I believe I can safely say that we’re all in need of hearing some good news.  When I come to church I need to hear good news.  We want to hear the truth.  I want to hear the truth.  We are going to be spending the next 7 weeks in the letter of Paul to followers of Christ in Ephesus.  A big deal town.  The third largest in the Roman Empire.  You may have visited it in modern-day Turkey.  Excavations began over 150 years ago, and you get the sense of the grandeur of the place.   Home of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the temple of the goddess Artemis. 

There were a lot of things that were competing for the attention of these 1^st century followers of Jesus.  There were a lot of messages around as to whom or what was due their allegiance/attention/devotion/adoration. Paul had spent three years in the city.  He was almost caught in the middle of a riot at one point (Acts 19).  What would he want to tell the people that he remembered and the people who had come to be “in Christ” since he left?

This letter is not so much to correct a problem going on in the church.  It’s not written so much to persuade or dissuade its readers and hearers.  It’s written that they may come to a deeper heart understanding of what it means to live “in Christ.”  Who are they?  How should they live?  Paul’s words speak to us through the Holy Spirit of God 2,000 years later.  Let’s come to God in prayer and ask for help as we begin at the beginning.

“May the words of my mouth, and the mediations of all our hearts, be pleasing to you O Lord, our rock, and our redeemer.”  Amen

I rarely do this but I have an alliterative list for today’s sermon!  We are going to look at how Paul writes of our Praise/Privilege, Purpose, Prayer, and Power in Christ.  Paul writes of where we stand, who we are, in the midst of a lot of different messages that purport to tell us where privilege, purpose and power are to be found.  I’m saying “our” privilege, purpose and power but Paul starts where we always must start – with God.  Before that though the greeting.  The good greeting.  “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1-2)  To the saints.  To the followers of Jesus.  To those who are “in Christ.”  This phrase “in Christ” will be used by Paul in the next praise section 11 times.  It’s a great description of what it means to follow Jesus.  Jesus is not simply an object of belief.  To be in Christ means that Christ is the one in whom we live and move and have our being.  This is an all of life thing.  To live in Christ is to live with a sharing in, a fellowship with, a participation in (and all of these words fail to adequately express this truth) the life of the risen Lord Jesus Christ!

“Grace to you and peace” Paul tells his readers.  Grace is the unmerited favour of God.  We often associate God’s grace with mercy and forgiveness.  This is for good reason.  We have known mercy and forgiveness through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (and we are reminded of this often in our benediction at the end of our service).  Before there was any need for mercy and forgiveness – in other words before humanity messed things up – there was God’s favour.  God creating all things and calling them good because God is good.  God creating an hospitable space for humanity.  This is grace.  God’s unmerited favour and goodness. God is not like capricious gods with whom we must try and curry favour, or who might treat us well or badly depending on their whims. (isn’t money a good example of this?)  Grace to you and peace.   Peace not simply as the absence of conflict but flourishing in every aspect of life. 

What does it mean to be privileged?  To start, Paul opens the curtain like an old-time showman.  There are truths beyond what we may see with our eyes as we go through our days.  Paul pulls back the curtain.  Paul wants us to keep these truths in front of us.  He starts with an 11 verse introduction which speaks of what it means to be people of privilege in Christ.  He does this in the language of praise.  We just spent around 8 weeks looking at the poetry of the Psalms and if you thought we’d be getting away from that by reading a letter – not quite yet!  Paul begins with a poetic hymn-like ode of praise to God which speaks of the privilege that is ours in Christ.  It may be that praise is always the best place to start. 

Praise/Privilege

“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, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.  He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.”  (3-6)  See what I meant about good news?  We talked about our personal stories (testimonies as we say) last week as we looked at Psalm 116.  Here we have Paul opening the curtain on a description of God’s saving story.  To follow Jesus is to have our stories grafted into God’s saving story.  We were written into God’s story before the foundation of the world.

Aside – This talk of being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and destined for adoption as his children is not to solve the question of “What does it mean to be chosen by God and where does free will enter in to this?”  It remains a paradox and I believe we can hold two seeming opposites in tension.  God played a role in choosing us to become his children.  We play a role in accepting and believing.  Recall Jesus’ words to his followers in the Gospel of John (15:16) about them being chosen.  Recall Jesus’ invitation “Believe in the Father, believe also in me.” (14:1)  We hold these together lest we think that we’ve come to be in Christ through our own figuring things out, or that we fatalistically throw up our hands and say “Well it’s all up to God.”  Let us take this away from Paul’s words – God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before him in love; part of the family of God.

Purpose

We want to live with purpose.  A purposeless existence is no kind of existence is it?  Where do we find purpose?  Paul binds this idea up with God’s grand purpose.  It’s cosmic, literally.  “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.  With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fulness of time, to gather all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (7-10)  In Christ, we have a personal experience of deliverance, of redemption (being brought back to God – something we could not have done on our own), of forgiveness.  God’s plan and purpose is not just for the salvation of individual souls.  It’s not even just for the creation of community called “the church.”  God’s plan involves, in the fulness of time, gathering up all things in heaven and on earth in Christ.  Jesus called it “the renewal of all things.” (Matt 19:28)  We hear about it in Revelation 21 when God’s voice is heard declaring “See, I am making all things new.”  The end of brokenness, of division, of hatred, of fear, of mourning and crying and pain.  This has begun in the life, death, resurrection and ascencion of Christ Jesus and one day it will be brought to completion.  In the meantime, followers of Christ are caught up in God’s grand purpose.  There’s a great phrase that is repeated three times in this hymn of Paul’s – “to the praise of his glorious grace” (6), “so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory” (12), “this is the pledge (speaking of the Holy Spirit) of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”  We live in Christ for the praise of his glory. In other words, to make God’s glory known.  In other words to make God’s ways known in every thought, word, and deed.  There is an eternal cosmic significance in making God’s love/mercy/faithfulness/justice/grace known in even the most seemingly insignificant way.  May this great truth fill our days, we who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and have believed in him, and have been marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. (13)

That’s a good prayer actually, “Lord, our purpose is to live for the praise of your glory.  May this great truth fill our days, we who have heard the word of truth, the good news of our salvation, and have believed in him, and have been marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit!”

Prayer

This is who we are.  We pray.  Paul prays for the sisters and brothers of Ephesus.  “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.  I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.” (17)  Are we praying that for one another?  Let us start.  A spirit (the Holy Spirit at work in us) of wisdom.  Walking in the way of wisdom.  Walking in the light of God’s face.  Revelation.  The ways of God being revealed to us and through us.  “so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.” (18)  We know that light enters our eyes so that we can see.  In the ancient world, light was thought to go out from the eyes.  The quality of the light depended on one’s inner disposition and so affected how one saw things.  May our hearts be so enlightened by the light of Christ that we are ever more coming to see everything in the light of the hope that is ours – the assured expectation that is ours – and the power that is ours in Christ.

Power

Who are we?  How are we to live?  Paul is setting things up.  There’s a lot to come and we’ll get there God willing in the coming weeks.  There’s a great line coming up in this letter.  It goes like this, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine…”(3:20)  To be “in Christ” means that the power of the risen Christ is in us.  It means that the power of God which raised Christ from the dead and seated Christ at his right hand is at work in us.  The church has sought and seeks power in different places.  Money.  Assets.  Political power.   The only power we need is the power of God that is far above any rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named (Washington, Ottawa, Wall St, Bay St, you name it) not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

I find this truth most comforting. God’s story, the story into which our stories are grafted in Christ, is bigger than my life, bigger than a church.  We had our monthly deacons meeting this week and one of the thing we looked at and talked was inactive members/adherents.  It’s a church governance thing in one way.  Who is able to vote?  In another way it was a list of people who aren’t here anymore.  They’ve gone to another church.  They’ve gone from the faith.  Who even knows because we’re not in touch.  It’s hard.  It can be demoralizing.  Paul knew about ups and downs.  Paul knew about “slight momentary affliction” (troubles, sorrows) (2 Cor 4:17) and he also knew how “slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”  So we do not lose heart.  This is the power of Christ in me, as the song goes.  In us. 

Paul has pulled the curtain back and we have taken in the scene.  May the scene that Paul has described take on an ever greater weight of meaning in our hearts as we go through his letter in the coming weeks.  May this start today as we lift the bread that we break, and the cup of blessing that we bless; for are not these are sharing in the body and blood of our risen and reigning and returning Christ Jesus?

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!  Amen.