verses are a summary of the main point of the whole letter. It is God’s plan to heal the divisions on earth by bringing all people together. Time will tell how many will respond. And the connection point that holds it all together is Jesus Christ. Every step we take closer to Christ also brings us closer to his family, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel come closer as they connect to the hub.
Or Paul’s analogy is that the church is like a human body, made up of many different parts, eyes, knees, fingers, arms. And Christ is the head. If the two feet set out walking in different directions, it brings chaos. If both feet are connected and submitted to the head, that’s when you can get somewhere. Churches that fail to connect with each other and fail to connect with Christ fall into chaos. Christ is the one who keeps us together. The church starts to be very much like the Trinity, unity in diversity. Very different persons, united in one heart and mind and faith
As we come to the communion table in a moment, I invite you to renew your commitment to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person, in this amazing Trinity. In this sacrament he gives himself to us, through faith, through the bread and the cup. In this sacrament, we confess we can’t make it on our own. In this sacrament we receive his grace, we reconnect with this incredible Son of God who loves us so passionately that he died on the cross for us centuries ago and loves us so tenderly that he has promised to meet with us, here and now in this sacrament. In Christ, the giver of the sacrament, we become one. Come and bow your heart to receive this amazing gift from God the Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. AMEN
