EPHESIANS : The Letter of the Church
EPHESIANS: The Letter of the Church
Introduction: Tracing the Congregation's History!
Reading : Acts 20: 17 - 38
* Introduction: John A Mackay's familiar sentence needs to be written large in our minds and hearts: “WE COME TO CHRIST INDIVIDUALLY, BUT WE DO NOT LIVE IN CHRIST SOLITARILY”. As people in a strong evangelical tradition we have a very "high" view of the Gospel, of personal commitment, and even of discipleship - but an extremely "low" view of the Church. The personal dimension of the Christian faith is very important - don't get me wrong about that - but our belonging to the Body, the fact that we are a community is equally important. It dare not be undervalued, taken for granted, or dismissed. By such attitudes we "despise the church of God" [cf 1 Cor. 11:22].
The NT supplies a blueprint for the Church, and Ephesians is about spelling out what it means to be the people of God and how we should live as the people of God. It deals with the general principles, which we in our turn need to appropriate to ourselves and apply specifically to our situation where we are. The plans, blueprints, plans, models and metaphors are all there in compelling and colourful array. They need to be interpreted and followed up on the ground of our situation today!
Ephesus was a major city in the Empire and a strategic centre of Christian mission and ministry - similar to Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth - or later, Rome itself. As a preliminary to our exploring Ephesians together, as well as the need for its message, let's look at the sequence of the story of the church there as we have it in the NT.
* 1. The Nature of Paul's Ministry in Ephesus
On the occasion of his farewell address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus Paul reviews his ministry among them - cf Acts 19
* It was a ministry of the Word - publicly and from house to house. ie large group - small group strategy; preaching and pastoral counsel. Notice how he describes his ministry:
preaching, teaching, declaring, testifying, proclaiming, warning
* It also included action - things happened. In Acts 19 miracles and riots!
* Notice too the personal qualities of his ministry: humility - v19, passion - v19, urgency - v31, integrity- v21,27,33
The outcome of this ministry was the evangelization of the region and the expansion of the Church: Acts 19:10, Acts 19:20
*2. Paul's Departure from Ephesus
During the meeting and address at Miletus Paul is deliberately handing over responsibility / power / authority to the elders with whom it had previously been shared. Notice there is the implicit recognition of giftedness in the body - cf Eph 4:11-3.
* There is the exhortation to fulfil their ministry: "Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers" v28; "Be shepherds of the church of God.....Remember [Paul the model]"
Notice: the sequence of the keeping watch! how the Church is described - in terms of the Cross!
how Paul has modelled the ministry!
* There is the warning - to keep watch and to be on guard against savage elements outside the fellowship as well as cunning elements within the fellowship [the power vacuum].
*3. The Situation in Timothy's Ministry
Next is the situation as described in the letters to Timothy as bishop/pastor in Ephesus. Timothy is urged to make a firm stand in the face of steady decline.
* cf: 1 Tim. 1:3 - 7; 1:18 - 20; 4:15 - 16; 6:11 - 16
2 Tim. 1:12; 1:13 - 14
* Paul urges perseverence, because it is not only decline it is corruption:
- corruption of devotion to Christ: cf Demas has forsaken me
- corruption of Christian living and Christian standards by society's attitudes and code of conduct
- corruption of Christian belief/doctrine - doesn't matter!
*4. The Word about the Lampstand!
The final scene is that set out in the letters to the seven churches [Rev 2-3], set as they are between the figures of the transcendent, reigning Lord on the one hand and the impending persecution and travail of the Church on the other.
* Notice the particular word to Ephesus - including words of praise and commendation. All the laudable attributes are offset by the fact they have lost / left their first love. They are now urged to "remember...repent and do". The alternatives are stark: repentance or removal of their lampstand of witness. We have no independent right of continuance - only through faithfulness, obedience and service.
* Notice the word: "Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches!" Are we doing that? How can we do that today?
* Thus, now as then, there is great need for:
* RECOVERY - of vision, purpose, insight and understanding
* REDEDICATION - a true returning to the Lord with all our heart
* RENEWAL - a mighty, sovereign, authentic work of the Holy Spirit in the church
** CONCLUSION: We always seem to be beset by seasons of decline, of lukewarmness, of half-heartedness. Frequently it is because we fail to capture the significance if the people of God - our life in Christ TOGETHER. If we are truly to be "the holy seed", "the stump in the land", as Isaiah saw it [Isaiah 6:13], then we need to set our faces to the renewing of the Church in our time, as well as opening up our lives to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in these days.
EPHESIANS: The Letter of the Church
1 The Praise of God's Glory
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
11In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:3-14
In the face of all the uncertainties and all the challenges and all the changes that face the Church of Christ as we gallop, as it were, towards the end of the 20th Century, what does it mean to be the Church? What does it mean to be the people of God? What does it mean, here and now, you and me, us together, to be the Body of Christ in the world? Well surprise, that is what the Book of Ephesians is all about, about what it means to be the Church, about what God has done, about what God has done for us, what God is doing in us and what he wants us to do and to be in Him in the world. These marvellous opening verses, well at least verses 3-14, comprise one long extended and you might well think somewhat convoluted sentence. They are in fact a doxology. They are in the best sense of the word a eulogy, beautiful words. They are a blessing, notice it is blessed by or praise to, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has in turn blessed us with the full spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, blessed by God. The Church blesses and praises God because He is the One who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus.
Doxology, as John Stott has put it, should give place not only to duty but to dedication. Picture is followed by picture in these words and verses. Metaphor is piled upon metaphor. These verses have been variously described as a gateway opening out into something wider, a golden chain with each link something priceless, a kaleidoscope of colour and texture, a snowball hurtling down hill and getting bigger all the while, a racehorse galloping powerfully for the finish, an operatic overture that contains within it (in miniature at least), all the major themes and tones that will come through in the full undertaking of the work or the flight of an eagle, whirling, wheeling and rising in the sky. A whole set of pictures there, but that's what these verses are for us.
Paul talks about “the full spiritual blessing”, that’s the translation by Marcus Barth - the full spiritual blessing. It's the full spiritual blessing because nothing needs to be added, - to who Jesus is or what Jesus has done for us once and for all. Nothing needs to be added because nothing has been omitted in God's sovereign will or purpose. But at the same time, there is a paradox, one of those many Biblical paradoxes. In the words of the late Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones when somebody says, “Well, I have got it all”, we soon realise and if we don't realise, others can soon tell us that we have not got it all. But at the same time, when we are perpetually seeking after something more or something better or something fuller or some further spiritual notch up the ladder, we need to remind ourselves that we have been blessed in Christ with the full spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. That's the paradox. He talks about that it's in the heavenly realm. Do you remember those marvellous lines in 1 Peter Chapter 1 where there is the contrast of God keeping us on the one hand and God keeping that eternal inheritance safe and secure for us so at one and the same time, God is keeping us on the earth in our Christian pilgrimage and He is keeping safe and secure our inheritance in the realms of life. In a somewhat different form, we have the same idea again in the Book of Revelation Chapter 2 and 3, we see the earthly reality, the Church struggling in the midst of testing, temptation and uncertainty and inner weakness. We see the account of the seven Churches in Asia Minor. Chapter 4 speaks of a parallel reality. At the same time, as the Church is struggling on the earth, we see something of a door opened in heaven and what does he see, he sees one sitting upon the Throne and the answer is that even while the Church struggles and strives against tyranny, without and faithlessness within, our God reigns. “Blessed be the God and Father of our lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with the full spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm”. It is lifted up above and beyond all the uncertainties of time and space, above all the uncertainties of our fluctuating Christian feelings. Did you hear me? Above the fluctuations of our own Christian spiritual feelings, to what God has declared and to what God has done for you and for me in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Can I just remind you of one or two things this morning and you can pick them through at your leisure at home.
* God’s Eternal Purpose:
The first thing that is there is the whole idea of God's eternal purpose. You see, Paul begins here not with humanity, not with us, not even with us in our lostness but with God and so in our time old fashioned Christian words like election and predestination are somewhat unfamiliar today. We might think we are in a kind of theological time warp. They are certainly somewhat unpopular today. But think of it rather as God's sovereignty, God is sovereign, He is Lord. You see the notion did not somehow or other come into the Church through Augustine, or through John Calvin in Geneva, or even worse, that dreadful killjoy John Knox in Edinburgh. It is actually in the Bible folks, and because it is there, we have to come to terms with it. What does it mean? And the interesting thing is, it means the exact opposite from all the kinds of rubbish that most of us have been brought up to think of it. John Calvin described it as “this comfortable doctrine”. I would guess the average Christian person doesn't think of it in the least as a very comfortable doctrine. He described it, in the proper sense of course, as the comfortable doctrine, as its whole purpose is to bring peace and comfort, strength and assurance to beleaguered Christian souls and Christian lives. A famous quote from a Scottish Preacher, Eric Alexander. He says "We do despite to the doctrines of election and predestination when we use them as a kind of theological hand grenade, to throw at each other. That's how we use them usually. They are not given to us for that purpose. They are given as mighty stabilizers”. I am sure if you have ever been for a trip on the Inter Islander or on a trans ocean voyage, you have been grateful at some stage, whether they have worked for you or not is another story, you have been grateful for the stabiliser on the ship, that helps to keep it on a somewhat more even keel amid the storms and tempests. Sometimes, I must admit, it doesn't work too well on the Cook Strait but nonetheless that is what they are there for, to help give stability and assurance and strength.
You see, we sometimes have it all wrong, the whole notion of God's sovereignty in choosing us, as a matter of divine revelation and not of human speculation. God chooses us first, we love God, says John in his first letter, “we love God because He loved us first”. The initiative has always rested with God. The whole matter too, is that this whole idea of God's sovereignty, this idea of God's choosing us is really biblically an incentive to holiness and right living and not an excuse for lack-lustred Christian living or for continuing in sin. God has chosen us, says these verses, that we might be holy and blameless before Him in love. That idea of being holy and blameless before Him is caught up again later in this letter and also in the Colossian letter. It is the way, the path of becoming more and more like Jesus. And this idea of God's sovereignty in choosing us is a stimulus of humility and not a ground for our human boasting. The emphasis you see is on God's grave and not at all on our merits. You see we cannot claim anything. It was C.S.Lewis who said “Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man's search for God. For me, they might as well talk about the mouse's search for a cat . . . . God closed in on me”. That is the first thing I want to leave with you this morning to think through at your leisure.
* God’s Costly Means:
The second thing is this whole matter of choosing and of electing not only God's eternal purpose but God's costly means. You see the Bible has many metaphors that it uses to describe what human salvation is like. John, for example, in his Gospel in Chapter 3 talks about the new birth, being born again, about being born from above. Paul doesn't actively talk about being born again. The metaphor that Paul uses is rather the metaphor of adoption and that's in these verses here, presumably because it has within it the strong elements of choice. This is something that God chooses to do and that these are people whom God chooses. We naturally in a bygone age tended to think more naturally of adoption in terms of babies but in Paul's time, in the Roman Empire, it was not at all uncommon, in fact it was very common for Patrician families without an heir for whatever reason. Patrician families without an heir would seek out and choose and adopt a suitable young man. So for example, if the Patrician family head was a General in the Legion, he would very often seek out one of his younger officers and adopt him into his family that he might become his heir. The inimitable William Barclay in his commentary gives all kinds of insights into various things. He gives us some tremendous insights into what adoption meant in the Roman Empire. You see it is not so much talking about the adoption of children, but the adoption of an adult as an heir and he talks about the ritual they went through, that legal ceremony that had to be gone through and all the rest of it. But the interesting outcome of it all for Barclay is and I hope for you and for me, is that once this transaction was complete, this young man was no longer a part of his old family. He is transported and then drafted into his new family. I am sure you can all think of various echoes of that in various writings of St. Paul. More than that, in the eyes of the law, the eyes of society, this young fellow was a whole new person. I'm sure you will remember Paul's words about if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. It was so interesting in fact, even if this person had done some really bad thing, some crime or even if he had debts owing, all of these were gone. They belonged to the old person. They had nothing to do with this new person who was the son of this new family. Adoption, you see, is the picture of not what we are by nature, of not belonging to a family by birth, but by the Father's will, not what we are by nature but what we come through grace.
It is a very striking metaphor. The means of course whereby this was achieved, Paul sets out here, was through the Cross of Christ. “In Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin, in accordance with the riches of God's grace which was lavished upon us.” That's how it was done and so by adoption we have been removed from one place to another. We have been forgiven and will start a whole new life. We have forgiveness of sins, the past has gone. We are a new creation and God's grace has been lavished upon us. Have you experienced the lavishness of God's grace?
* God’s Grand Design:
He goes on in verses 9 and 10 and talks about God’s grand design. That God's ultimate design is that the whole universe and the whole Church shall be brought together under one head who is Christ, so that He will be Lord of all and in this grand design of course, we have a part to play. We personally, individually, as disciples and we together as the whole Church of God have a part in God's eternal strategy to bring all things together under the headship of Jesus Christ our Lord.
* God’s Marvellous Confirmation:
We need to notice too, how this marvellous doxology, this blessing, is utterly Trinitarian. He talks about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In rapid succession in the last couple of verses, Paul touches on and refers to the Holy Spirit as God's promise, literally the Spirit of the Promise. The Spirit of the Promise to be given to all who repent and believe so fulfilled at the Day of Pentecost and subsequently. You see when God promises, God delivers what He has promised. He is God's promise, the Spirit of the Promise; He is God's seal, the mark of God's ownership, that which authenticates our repentance, our faith and our commitment by the Spirit. God marks you and me, us together as His own. But what we have experience of Him is a true and authentic work of His grace and we are new creations in Christ, but the Spirit is also God's guarantee, the pledge for the future. The word “arrabon” which is the original word there, is translated in its various connotations. It can bear the translation of foretaste; it can bear the translation in terms of monetary repayments as the first instalment. The promise of all that is yet to be and of course still in Greek, the arrabon is the betrothal token, the sign of what is to follow in terms of the marriage that will take place. God's Spirit is God's promise, God's seal, God's pledge, God's guarantee, and God’s marriage token to us, of all that yet shall be. Notice the phrase is there in various forms, something like three times in these verses, that our heritage is to live to the praise of God's glory. What a marvellous phrase. You see the focus, Sisters and Brothers is not on us, the focus isn't even on the Church; the focus always is on God. All this He has done, that we might live to the praise of His glory and in that day when He brings us into His presence with joy and in the fullness and the fulfilling of the token, it will be to the praise of His glorious grace because, indeed –
He has brought us this far by His grace.
He has led us by fire and by cloud.
He will bring us to glory to look at His face,
O Blessed, O Blessed be God.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with the full spiritual blessing in Christ that we might be to the praise of His glory”. Amen
2 Pastoral Praying
15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Ephesians 1:15-23
The letter to the Ephesians isn't only to the Ephesians or even to the Group of Churches that emerged from Paul's three years or so based on Ephesus in the Province of Asia Minor but to all Congregations. It serves to bring us back to the first principles. It brings us back to the practicalities of what it means to be the people of God. And so what we have here in the first of these two great prayers that Paul includes in the letter to the Ephesians is quite clearly the fact that Pastors do or at least are supposed to care for people. That actually is what happens in the pastoral role. Pastors care for and about the people that are there around them. They rejoice for those who rejoice, they weep with those who weep, they celebrate with one another, they mourn with one another, they do all these things with these people and so I guess true pastors are marked by passion rather than indifference regarding the state of the Congregation or the State of the Church.
So often you see, we tend to regard Paul as supremely and par excellence, the theologian who got it all together in his head. We regard him as supremely the great apologist, debating Christian truth with Pagans and Gentiles and Jews. We regard him as the great Apostle. We regard him as a marvellous missionary, undertaking almost daunting and unbelievable journeys. We regard him almost supremely as an outstanding evangelist. And yet if we have the eyes to see and heart to feel, then we can discern over and over again in the letters in the New Testament, the great pulse beat of the great pastoral heart of the Apostle Paul. Paul the Pastor, the one who is passionately concerned about and caring for the people in his care and here we see the first of these two times in this letter, a real pastoral prayer.
He begins with thanksgiving for what is. It is not really much of a Pastor who isn't thankful for being where he or she is with a particular group of people. So he begins with thanksgiving for what is, before he even begins to express his desire or his longing for might yet be. And so be begins by thanking God for their faith in the Lord Jesus, this is their love for Him (Jesus), their devotion and their commitment to Him. Then belief in Him because Christianity is all about faith, about believing in Jesus and so their faith in Jesus is real and deep and true and that faith we need to understand. Paul will make it quite plain in Chapter 2 that faith in its own turn is God's gift to us. Even the ability to believe in Jesus is God's gift, His marvellous gift to us. But he goes on; he talks not only about “your faith in the Lord Jesus” but “your love for all the saints” and that is the other mark of the reality of their spiritual experience. The other real test of the truth of their spiritual experience, we only need to compare not only Paul's writings but for example the first letter of John makes it quite plain about not only loving God but loving one another, loving the brother and the sister whom we have seen and the idea of loving all the saints, of loving one another is not just in the Bible or in the New Testament, it is not loving abstractly, it is not loving theoretically, it is not loving philosophically. Jesus said, by this all people shall know that you are my disciples in that you have loved one another. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
And so Paul wants these believers in that group of Churches that he founded when he lived in Ephesus for these three years or so, he wants them to appreciate their inheritance, so he says for this reason and this how he begins the second prayer as well. For this reason, he is looking back to all that God has done for them that we looked at in verses 3-14 in Chapter 1. It is for this reason and thankful for you faith in Jesus and your love for all the saints. He goes on and says, this is the harder bit now; “I keep on asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened in order that you may know . . . ..” And what is that he wants us to know, what is it that he is praying for? Building on that foundation of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and love for all the saints, love for one another that you may know.
*The Greatness of His Purpose:
First of all what we might describe as the greatness of His purpose, v.18. He talks about wanting to know the hope to which he has called you. We need to understand the dimension, the scope of that calling which he has called you. We need to understand the dimension, the scope of that calling which is ours in Jesus; namely - our calling in forgiveness, our calling in His atoning death on the Cross, our calling in His redemption, our calling in His work of reconciliation, of making us at one with God, bringing peace through His Cross, and His calling in adopting us into His family, or to change the metaphor, of the new birth by the Spirit.
All of these things, all of these varied metaphors, all of these diverse pictures of what is now, of what God has done for us and all the glory and heaven still to come. Do we understand that? Can we take that in? I keep on asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Glorious Father, that the eyes of your understanding and your hearts will be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you. To know, that's not just in terms of intellectual appreciation, you understand, but also by personal appropriation, not just by some kind of mental process or understanding the great truths of the Gospel and that is very important, but also personal day by day experience. That you may know the hope to which He has called you; that you might be truly grounded and settled in the truth. It's what God has done; it's what God has given. He talks in terms of that as well about the greatness of His purpose. He talks about the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. You see I need to be aware of spurious Gospels. We already see them in the New Testament or the warnings against them rather in the New Testament. So for example, it is basically what I call the Gospel of Jesus plus. It is the Gospel of Jesus plus legalism and that is what is talked about in the Letter to the Galatians. There is the Gospel of Jesus plus asceticism in some ways and that is partly in Galatians and partly in Colossians. There is the Gospel of Jesus plus some kind of new "super duper" spirituality be it Gnosticism or whatever else you want to call it and that's in Colossians as well.
So for example, I remember once years ago, I was preaching in my Scripture Union days at a Brethren Assembly somewhere and they actually invited that Sunday evening one of the local ISCF girls to give a testimony and what she said was this and people I guess generally appreciated what she said, we know what she meant, I think. She said something like this, that at such and such a time some years before, she had accepted Jesus into her life as her Saviour and Lord. Well fine, and then she said that a few months ago, she had accepted the Holy Spirit into her life. Now we think we know what she meant. But in point of fact what she said was utterly and absolutely unbiblical. You cannot have an experience of Jesus apart from an experience of God the Holy Spirit because He is one but sometimes we speak very, very loosely and then we confuse not only ourselves but other people who listen to us. What God has done when He gives us Christ, we have an experience of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You see, as I said last Sunday morning, there is always the tension between the attitude of wanting more or if you like going on with Christ but we put it in terms with wanting more as somewhat suspect. Of going on with Christ and the other tensions is the attitude which says I've got it all, and these really represent two great schools of Theology I suppose. But the interesting thing is that once you step over into one area, you need to remind yourself of the other side and so if we are on to reform and say at conversion we have got it all which is the far end of that spectrum, then we just need to take a word and look at our own lives and say, “Have you really? Have you really got it all?” You don't really look as if you are living as if you have got it all, thank you very much. You might need to think again. But if we are continually talking about more, we have got a song we sing here about more love, more power in my life, more of you in my life; we need to think about that.
When we are on the inside, we think we know what it means and we can go along with that. We talk about having more faith or even more of the Holy Spirit. I think the Bible actually even questions that kind of thinking. So you remember the day when somebody came to Jesus, one of the disciples actually and they were overwhelmed by what He said. He was talking, in Matthew 17 about forgiving seventy times seven and their request was, Lord make our faith stronger. That is a pretty pious utterance. Yes Lord, I hear what you are saying, make our faith stronger or in the King James Version, Lord increase our faith. What was the answer? The answer was "I tell you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree be removed and be planted in the seed and it would obey you. In other words, Lord our faith is small, make our faith bigger. And Jesus said even if you have small faith, little faith, faith as a grain of mustard seed, the smallest seed, work on that faith and you will find that it is dynamite.
Warren Wiersbe, in one of his commentaries, tells the story of the very rich American newspaper owner, William Randolph Hearst. He had read somewhere of this famous work of art, so he called in one of his flunkies and told him that he really wanted this work of art very much and asked him to find out where it is and acquire it for him at any cost. The flunky went off and worked very hard for months and months researching, questioning, and travelling. After all these months, he came back to William Randolph Hearst and informed him, “Mr. Hearst, I do not know how to tell you this but you already have this piece of art. It has been in one of your warehouses, lost and stored and forgotten for many years. That is like us, we may have it but we don't understand that we have it. There is a world of difference and all that God lavishly bestows upon us is not only our inheritance in Him but by some marvellous working of divine grace, it is also, strange as it may seem, part of His inheritance in us. Now if you find that hard to swallow, can I suggest you remember the verse in Ephesians Chapter 5 where Paul talks about purifying the Church with water etc. in order to present it to Himself, a glorious Church without stain or spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
* The Greatness of His Power:
The eyes of their hearts might be enlightened in order that they may know. Now remember it not just up here, in here or on the street where we live, that kind of knowing. What else are they to know, not only the questions of God's purpose but the greatness of God's power and that is in these verses. The King James version describes it as the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe and it goes on to speak in various translations of power, of his working and of his strength. The word for power is “dunamis”; that’s the word from which we get dynamite and dynamo. That power that is at work in us is inside us like a dynamo and it is in all who believe. The next word is like power, which is “energeia”; that’s the word from which we get “energy”. The energising of the Holy Spirit transforms and empowers us to live for God in the present evil world. Here and now that power at work in us who believe. Another word is strength, that is the word “kratos”. Another word is “ischus”, which means might or endowed power and ability. All of things heaped up one on top of the others in us who believe. So that in that sense we don't need to pray for power, to evangelise or power to endure suffering and pain and difficulties or power even to do God's will. God is at work within you, says Paul to the Philippians. God is at work within you to will and to do for his good pleasure. So the power that is already at work within us is the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, that's the power which is at work in you, me and us. The power which is at work in us lifted Christ up to the very right had of the throne and majesty of the Father in glory. That power, that same power is at work in you and in me and in us now. That's the Gospel that is the New Testament. Know the greatness of His power. I keep on asking the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the all glorious Father, that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened, that you may know the greatness of His power at work in us who believe, who are believing.
*The Greatness of His Prerogatives:
Lastly, it says in v21 that He, Christ, is “far above all rule, authority, dominion and title that can be given above every name that can be named”, as one translation has it. But what we have there are formal notions, words or designations of the Hebrew; in particular, understanding of serried ranks of angelic beings. There is an old Gospel song which I am sure none of you know, that has a chorus which picks that up in the first line of the chorus as far above all, - “Far above all, far above all, Jesus the Crucified, Far above all”; and He is far above all. He is far above all angels, faithful or fallen you understand. Far above all angelic beings, Christ the Crucified One, Christ the Risen One, Christ the Reigning One, Christ the Returning One. He is ours and we are His and we are in his hand. He reigns. Paul says, all things have been placed under His feet, He is the lordship, He is the rule, and He is the sovereignty. He is head over everything for the Church. He is the Lord of the Church. He is the source of all grace for the Church, every blessing for the Church and all power in the Church.
He talks about the word “fullness”. He imparts to us and to His Church every blessing and the Church is His fullness in that apparently the incomparable Christ is incomplete until the Church which is His fullness is complete joins Him in the glory of His consummated Kingdom. He is the fullness of all things, something to be added, not so, because you are complete in Heaven.
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep on asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Glorious Father that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the greatness of His purpose for you. The greatness of his power at work in you who are believers and the greatness of his prerogatives because He is Lord, He is the one who is exalted far above all - and our God reigns. Amen
3. "BUT GOD . . . ."
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10
Well, as you know, the letter to the Ephesians is a circular letter sent to the various Churches that were established during Paul's two and a half years or so in the ministry in that Province of which Ephesus had been his centre and so he is speaking about what it is to be the people of God and how to live as the people of God. These great foundation principles are true not only for Ephesus and the other group of Congregations there, but to us in our time, in our place and in our situation. There may well have been that the other Saturday night some of you were sufficiently interested to watch the T.V.N.Z. debate. Now I know that it was half serious and half comic but nonetheless the topic was "There is light at the end of the tunnel". There is light at the end of the tunnel, the only trouble was the negative team won - that there is not light at the end of the tunnel and for many all over the world not only in little old New Zealand, where we have talk of economic corner-turning and social well being and all kinds of stuff like that, for many all over the world, they feel that there is in fact no light at the end of the tunnel, that there is only darkness, and so for the world, for such a world, is there in fact good news or is there only bad news. That brings us back to the good news that is here in Ephesians Chapter 2.
* Lives Ruined By Sin [1-3]:
Because it speaks in the first few verses of lives ruined by sin. The Chapter begins as for you, it reminds them of what they were apart from God in Christ. It was old John Newton, the convicted slave shipper who used to say, it does us good to walk up and down in our unconverted life to remind us of what were and from what God saved us. As for you, says Paul, as for all of us, apart from God and out of Christ, this is what we were and he proceeds to give three very startling and graphic pictures.
*He says that out of Christ, we are dead – “dead in trespasses and sins”. One word, “paraptoma”, means to slip, to fall, to stumble, to deviate, to go in a wrong direction. The other, “hamartia”, means to miss the mark, falling short of a goal or a standard and of a purpose. It reminds us of that word in the Bible which says it all, have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. You see the world sees itself out there as truly alive. We hear the phrase "living it up" as following a liberated life style, unfettered by archaic notions of truth or of morality and certainly not giving any credence to outworn commandments, a swinging and sophisticated society. The Bible says whatever else they think and whatever else the appearances may be, it is not life, it is death. You were dead in trespass and in sins.
*He says not only, apart from Christ, that we are dead, but apart from Christ, we are enslaved; we are in bondage. The walking in the old - King James version. It talks about in which you walked following the course of the world. Walking isn't just some pleasant spring afternoon ramble, it's walking in chains and fetters, with no human hope of help or release. Remember all those movie scenes of the prisoners in the “chain gangs” in the USA? Notice in verses 2 and 3, he describes what it is to which we are enslaved, to what we are in bondage.
· He says first of all, that we are captive to the world, following the ways of this world, that is this age of evil, or darkness. Society that is organised without reference to God in His Holiness, His Majesty, His truth or His Love. Society organised absolutely without any reference to God; this age - in contrast to the Kingdom of God - a whole social value system which permeates and indeed which dominates non-Christian society and holds people captive, captive in political bondage, in economic bondage, in intellectual bondage and in cultural bondage, following the ways of the world. Captive to the world.
· The next phrase suggests that we are also captive to the evil one, to the ruler of the Kingdom of the air is the NIV translation. The fallen evil principalities and powers of darkness. This force which is now active in disobedient people and the word that is used as active is, the same word that was used last week in terms of the Spirit being active. Energising the lives and ministry and the witness of those who love Jesus and seek to follow him. Captive to the world. Captive to the evil one.
· Third, he captive to the flesh, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature. In other translations the flesh, these include domination by a whole range of human faults and foibles, even some that are quite respectable seeming. They even include such things as intellectual pride, they can false ambition, they can include rejection of known Gospel truths, malicious or vengeful thoughts. John Stott sums it up this way – “outside was the world [the prevailing secular culture], Inside was flesh,[ our fallen nature, twisted with self centredness], and beyond both and actively working through both was the evil spirit, the devil, who held us in captivity”. In other words, the whole dimension of being enthralled to the world, the flesh and the devil, and there it is in these two verses, these three things. Although that is so, we really cannot say the devil made me do it, because in these verses, the you and we are emphatic. The things that we or you are doing. We are actively involved, very often by conscious choice. We did it.
*The third picture is, not only that apart from Christ that we are dead in trespasses and sins, not only apart from Christ, out of Christ, we are enthralled and enslaved in bondage to the world, the flesh and the devil but also part from Christ outside of Jesus, we are condemned. He said we are by nature, other translations - children of wrath (NIV), objects of wrath, even as others. That is that we are under the righteous condemnation and the Holy judgment of Almighty God. Now some people re-act to the whole notion of the wrath of God. We need to understand that the wrath of God is not some kind of arbitrary re-action, it is not some kind of petty divine vindictiveness. The wrath that judges and the grace that saves are both the personal activity of the eternal sovereign Lord, God at work. The New Testament is one place which says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. Paul suggests in fact in that solemn second part of the first Chapter of Romans, although he does not use these words, he suggests it is in fact a fearful thing to fall out of the hands of the living God. Paul suggests in fact that solemn second part of the first Chapter of Romans, although he does not use these words, he suggests it is in fact a fearful thing to fall out of the hands of the loving God, because it says three times over that God gave them up, God gave them over, God handed them over to these things. It is a fearful thing to fall out of the hands of the living God. So the first three verses speak of lives ruined by sin.
* Lives Raised By God [4-7]:
The middle section of Chapter 2 speaks very eloquently of lives raised by God. The first verse begins, “as for you”. Verse four begins in the original “but God”, and it is very emphatic and it is a strong, strong contrast. This is what we were, all of us, this is what we were, dead, enslaved, condemned. This is what we were – “but God”!. This is the good news. The God who is rich in mercy. Mercy describes his character. Mercy describes not only his attributes but his attitude toward us in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, our Lord, - God who is rich in mercy. This God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions, by grace are we saved. He has made us alive with Christ; not only that, He has raised us up with Christ, redeemed and triumphant. He has raised us up with Christ. He has seated us with Him, that is, in glory. There is where we are, we are secure with Him, in glory; and he speaks about eternal blessings in the coming ages. He is going to show us - and show us in all the surpassing greatness and wonder of his saving purposes. Lives raised by God truly, surely, this is what it means to pass from death to life. No wonder Jesus says, “if then the Son shall make you free, you are free indeed”[John 8:36]. All of us in days gone past who have been enslaved to the world, to the flesh and to the devil, if the Son shall make you free, you are free indeed and no wonder old Charles Wesley can sing, “my chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee”.
*3 Lives Remodelled In Christ [8-10]:
Lives ruined by sin, lives raised by God. The last bit speaks of lives re- modelled in Christ. It is by grace that you are saved that is, it is God’s initiative, God's invitation, God's action, God's saving activity in Jesus Christ on our behalf, because “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” [2Cor.5:19KJV]. Our lives remodelled in Christ by grace. You have been saved and it is by grace. You have been saved and it is through faith. Even that faith is God's gift to us - because we cannot rationalise our way into faith. We cannot rationalise our way into seeing in this crucified Rabbi from Galilee, the Saviour of the world and the Lord of heaven and earth, -only the Holy Spirit can take the scales from the eyes of our minds, and show us Jesus in all His beauty, in all His glory, in all His saving fullness and transforming power.
The Spirit is the one who gives us, who bestows upon us, the gift of saving faith in Jesus. These lives are remodelled in Christ, remodelled by grace, they are remodelled through faith and they are remodelled for or unto good works. We are not saved of course by good works but we are saved for doing the things that God wants us to do. God is working on us. Your God's workmanship says Paul, in the last verse. The word there is poiema, and that is the word from which we get in English, the word poem. Do you feel like God's poem? The way in which he has worked and refined it and constantly making it better and better until it is just exactly what he wants. The right turn of phrase if you like, is working on us. Certainly God is not finished with us yet. He is working His purposes out as year succeeds year. Working them out in you and me personally and individually. Working them out in you and me and us together as congregations and fellowships up and down this land and across the world. Working them out for His Church across the earth. We have been saved by grace through faith, for good works to fulfil the purposes that God has for us. I think it very interesting this morning that we stand in such a day as this, round this table.
Some time ago, it was interesting hearing some of the tributes paid to two former Greyfriars’ missionaries, Lyndsay and Denise Christie. They were described as fairly ordinary Kiwi people, they had then been some 25 years in Columbia, spent mainly in a kind of literature and teaching ministry but increasingly over the years more and more devoted to involving others in a kind of social action or social aid ministry to the poorest of poor in Columbia. You only need to read the newspaper and see such reports as we see on TV to know what the poorest of the poor can be like in Columbia. It is a land riddled by corruption, a land riddled very often by military take overs, a land riddled by the power of drug barons. In such a place, for 25 years, they had ministered through a Gospel literature ministry. They began a Gospel paper, modelled if you like, because he had worked there, modelled on our New Zealand Christian 'Challenge'. We would have to say it has far outstripped 'Challenge'. 'Desafio' is everywhere in Columbia and beyond Columbia into other parts of South and Central America. A ministry of the Gospel in print, and as well as ministry to the lowest of the low, they also were able to minister to those described as the affluently empty. God took them up, these ordinary people and gave them a passion, a passion for the Gospel and a passion and a love for these people - and sisters and brothers we keep on playing games.
We talked about there is no light at the end of the tunnel and the Church believes there is light because Jesus Christ is the light of the world and we are charged with and committed to the Gospel of the good news of Jesus that brings deliverance from death, from enslavement and condemnation because Christ sets free.
Christ saves for what, and to what?? I remember a Recommissioning Service in Greyfriars for a returning missionary to Taiwan, our dear Judith Jackson; but the way, as some of us remembered that morning, had not been easy. We remembered when she applied and was turned down and all the questions, all the tears and all the whys. But then you see she served for three years or so as a Scripture Union Youth worker and I guess that experience has stood her in good stead when finally she went to Taiwan. We don't know all the answers at the time for the roadblocks in the way, the diversions on the journey; but God is working, working in us and working for us and yes, working through us. God is working through us because we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. For the things He wants us to do and so in Christ we rejoice in this light in the midst of all the world's darkness. We know what we were, that we were dead and trespassers and in sin. We know that we were enslaved to the world, the flesh and the devil. We know that we were under the just and the righteous holy condemnation of Almighty God, but God who is rich in mercy with a great love with which He loved us, raised us with Christ that by grace we have been saved through faith and that He is remodelling our lives in Christ that we might be the kind of people that He wants us to be, that we might do the works that He has wanted us to do, to fit into His great pattern of the ages. That's who we are. Do we discern His gracious hand for good upon our lives? God of the poor, friend of the weak, give us compassion we pray, melt our cold hearts, let tears fall like rain, come change our life from a spark to a flame. Amen
4. God's New Society
11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2:11-22
This letter to the Ephesians, so we believe, was sent around all the little Churches founded by Paul and his missionary term in the years that Paul was based in Ephesus, some two and a half years or so,. It was read in turn around the Churches, talking about the great principles of what it means to be the people of God, and these principles come across two thousand years and apply to us here, now in our time and place. I wonder, if as we read this letter, again and again, have we understood the scope of God's purposes. The scope of God's purposes is to institute and initiate a new world order. Principal, John Mackay, in his Commentary on Ephesians, gives it the title, 'God's Order - A New World Order' and that new world order is what Jesus describes as the kingdom of God - and the Church, the Church if you please, that frail, that all too human, that fragile, that venerable, fallible, imperfect community of believers is in fact intended to be a sign of and a model of that Kingdom. It comes about through the ministry of the Covenant God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so just as in Chapter 2, the first half verses 1-10 that we looked at last Sunday morning, speaks of us as individuals. The second half, verses 11-22, speaks of groups of people or how people may see themselves or see one another.
*1. ALIENATION [11-12]:
He describes the Gentiles, “those who are called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision”. In other words, we see division and separation from a human point of view, with all its attendant attitudes, with all its baggages and prejudices - the whole outcome of excluding, of barring and banning and shutting out and setting apart. That's how the Jews did it - religiously. But the Greeks did it too you see. They did it culturally. They despised everybody who was not a Greek and so far as they were concerned there were two kinds of people, there were Greeks and there were barbarians and the world has always experienced that. The world continues to experience that, racially, ethnically and all kinds of ways. Do you remember how when Paul wrote to the Romans in chapters 9,10 and 11, he was talking about he place of the Jews in God's plan of eternal salvation. In chapter 9:3-5 he describes the privileges of the Jews. He says: “theirs is the adoption of sons; theirs is the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the Law, the Temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the Patriarchs and from there is traced the human ancestry of Christ who is God over all, forever praised”. The privileges of the Jews, he sets out in these three verses. In these two verses here in Ephesians, he is setting forth if you like, the other side of the coin, the disabilities or disadvantages of the Gentiles, and so he lists them. He says of those who are Gentiles, have in fact been “separate from Christ”, and that jars because you see as he began this letter in Chapter 1, v3, he said “praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with the full spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ” and last week we saw in Chapter 2, v6 that this God raised us up together with Christ and has seated us with Christ in glory. By nature, separate from Christ, not only separate from Christ but “alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel”, that is, that as Gentiles, we do not belong to that nation under God. We are described as “strangers, or foreigners, to the Covenants of Promise”, God's great Promised Covenant to the people of Israel through their Father Abraham. We are “without hope” he says, without hope to sustain them and “without God in the world”, that is, we have no true knowledge of the living God. Although we may be very religious, just as Paul describes Athens; “men of Athens, I perceive that in everything you are very religious and as I pass along your way, I saw an altar with this inscription 'To the unknown God, Him I declare unto you.” And so with all these things taken together, separate from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the Covenants of Promise, without hope and without God in the world, he describes that as being the condition of being “far off”, a special metaphor admittedly, far off, as distinct from bearing near. [We’ll come back to that in a minute.] What the Gospel describes as being lost. What Paul had earlier described as being dead, in trespasses and in sin, alienation.
* 2. RECONCILIATION [13-18]:
Now, in the heart of the second part of Chapter 2 - verses 13-18 - he sets forth the whole idea of reconciliation, of Christian reconciliation, just as last week, the change came in that marvellous phrase, “but God”, so here he says “but now in Christ Jesus”. We who have been separate from Christ - but now in Christ Jesus something wonderful has taken place! This is who we are and what we are - and this in Christ Jesus is what has happened to us.
Now do we understand that? “But now in Christ Jesus”. That is through the Cross and the ministry of reconciliation that the Lord Jesus effected once and for all upon that Cross. But now in Christ Jesus it says, “you, who were once far away, far off, have been brought near through the blood of Christ”, so it is the Cross and it says He himself is our peace. It is not something that we have done, it is not something we have achieved, and not something we can do, struggle or strive, how we may; for He, Himself, is our peace. What is the reconciliation that is being spoken about? What is the peace that has been brought about?
· One of the meanings of the peace, the reconciliation is of course peace with God, to use the phrase from Romans, that being justified by grace/faith; we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God and that is clearly there in that section. V.16 says that in this one body His purpose was to reconcile both of them, that is both Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised alike, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross. So what he is saying is that both Jew and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised, are reconciled to God through the Cross of Christ, that is through His blood.
· We move from Jews and Gentiles to ourselves. Then, however, we see ourselves not just personally, but as groups. We see ourselves, whatever names we want to put on ourselves as groups or put on to one another and by whatever name we call one another. We are brought into God's presence and brought into His peace, by the cross, all of us. It is not one little group comes one way and some other little group comes another way, we all whether High Calvinists and Low Arminians come by the one way and that is through the Cross. But this reconciliation, this peace that is being spoken about and spoken about very graphically and very dramatically, here is not only the notion of peace with God that is there but equally importantly, it speaks of the notion, the dimension of peace with one another. He talks about destroying the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Familiar with walls across the world, I guess there was the Great Wall of China to keep the barbarians out, if you weren't Chinese, you understand, you were a barbarian. So the Great Wall of China kept the barbarians out. If you remember you history of Roman Britain, they built not one but two. They built Antonine’s Wall between Forth and Clyde and they built Hadrian's Wall roughly along the border of what we know as Scotland and England. The idea was to keep out those wild Britons and the even wilder Pitts from civilisation, in other words, the Roman colonies. The wall and the walls were for shutting out. But you see the point of Paul's metaphor isn't the Great Wall of China or even Antonine’s Wall or Hadrian’s Wall. The point is the barrier between the court of the Gentiles and the Court of Israel in the Great Temple in Jerusalem, that is what he is talking about. And so what he is saying is I guess most of us are familiar with the phrase in the Gospel that when Jesus dies the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. the policy is that when Christ dies once and for all upon the Cross, two barriers were destroyed, one was the barrier that seemed to keep people back from God and the great wall from earlier on, appears in the notion of the curtain or the veil of the Temple. The second one was this barrier, the balustrade between the Court of the Gentile and the Court of Israel and every so often there were very serious warning notices that if you were a Gentile, you passed beyond this point on the pain of death. Paul says that metaphorically in the Gospel that barrier crumbled. You might like to compare it to the scenes that we remember of TV newsreels of that monstrosity of the Berlin Wall being torn down and what had previously been two separate cities shut off from one another, excluded from one another except only at certain meeting points, came tumbling down and there was one City again.
But that's there and then. You see it is very easy to talk about Jews and Gentiles, much more uncomfortable to bring it up to date to the here and now and ourselves of today and all the names that we like to put on ourselves - what about the barriers, the dividing walls, if not the hostility then certainly of the prejudice or of the pride or of misunderstanding; or the walls of age or of generation, the walls of gender, the walls of theological emphasis, the walls of style or of preference. What about these walls and we all have them, not just them, all of us have them? What about these walls? You see it is the names we put upon one another, whether it is between younger or older, whether it is between Calvinists or Charismatic, hey I don't care. But we are not all bound by the preferences of one another. We need to understand that. One another's precious heritages maybe very well and true for us but others are loyal to Christ in other ways. In Christ Jesus the wall has come tumbling down and so in the Cross, God's purpose was and he makes it quite clear does Paul, His purpose was to make of the two, one. To create one new man out of two. That is why you see the Church rather talked about the third race. There were no longer just Jews and Gentiles but there were Jews, Gentiles and Christians, the third race. Paul's metaphor is even more vivid, even sharper, when he says it is not anymore Jew or Gentile but Christian. One new man, one person and that is very important and I wonder if we truly appreciate just how important it is. You see, we talk about walls and stuff. We talked in our prayer weeks about the notion of loving one another and the fellowship; with one another and being friendly with people and whether we like it or not there are people who have tried to break into the family and the life of this very Church, some of them young people, some of them older people and in sheer frustration at their inability to do so, have gone somewhere else. We have to accept that. It is true, maybe you know some, and I know some. We don't like to hear that kind of thing but it is true. So the walls can be there. What about the walls?
· But as well as that, there is by extension, there is the whole notion not only of peace with God and peace with one another, but the peace with oneself. You see there are lots of believing people who really fundamentally are not at peace with themselves. And that is one of the reasons why they cannot be at peace with other people. They are not at peace with themselves. You see Jesus through His cross and through His risen life gave us a sense of self acceptance in the presence of the living God, a sense of self worth standing in God's presence. Why? Because the Father loves us and because His Son has given Himself once and for all upon the Cross for me and because the Spirit dwells within me and so we can be at peace with ourselves.
· That reconciliation, that peace with God, leads us directly to the whole notion of having access, that's what it says. Through Him, we both [i.e. Jew and Gentile alike] have access to the Father by one Spirit. With that fancy piece of plastic and pin number, you stick it in the hole in the wall and you have access. Access to resources, well some resources anyway. Resources, or if you are a computer buff, you have the access code or the secret password or whatever it is you do and you have got access to these resources of info or whatever you are looking for - you have access right in and there it is - all there. So in Christ we have access to the Father, right into His presence by one Spirit. How’s that for real reconciliation?
* 3. INTEGRATION [19-22]:
The whole thrust of the passage is that from alienation – being separate from Christ and far away from God – through reconciliation we are brought near to God and bonded with one another, and this culminates in integration into God’s eternal; purposes – or if you prefer, the whole notion of unity and belonging. If people do not feel that they belong in the Body of Christ, then as a Congregation we are failing and that is not to say there will not be diversity or differences but if people do not feel they belong, that is a different matter. We hold on to the truth that we are accepted by God. But in our turn we have to be accepting of other people, but are we? Are we accepting? The whole notion of integration is set out in verses 19-22.
· In v19 we have the whole nation of being one people. We are not any longer foreigners or strangers or aliens. We are not some weird people from out of space somewhere, but we are in fact fellow citizens, we are fellow members of the household of God or as the old Gospel song says, we are family, we are one. One people, not two people not three people, - one people, one building.
· In v20, we are being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets as the whole notion of what God has declared in His word and Jesus Christ is himself the chief cornerstone. We are all joined together and the whole outfit is held together in Him. He holds the outfit together, one people, one building.
· In v21, one temple, same idea, more specialised, a place or community or praise and prayer and worship,
· In v22 the reference is to one Spirit and that goes back to v18... The idea of one Spirit, we are together. Let me emphasise that, we are, together, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. That is what lies behind Paul's distress, Paul's grief, Paul's broken heartedness. This is the source of Paul's sense of outrage, when he wrote First Corinthians, particularly chapters 1-3. He says in Chapter 3, “Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you?” Now let me tell you this, it is very important that we understand that in that sentence, that there are words that are plural and there are words that are singular. Let me explain – “Don't you know, that is plural, Don't you, all of you, know that you, [plural], are yourselves, [plural], God's Temple, [singular], and that God's Spirit, [singular], lives in [you], plural”. Now have we understood and appreciated the significance and real fundamental importance of that word and that concept? We need to understand what is plural and what is singular.
He goes on in the first part of Ephesians 3 to talk about the “mystery”, you remember. The mystery in the New Testament isn't something that is secret or hidden and only the secret initiates know of it, but in fact it is a secret that has been hidden but has now been revealed by God. It is “an open secret”. He has been made known by revelation says Paul [3:3], and that is through the Gospel, the Gentiles, those who have been despised, those who have been excluded, those who have been barred and banned have now been brought near and brought in “in Christ”. In 3:6 there are three marvellous descriptions of what we are: we are “heirs together with Israel”, we are “members together of one body”, and we are “sharers together in the promises in Christ Jesus”. Heirs together, members together, sharers together in the promises in Christ Jesus. You see in the New Testament Church, there is no such thing as first and second class citizenship; no such thing as first and second class membership. There is no elitism; there is no superior or inferior. There are only sinners. There are only sinners who have been saved by grace. There are only sinners who have come together to the Cross of Christ. There are only sinners who have together received the forgiveness and the new life which are ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. But in Christ Jesus, you who are far off have been brought near through the blood of Christ and He himself is our peace, has made two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Blessed be His Name. Amen
5 From Prayer to Praise
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21
In this letter to the Ephesians, Paul has been speaking in the first three Chapters, about all that God has done and how we have become the people of God. Now, as he comes to the end of that first half of the letter, there is his second great pastoral prayer. This second pastoral prayer is impassioned; it is burdened and full of practical concern for these believing friends. His pastoral heart is strong for their spiritual growth, development and progress. He is literally driven to his knees. “I bow my knees before the Father”, he says, and his passion pours out at the throne of grace. “For this reason”, he says. What's the reason? The reason is all that we have seen particularly in Chapter 2. All that God has done for us, as set out in Chapter 2 and all that has been achieved for us, culminating in the fact that we are being built up together to be a dwelling place of God in which God lives by His Spirit and that compares with the verse in Chapter 3 where he describes Jews and Gentiles, all of us together as being heirs together, members together and sharers together. He is falling on his knees and pouring out his prayers to the Father. I would remind you of what we saw last Sunday morning in Chapter 2, v18 where it says we have been given access to the Father by the one Spirit and so the access we have through our reconciliation through all that Jesus did, once and for all upon the Cross. The access we have to the Father, means that we have access also to all the resources of his riches and glory. That's what is mentioned there. “For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its true name”. Access to the resources of his riches in Glory. Paul, you might very well say, knew at least in principle, the words of the old song that talks about “thou art coming to a king large petition with thee bring”. As we come in prayer, large petition with them bring. He is bringing large petitions indeed, because in Christ we have access to all the resources of God's riches and glory. Large petitions, and as that passage was read, I am sure you notices the very real Trinitarian emphasis that was there. In other words, there was emphasis on the Father, there was specific reference to the Son or Christ and there was specific reference to the Spirit all three, all actively involved in what is going on and all inter-related. In terms of this access to the resources of God, there are four practical petitions that he brings and you might just like to look at them and check them through.
* 1. STRENGTH [16-17a]:
In verses 16 and the first half of 17, the petition or the prayer request is for strength. You see, I am sure that they - and we of course in our time and place, we are all too aware of our weakness, of our vulnerability, of our fear, of our uncertainties, maybe even our doubts, and at times, yes, our unbelief. We are all too aware at times of our lack of motivation, of our lack of will, of our lack of determination or resolution. We are all too aware at time of our need to persevere. Sure we are in Christ, - we who have been far off have been made near through the blood of Christ but yet as Paul spoke earlier on, the world, the flesh and the devil are still very much around and they are still quite potent and so he prays for strength. You see, we need to be strengthened on the inside, fortified, braced, reinforced, and invigorated. “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit, in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”. And notice there, in these words, the very clear link between the power through His Spirit and Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith. We are reminded of the words in John 15 when Jesus talked about abiding in Him and His abiding in us. That sense of mutual indwelling; we are in Christ and Paul asked that we might be strengthened with might through the Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. The mutuality of that dwelling, our dwelling in Him and His dwelling in us. How does He dwell within us? He dwells within us by His Spirit. Notice that it is through faith, - as we keep on believing in Him; as we know and believe and are assured that He has given us His Spirit and it is through faith, positively, actively, continuously. It is interesting that in this half of the letter, he is talking about this power. He mentions it in Chapter 1:19-20 with the specific reference to the power that is at work in us is the very power that God used when He raised Jesus from the dead. That same power is the power that Paul refers to in the bit we have not looked at in 3:7, where Paul specifically refers to this power that has been given to him in terms of his own ministry, the grace has been given to him for ministry. Now in 3:16 the power in us and that would be repeated, confirmed and reinforced in 3:20 emphasizing that He “is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to the power which is at work in us”.
* 2. LOVE [17b]:
The first practical petition is for strength. Are we seeking strength? The second very practical petition is for love and that's specifically in the second half of V17. Now I must acknowledge, that for a long time I had always simply linked verse 17 with 18 and 19a and seen it all as referring to Christ's love for us, [as part of the whole bit about that we come to in a minute about the length, breadth, depth and height of the love of Christ and come to know it though it is beyond knowing]. I thought it was all linked in together. But I have been very indebted to John Stott and to others who suggest that this particular part of it being rooted and grounded in love, is in fact something that is arising out of the Christian experience of reconciliation. What we looked at in the second half of Chapter 2 last Sunday morning about that Christian experience of reconciliation; not only as reconciliation between ourselves and God but between ourselves and others and so in referring to the breaking down of the middle wall of partition, the barrier, the middle wall of hostility, of alienation, of suspicion, of prejudice, whatever word we want to use. And so Stott and others see this particular hard verse as referring specifically to our love for each other in Christ. Yet, sometimes, we seem to experience more of suspicion, hesitation, prejudice and even hostility. Thus, he asks for love for them and, notice, it is radical and fundamental.
Dr John Stott in his booklet, “Balanced Christianity”, is pleading against the rise of polarisation across the church. People choose sides, adopt extremes, controversy rages and the result is acrimony, bitterness and division. Historically we have seen it in the polarity of being high Calvinist or low Arminian, when in fact we must appreciate both the emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the whole notion of human free will. He says there is another polarity. Other polarities Dr Stott cites include, Intellect and Emotion, Conservative and Radical, Form and Freedom, Evangelism and Social Action. We sometimes have people yell and scream about being radical - radicals in their faith, radicals in their lifestyle while others are fundamentalists and so on. Whatever word we use, again these labels we stick on one another, and Stott in that particular pamphlet, talks about not only at once being a Calvinist and an Arminian, but being one at the same time, both radical and fundamental. Radical, he says, is to do with “radix”, the roots; and here we have in one translation anyway that “with deep roots and with firm foundations”, which seems a very mixed metaphor but both together, both at one and the same time. “With deep roots”, for the tree depends very much on the strength of its root system. Radical refers to deep roots and fundamental refers to strong, sure foundations. The building and super structure depend a great deal for its stability and its security on the foundation. With deep roots and a firm foundation, an experience of that love for one another in Christ. Our relationships become warm and trusting after being attended to and supported and nourished. How do we work at affirming and encouraging one another?
During my year as Moderator, I travelled a great deal of the time and on one occasion I had a letter from a lady whom I certainly couldn't remember meeting but it transpired that we had met at some workshop or other I had conducted. In her brief note she said she had continued to pray for us during that year. I must confess I simply gave her name to the Office Secretary to put her name on the list to get the Prayer Letter that came out occasionally and more or less forgot all about it, went away and did my thing. The interesting thing was that every six or eight weeks a little note card would come in from this lady, just a brief note with something about we are praying for you and giving this verse and very often one of these would fall out of the envelope and this one says "With God all things are possible." So there was a very real, very tangible experience of the Body at work, of knowing that love with deep roots and firm foundations. I wonder how we experience it and express it. So to the idea of strength with power through His Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith and that idea of love with deep roots and with firm foundations.
* 3. KNOWLEDGE [18-19a]:
You see Paul wants his friends, and us of course, to grasp, to perceive, to comprehend, to lay hold of, the love of Christ. We need to be quite clear when he talks like this, he is not speaking about some kind of head knowledge. He is not talking about some kind of marvellous intellectual or theoretical appreciation of the love of Christ. He is talking about a life experience, he is talking about a heart appropriation - taking to ourselves His great love for us.
Now we do understand, don't we, that the love of God has been one of the great themes of Christian hymns and songs for 2,000 years. So for example, one says
“O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
vast unmeasured boundless free,
rolling as a mighty ocean
in its fullness over me,
underneath me, all around me
is the current of thy love,
leading me onwards, leading homewards
to my glorious rest above.
“O deep, deep love of Jesus,
love of every love the best,
‘tis an ocean vast of blessing,
'tis a haven of sweet rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
'tis a heaven of heaven to me
and it lifts me up to glory
for it lifts me up to Thee.”
Or even a Hymn based on this very passage, -
“It passes knowledge that dear love of Thine,
my Jesus, Saviour, yet this heart of mine,
would of Thy love and all it's breadth and length,
it's height and depth, it's everlasting strength,
know more and more.”
Or a more recent one yet, containing words allegedly written by someone in the United States who had been confined to a Mental Institution for many years, -
“The Love of God is far greater
than tongue or pen can ever tell,
it goes beyond the highest star
and reaches to the deepest hell.
O love of God how rich and pure,
how measureless and strong,
it shall forever more endure
the saints and angels song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill
or where the skies of parchment made,
were every blade of grass a quill
and every man a scribe by trade
to write the love of God above,
would drain the ocean dry
nor could the scroll contain the whole
tho' stretched from sky to sky.”
“That you may know the love of Christ, even though it surpasses all knowing”. Even when we think we have got a hold of it, even when we think we really have a full and a deep experience of it, we are in the very real sense only grasping or being grasped by a part of it. John McArthur sees the reference to “length” as God choosing us from before the foundation of the world, for a salvation that will in fact last for al eternity. He sees “height” as God's blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and God lifting us up to sit with Christ in heavenly places. He sees the “breadth” as God's acceptance of both Jew and Gentile equally into His presence. He sees the “depth” as God reaching down to the very depths of human depravity to redeem those who were dead in trespasses and in sin. We need to understand that such knowledge is not some spiritual secret, some inner knowledge belonging only to some very spiritual elite or some super class in the Kingdom. It is for us. Notice the phrase, “so that you” (and it is plural actually you will notice), “so that you, together, with all the saints may know”. You together with all God's people may know God's love for us in Christ is absolutely total. It reaches into every corner of our life and experience. It is wide, covering the breadth of our experience and reaches out to the whole world. It is long, it continues the whole length of our lives. It is high, it rises to the heights of our human celebration or elation. It is deep, because it plumbs to the depths of our discouragement, our despair, I guess even death itself. When we are in the pits, as the kids would say, when we're in the pits, be assured we are never beyond the reach of the love of Christ. Remember Romans 8:37, that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels or demons, whether the present or the future nor any powers, neither height or death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. These have been three very practical petitions; for strength, for love, for knowledge.
* 4. FULLNESS [
The fourth one is equally practical. To the petition for strength, to the prayer for the experience of love of one another, for coming to grasp, lay hold of the love of Christ that is beyond knowing, he adds another practical petition, the petition for fullness. “Pleroma”, fullness, is another key notion, not only here but especially also in the Letter to the Colossians, and again it is available to all believers for the “you” is plural -“That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”. Well we have all had the experience in recent months of watching night by night on the television news, the statistics and the news about Auckland's reservoir. We have seen the pictures, we have seen them near empty. We have heard all about the water crisis and we have seen the ground cracked and parched to show what a low level the reservoirs were at. If that does not grab you, I am sure we have all had the experience at least once maybe more than that of driving a car and we have noticed with horror the gas tank is nearly empty and if you have been on a country road on a long journey, then you are in a bit of a panic because you wonder if you have got enough to reach the next petrol station. So it can be in our spiritual lives, sisters and brothers. The Gospel and the Epistle speak about fullness but sometimes we know more in our experience of running on nearly empty. The Gospel and the Letters speak about abundance, the abundance of God's supply but our experience is rather one of subsistence and meagreness. I came across a marvellous quotation this week. It says, “we will never crave to be filled until we are convinced we are empty”. And just in passing, you will notice here in Chapter 3:10, it talks about being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Chapter 4:13, that we will come to shortly, talks about the fullness of Christ and in Chapter 5:18, although the phrase itself is not used, talks about the fullness of the Spirit - “Keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you”. The fullness of God, the fullness of Christ, the fullness that comes as the Spirit fills us or keeps on filling us up and there it is again, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And so Paul has been having this passionate pastoral prayer with these four very practical petitions.
As the Chapter draws to a conclusion, he moves from petition and prayer to praise. This doxology, “God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power which is at work within us”. There, friends, is our promise; there is our assurance. God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to the power that is at work in us, - that is at work within us now. And so he finishes by saying “to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all the ages”, - to Him be glory throughout all history, to Him be glory throughout all eternity because He is worthy. He is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine accordingly to the power that is at work within us. He will strengthen us with might through His Spirit in the inner man so that Christ will dwell in our hearts by faith. He will bestow upon us that love for one another with deep roots and with firm foundations. He will enable us to grasp with all God's people everywhere what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ even though it is beyond knowing and He is able to fill us to all the measure of the fullness of God because God is at work in you who believe. Amen.
6. Worthy of God
1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men.”
9(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:1-16
As we have seen already in this letter to the Ephesians which has been probably a circular letter to the whole group of Churches that arose out of the ministry of Paul and his companions when they were based in the City of Ephesus for something like two and a half to three years. The letter was taken and read in turn around the various Congregations and is concerned about filling in our broad principles about what it means to be the Church not only there and then in the first Century AD but still these principles remain into the 21st Century AD. The Letter and its principles are true not only for Ephesus or Colossae or Laodicea or wherever else it went but also in terms of Auckland and New Zealand and around the world as well. The letter breaks naturally into two halves, the first three Chapters deal with some fairly central theological issues regarding the nature and the origins and the purpose and the function of the Church. The second half, Chapters 4,5 & 6 deal with some very practical matters of what it means to be or to live as the people of God in the world. So then from high flights of theology, if you want to call it that, Paul now turns to practicalities. He turns now to Kingdom lifestyle, down to earth in the fallible, imperfect vessel of the Church in the world - of what it means to be and to live as the Church in the midst of the alien atmosphere that we know as society or as the world.
He begins in Chapter 4:1 with an appeal, or if you prefer, an exhortation to dedicated living – “As a prisoner for the Lord then I urge you, I beseech you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received”. “I urge you”, is in the original, emphatic, absolutely emphatic, I urge you and what is being urged is that we live lives worthy of the calling that we have received and that is referring back to all that has been set out in Chapters 1,2 and 3. “Worthy of the calling”, what is that calling? I would remind you it is seen as a calling from death to life. We who were dead in trespasses and sin have been made to rise to newness of life by God in Jesus Christ. We who were once estranged from God have been reconciled in the blood of Jesus. We who once were aliens, far off, removed and remote from God through the blood of Christ and the calling of the Spirit have been transformed into family members of the household of God and citizens of the Kingdom of God. That is our calling. “I urge you then that you live a life worthy of the calling you have received”, and so I would remind you that the rest of Chapters 4,5 & 6 have all to do with the evidence of our response to this appeal for dedicated living. For now, we focus on this nearer perspective, this nearer vision, this more concentrated call for dedication. Notice that it includes three areas, three very practical areas of Christian life - the area of unity, the area of diversity and the area of maturity. Would you please follow.
* 1. Our Under-girding Unity [1-6]:
In verses 1-6, well certainly more properly vs2-6, we have what we might describe as our under girding unity. We have spoken a lot about this. I believe that we still do not appreciate it generally in the Church as we ought. Our undergirding unity that is in V2, there is what we might describe as its practice, in terms of Christian relationships. It talks about humility. Humility you will be interested to note is a particularly Christian virtue. It was absolutely and utterly despised by the Romans and the Greeks in their turn, in fact to such an extent that really the Romans and the Greeks hadn't too much of a word for it at all. So in terms of its practice, in relationships, there is humility, there is gentleness, gentleness which is power under the control of God, patience which is that enduring negative in our lives and still that bearing in love with one another. Notice in V3 there is not only its practice but its priority, being “eager, making every effort to maintain or to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. Notice the sense of urgency that is there. We have to give diligence, we have to pursue this thing. It is seen as a matter of importance; it is a matter of Christian priority. Now do we understand that? It speaks of “shalom”, the Hebrew word for peace. Shalom in fact promotes well being. It is Shalom, it is peace that promotes growth. It is not conflict that promotes growth. Conflict only promotes division and conflict promotes destruction. Peace promotes growth. Let's be quite clear about that. I am not talking about dialogue, I am not talking about differences of emphasis or strategy, I am talking about conflict. Conflict is destructive and divisive. Peace promotes growth. Be eager, make every effort to maintain, to keep the unity of the Spirit, the unity that the Spirit gives in the bonds of peace. It was the old Puritan who said, “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity”. Be eager, make every effort, to keep, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So our under girding unity has its practice in V2, its priority emphasised in V3 and its principles outlined, in other words its source from which is stems in verses 4,5 and 6.
Again, please do note that once again within the space of three short Chapters, Paul is introducing what we might describe as the whole fullness of God. Our unity, our oneness, our belongingness is based on and stems from the very nature of God. The God who has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and would you please see that because that is made quite explicit yet again in these verses 4,5 and 6. In verse 4 there is reference to One Spirit and the two things that relate to and flow from the ministry of the One Spirit. It is the One Spirit who enlivens and calls into being the One Body of Christ which is the One Church. It is the One Spirit that imparts to believing people our hope which belongs to us all. The One Spirit points forward through the fact that the One Spirit is the pledge as we saw in chapter 1; the pledge of all that lies before us in the providence and the purpose of God our Father for all eternity. The One Spirit enlivens the one Body. The One Spirit imparts the one hope that belongs to our call.
In verse 5, the emphasis is on the One Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ. He it is who calls forth from our convicted spirits, the response of faith and commitment, and the “one baptism” is the demonstration of that commitment, the token of our submission or our taking up His Lordship, joining with Him in His death and in His resurrection. Paul says elsewhere, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me”. [Galatians 2:20].
One Spirit, One Lord and in verse 6, one God and Father of all and the all. The reference is not coincidental. He is indeed the God and Father of all, who is over all, who is through all, who is in all. He is God blessed forever. He is God, the Supreme Father of Glory, and we are His people, we are His children, we are His family. One Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father of all and it is from that, that our under girding unity stems and that is why it is seen as such an important thing that we should be eager and make every effort to maintain and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Our under girding unity, I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling.
* 2. Our Enriching Diversity [7-13]:
Now you will notice that if the previous contrast [vs4-6] has been between the one and the all, for example the One God and Father of all, so now in these verses there is a contrast between the each one and some. Our enriching diversity has do of course with gifts, spiritual gifts if you prefer. Please notice that this principle of the each one and the “some” holds true whether we regard these as manifestational gifts, ministry gifts or motivational gifts or by whatever description of listing we care to describe them. Now are we quite clear about that? And we need to understand that while there are three or four listings of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, none of the lists exactly coincide. Some of the lists are shorter, some are longer, some overlap and it may very well be that none of them is conclusive or complete. So then in terms of our enriching diversity, which has to do with the whole notion of spiritual gifts, notice please the source of these gifts.
# The source of these gifts is that they come from God. They do not come from within ourselves. They are of grace, they are not of merit. It is not something that we deserve, not something we have worked for. They are of grace and the pictures we have in verses 7 and 8 is of Christ as a triumphant victor apportioning the spoils, bestowing gifts to his faithful followers or rewarding His servants. That is the little picture that is there as some see it. And so the source of the gifts is that He, the Sovereign Lord, bestows the gifts by His will. He is Sovereign about it. It is through His grace, it is unmerited and undeserved and it is in His love. They are in fact love gifts to you and to me - and all of us have a gift or gifts. We need to understand something else quite clearly and you can check it up at your leisure when you go home. A note about the gifts is that it is very dangerous to differentiate between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I mentioned before that some of the lists overlap and that all of them are incomplete. You only need to compare Romans 12 and 1 Cor.12:14 and Ephesians 4 to find that out. But please also notice in the listing in Ephesians 4, which we have just read, the gifts are described at least implicitly if not explicitly as gifts of Christ, gifts of the Lord, the Risen, Ascended and Victorious Lord. That's there. In Romans 12, the gifts bestowed are gifts of God, gifts of the Father and in 1 Cor.12-14, the gifts given are described as gifts of the Spirit. There it is, the gifts are directly linked to God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I would like perhaps that we might think that Paul did not altogether get it wrong. The gifts come from God in His fullness. The source of the gifts is God.
# The spread of the gifts, notice that they are diverse and varied in nature and purpose. The gifts he mentions here of course are within a very small range, if you want to call it that - Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers. It is a very small range of gifts that comes within one particular area, what you might call preaching or ministry, but they are still diverse and varied and they are also at least implicitly scattered throughout the Body. Verse 7 says “to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned them”. There is the spread of the gift as well as the emphasis again on the sovereignty of the Lord, the One who bestows the gift. Of course this idea of diversity and variety and the whole idea of the distribution of the gifts and that we are all different, really pinpoints the notion that it is a creative diversity and not a stultifying sameness. We don't have the same gifts and that of course is precisely the point of the body metaphor in its extended form in 1Corinthians 12; that we are different and that the gifts are varied but they are all necessary for the well being of the body as a whole. Here of course is what we might call and what some people describe anyway as ministry gifts, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers. Some, of course, will be very familiar in the Church now, for example we hear about apostolic ministries today; it means different things to different people. I think we need to understand and state quite clearly that however we describe apostolic gifts today, the gifts of an Apostle, whether it is somebody who has a worldwide ranging ministry or leads a denomination or leads some mission agency of whatever kind it is; - we might, if you want to use that language, see such a person as having the gift of some kind of apostolic ministry. But we need to understand that there cannot really be any literal successors of the Apostles to the Lord. It is a very quite distinct thing, and in some ways I would say the same about prophets. There may very well be a prophetic ministry in today's Church. We need to understand very clearly that it cannot compare with the prophets whose words are contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Because that would mean that their words equate with Scripture and I do not believe that the Scripture allows them or us to make that kind of assumption. Evangelists, Pastors, Teaches and the common thread in all of these is that they are all ministries of the Word; some are more itinerant, more widespread or universal while others are more local and settled. Although, of course, it was clear in Acts for example, that there were local prophets i.e. in a local congregation. There were probably also local evangelists, so these weren't necessarily exclusively itinerant ministries but certainly pastors and teachers were much more localised. The reason why we should have this view in particular of the apostolic and prophetic office, is of course that now with the closing of the canonical Books, Scripture is in place. They are our authority; it is against them that everything is to be judged, assayed and tested. The Scriptures are there “for our learning, that we through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope”.
# But as well as that there is not only the source and the spread of the gifts, there is the strategy of the gifts. The gifts are always for others whether in the body or in the world. The gifts are never for selfish, spiritual ego-tripping. The gifts are to prepare God's people for works of service, that is the gifts are an equipping role - mending the nets, repairing the boat, mending the broken bone, getting it ready to work again, to prepare God's people for works of service – in order that the Body of Christ may be built up, in other words, not only in an equipping role but an edifying role, building up not tearing down. It ties in to the dimension of attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, in other words a kind of completing function as well. That is the strategy of the gifts. The gifts of the risen and ascended, the victorious and reigning Lord bestows upon you and me - upon us His people.
* 3. Our Body-building Maturity [14-16]:
The last thing, the third area that is important in terms of this call to dedicated living, it is not only our under girding unity or even our enriching diversity but our body building maturity. Paul talks about the functioning of the gifts. He talks about maturity and that leads on to the last little section verses 14-16. Quirky as it seem, we might well see this as a marvellously up to date picture of the Church as a gymnasium, a fitness centre! Here we have it, the Church is into body building. Don't laugh, that is what it says, body building, toning up the muscles, the fat burner and all that sort of stuff. All the fitness freaks will tell you, this body building business is no easy task There are no short cuts despite all the adverts on television. There are no short cuts and it takes hard work and effort and the Church is in the body building business both for us personally and for all of us together. Building up the body of Christ and the goal is maturity. One of the marks of Christian maturity is continuing to grow. Now let's be quite clear, maturity is not a case of us having arrived, whatever that is. It is not a case of, “I've got it all together” or even “I've got it all”; that is not Christian maturity. These attitudes display with crystal clarity that we do not have maturity. The marks of maturity are growing constantly, growing spiritually, that we are not standing still, that we are not stagnating but that we are constantly moving on with God - discovering new dimensions of faith, new insights into truth, new experiences of His leading us and directing us day by day. We are growing spiritually whatever our age.
Another mark of maturity is that we are stable in faith. We are firmly grounded in our faith. We are secure, secure in our experience of God and secure in our knowledge of His truth. We are not drifting or free floating. We are not spiritually gullible. We are not easily influenced by the latest travelling guru or shooting-through speaker. In all things we are growing up into Christ who is the head. We are growing up into Him - to become not only individually and personally but collectively a healthy effective fully functioning Body. The body which is building itself up in love and I can only refer you back to verse 3 about the peace and unity of the Spirit, the bond of peace building itself up in love as each part, that is why each part has a gift, at least one, as each part does it's work. I urge you, lead a life worthy of the calling you have received. So let me ask you again, do we appreciate our unity that we belong together in Christ? That we are brothers and sisters together in Christ, that we are brothers and sisters together, heirs together, members together, sharers together or is that only so much hot air? Do we rejoice in our diversity of personality, of insight, of gifting, of emphasis or even of understanding? Do we rejoice in that rich diversity? Do we reach out towards our maturity and do we reach out towards it avidly, eagerly, strenuously for the Glory of God and for the good of the Church? I urge you, says Paul, lead a life worthy of the calling you have received and sisters and brothers that is our calling to unity, to diversity and to maturity for the Glory of God. Amen.
7. Alternative Lifestyle
17So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
20You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
25Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27and do not give the devil a foothold. 28He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:17-32
As we saw last Sunday morning, Paul turns from his exposition or explanation of high theology and what is means to be the Church, what it means to be the people of God and he turns to very down to earth concepts of what is means to live as the people of God.
Beginning at 4:1 Paul utters his impassioned appeal for dedicated living: “As a prisoner for the Lord then I urge you, I beseech you, I exhort you, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received”. That clarion call to dedicated living really extends through the rest of the letter. In verses 1 to 16, it has embraced in rapid succession our unity, our diversity, and our potential maturity. Now, it takes in what we might describe as purity. It is in fact also a call to holiness. Remember the old Gospel song which says, “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart”. Well, that is what this is about. Do you remember how in the mid 70s, in the wake of all the flower power, we had communes and suddenly alternative life style was the “in” thing, in a big way, even in New Zealand. But you see, in the First Century AD, Christianity was the alternative lifestyle. Can we understand that? This is still the case in terms of the 21st century. We are the ones with the alternative lifestyle.
* 1. The Downward Spiral of Sin [17-19]:
For example if you care to follow it in verses 17, 18 and 19, we see a kind of explanation of what we might describe as the downward spiral of sin. Look at it. It begins, not in terms of the English translation but in terms of the beginning of the path downward, it begins in hardness of heart. Human obstinacy, self will and hardness of heart come about because humanity, human beings, men and women, older and younger alike, reject God's sovereignty and lordship. We resist His purposes, His purposes of grace and of love towards human kind and obdurately resist the Gospel and refuse to repent. It begins in hardness of heart. As you possibly suspect, I have never been all that great a fan of the American Theologian Paul Tillich, but there is one place I found very interesting in his system of systematic theology. He describes sin as a process, like what we are talking about now, as a three fold cycle. The first is sin as unbelief, that is turning away. Human kind turns away from God as the centre of everything – “my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me as the fountain of living waters . .” [Jeremiah 2]. The next stage is what the Greeks called “hubris”, that is setting one's self or humanity up as the centre of everything and the third stage is what the reformers called “concupiscence”, the idea of dragging everything else in the universe into oneself as the centre – “What shall profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ - in that attempt to gain for one's self the whole world. Unbelief, hardness of heart.
This hardness of heart added to, continues into what we might call darkened understanding, the futile mind, and futile minds are out of touch with the real frame of reference. Ask any criminal and that person is essentially out of touch with the real frame of reference and when you are out of touch with the real frame of reference you begin, you continue and you end up habitually making wrong choices - wrong choices about your life, wrong choices about the way you will live, wrong choices about yourself, wrong choices about direction and everything else. You end up habitually making wrong choices. But the thing is, people think they have got some insight into what reality is all about. They think they are pursuing some personal, private light. In fact it is a darkened understanding, the futile mind. Feeling that they are following light, they are in fact pursuing darkness and that's one of the explanations about the whole idea whether it is crime or violence or drugs or alcohol or sex or power and once they begin to go down that road, the next bit of the spiral kicks in.
It leads to a desensitised conscience - Hardness of heart, futile minds, desensitised consciences. Human beings, we like to think, are both thinking and feeling creatures, people possessed of both minds and emotions. Well once the mind has suddenly got off kilter, the feelings, the emotions soon follow and what happens is that we have desensitised our feelings, as minds become darkened, so feelings become dulled and in fact deadened, as if they are under some kind of anaesthetic. So when we read something in the newspaper or we see something particularly horrible on the television news, we turn to one another and say in wonder, “How can people do such things to others?” You've said it, I've said it, you've been asked it, I've been asked it, “How can people do such things to one another?” - to wives, husbands, children, neighbours, friends, people they don't even know. How can people do such things to one another? The Bible's answer is because the futility of their mind, their darkened understanding and their deadened, desensitised conscience. They can do it and not feel a thing - not guilt, not pain, not any sense of wrong. They can do it and it's the downward spiral of sin.
The bottom end of that spiral after the hardened hearts and the darkened understandings and the desensitised consciences is insatiable indulgence, what the NEV describes as “a continual lust for more”, more sensations of feeling of life, but their real human feelings have been desensitised. They are after more personal gratification, whether it is of power, or money, of sex or of whatever. Just before verse 19 it says “they gave themselves over to sensuality”, to their deadened feelings and emotions. They have given themselves over to these things and that idea of having given themselves over has very real undertones of judgment in it. Can you remember a particular section of the New Testament that has that idea of giving over? Romans 1 verses 24, 26 and 28 says, “and because of these things, God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity”, v24, “to shameful lusts” in verse 26 and interestingly enough, “to a depraved mind” in verse 28. “God gave them over”. They gave themselves over to a continual lust for more - in other words, to lives full of and consumed by every imaginable form of evil. And their topsy-turvy world evil is good and good is evil, is it not so? The downward spiral of sin. Now it may very well be that we all know people who do not believe and who do not follow Jesus and they are not rogues and terrible people like that. This is the downward spiral and this is how it works. This is the principle at work in sinful human nature; only the degree is different, but this is how it works.
* 2. The New Creation in Christ [20-24]:
In the middle section that we have read, he contrasts that with the new creation in Christ - the downward spiral of sin on the one hand and the new creation in Christ on the other. “As for you”, “but as for you” [RSV] and that is at once emphatic and in sharp contrast to what has gone before about the hardness of heart, the darkened understanding, the desensitised conscience and the insatiable indulgence. Paul says, “but as for you, you did not so learn Christ”. Against this downward spiral of pagan attitudes, he sets the process of Christian lifestyle, Christian attitudes and if you like Christian ethics; how Christians are called to live. The picture this time is the idea of the Church as the gym, but rather the more familiar picture of the Church as a school room. You did not so learn Christ; he says about learning Christ or coming to know Christ in verse 20. You see Christ is the substance and the content of all Christian teaching. It is not just teaching about Him. He is the content, He is the subject. It is not just the matter of His incarnation or His teaching or His cross or His resurrection or His kingly reign or even His triumphant return in glory but that this Christ, this incarnate, crucified, risen, reigning and returning Lord Jesus Christ is calling us individually and together as a Church to proclaim His glorious Gospel, to proclaim His kingdom and to proclaim His Lordship and to proclaim His rule of righteousness in the world. To be lifting up before the world and proclaiming to others His values and His kingdom standards - and these, we need to be quite clear are, at total variance with the world around us, hence we are the alternative lifestyle. Then, maybe you don't believe me; but let me tell you it is so. You learned Christ, you came to know Him, you heard Him and these are once and for all things. You came to know him, [verse 21] or your heard Him and actually in the original there is no preposition not you heard about Him, but you heard Him. And so through Christian teaching, we are actually hearing the voice of Jesus, speaking to us. The old hymn has it right, “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘I am this dark world's light”. Verse 21b says, you were taught in Him so Christ is not only the subject but He is context, the atmosphere and the environment in which all this teaching is given and so we have come to know the truth that is in Jesus, not deceit or delusion, but the truth which does not lead to darkness but to freedom and righteousness and light. So what is it that we have been taught, that truth which is in Jesus.
Paul says there are three elements to that truth that we have all discovered in Jesus. The first is that we have been told, and that is the weight of the translation, we have all been told to “put off the old self”, to put off the old self and that is a decisive action in the past, your put off your old self in terms of your act of repentance and faith and commitment, if you like to use the word conversion that has been a moment of profound and radical personal change.
Putting off the old self is not enough, we must then “put on” – again decisive action – “your new self”. The old is corrupt; it is degenerating, it is on the way to ruin. The new, on the other hand, is freshly created in the very image of God Himself. We are told the old way of life has been dominated by lusts, continually lusting for more. The new is marked by righteousness and holiness. The old that was motivated by these lusts and these lusts in fact were deceitful, that is they promised much but fulfilled little indeed. The new is in fact the new righteousness, the genuine article.
John Stott says, “Corruption and creation, passion and holiness, deceit and truth are set in opposition to each other indicating the total incompatibility of the old and the new”, and I've put it third but in between these two in the section Paul urges them, “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” [RSV], or “be made new in the attitude of your minds” as the NIV as it. That is not a once and for all action. It is continuous present tense – “keep on being renewed in the attitude of your mind”. It is continuous present; an ongoing activity, renewal of attitude and outlook. Degradation comes through futility of minds, Christian righteousness on the other hand depends on and flows from the constant renewing of the mind. Remember Romans 12:1,2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . .” [NIV]. It is the same thing.
* 3. The Grieving of the Holy Spirit [25-32]:
So these I guess are all sorts or principles as it were but then he gets down to the nitty gritty and in the remaining verses of the Chapter I grouped them under what I might call the grieving of the Holy Spirit because that phrase comes in right in the middle of that section - the grieving of the Holy Spirit. So what follows, then, is some specific examples of putting off the old, soiled tattered clothes of the former way of life, the unbelieving lifestyle and the need to put on the fresh fragrant garments that belong to God's chosen people which is the new believing lifestyle, the lifestyle of the Kingdom of God. See, if you will, how very practical are all the examples, how all of them concern our relationships within the Body. All of them do. All of them have negative and positive aspects to them about life. For example, don't do this but rather do this instead. Negative and positive and all of them always have what we might call a theological or doctrinal reason given in support of what is being urged. My suggestion to you this morning is that apart from the reference to the thief and stealing no more, all the others have to do with the tongue, with words and with speaking.
So for example take the thing about the thief and not stealing. The focus is on relationships; as verse 28 says “he who has been stealing must steal no longer, so don't do that, instead work with your hands doing something useful, to what end, that he may have something to share with those who are in need”. So instead of, in New Zealand terms, bludging on the community or on the Church, the Body, be doing something that you are able to contribute to the needs of others. That is a helpful thing, not only for others but for one's self. That's the illustration that is there and if we look at some of the others and remember and I hope it is not reading things into it, they have to do with the tongue and with words and with speaking. For example, look at verse 25 about truthful speech, “because we are members one of another”, speaking the truth one to another. Verse 26 deals with anger, but very often you see one of the first manifestations of our anger, once we get beyond the feelings stage, is the mouth trips into gear; hence the advice about not letting the sun go down on your anger. We should not be harbouring or storing up one's anger. You remember Burns poem - the man comes in and there's his wife “nursing her wrath to keep it warm”. We can nurse our anger, just stoking it up and if it looks like dying down, we dredge it up and keep on fuelling the fire. That's what we do. But you see when we do that, it spills over into speech, and even when it doesn't come out in spoken words, it comes out in mental speech. You know we start going over something, I should have said that, we replay the conversation, we re-run the tapes where he said that, I should have said that, when she said that, I should have said that. We re-run the conversation or we are going to open it all up again and I am going to say this and this and this and we rehearse it in our minds, that is what I am going to say when I get the chance, that is what I am going to say. Paul says, don't do that. Why? “Do not give the devil a foothold”.
Verse 29, he talks about unwholesome, unhelpful, hurtful talking. Rather we should be doing or saying things that are helpful, that are edifying, that build up and are constructive rather than putting people down or are destructive. Do our comments, contributions and conversations benefit those who listen or do they not particularly help. In verse 31, the big sort of finish as it were in this little catalogue, he has six attributes which can in fact, I believe, affect the tongue, the words and speech. “He says get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander and every kind of malice”. You think about it and every one of these has a speaking component. At the very least potentially and more often than not actually, has a speaking component, - bitterness and sometimes that is something that affects as we get older - bitterness, a souring of the spirit and before you know where we are the souring of the spirit is expressed in soured speaking. Rage is that passionate anger and that soon will spill out into words, anger is settled and sullen hostility, antagonism to some individual or some group or whatever it is and that too spills over in our speaking. He talks about brawling or another word is clamour - that is loud, strident, excited, raised voices and I am sure you have never heard that! Slander is speaking evil of people, falsely of people, usually behind their back and malice can be summed up generally as ill will towards someone, maybe even plotting about that person. All this is pretty horrifying but he is saying this to Christians about not doing these things. If he is saying you should not be doing these things, the other side of the coin is that in fact they, we, are doing these things. We do, don’t we?
In the middle of all this horror there comes the injunction, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” [30]. Sealing suggests the very beginning of our Christian faith, but also the day of redemption, that day when Christ comes back, the end of our journey of faith, when faith is lost in sight and in it all the dwelling personal ministry of the Holy Spirit within believers. The indwelling Spirit, Paul is urging us to remember, is in fact a tender Spirit, a sensitive Spirit, whether we see that as within us personally or within us, among us, corporately as the body of Christ or of course he is reminding us that in fact we do share the one Spirit just as earlier in verse 25 he had reminded them that we are members of one Body. Instead of all this, he says, “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another” and their model is the action of God – “just as God in Christ forgave you”. So in terms of just the very ordinariness, the down-to-earthness of our alternative lifestyle, we need to understand that Churches are full of sinners saved by grace; yes, but still sinners. God isn't finished with us yet. We are not perfect and so sometimes Churches can be hot beds of gossip and criticism and wrong things can be said. Our excuse usually is that we feel very strongly indeed about something. But, still, wrong things can be said. You remember the third Chapter of the Book of James about the tongue is a fire and what a great fire a little spark can kindle. Sometimes Christians go about allegedly putting water on to flames but sometimes it seems we do about putting petrol on troubled flames to stoke them up and make them burn again. The old word from the Book of Proverbs says: “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” - the word fitly spoken, the word rightly spoken, the word aptly spoken, the gracious word, the word that is constructive, helpful and gently corrective is the word that is fitly spoken. “I tell you this”, says Paul, “and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking”. No, it is not hardened and darkened understandings and certainly desensitised consciences and insatiable appetites but rather putting off the old, putting on the new and constantly being renewed in our minds and what we need to remember is that all these things are there with one exception at least, all of them have some component of tongue and words and speaking and Paul says, please remember this, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Amen
8. Walking in Love and Light
1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7Therefore do not be partners with them.
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Ephesians 5:1-14
As we have seen in this letter to the Ephesians which has been probably a circular letter to the whole group of Churches that arose out of the evangelistic and missionary ministry of Paul and his companions when they were based in the City of Ephesus for something like two and a half to three years. ...........that came into being as the result of Paul's three Paul and his companions travelled around and set up these Churches or in today's terminology planted new Churches. And so the letter to the Ephesians is a letter full of general principles of what it means to be the people of God, that's the first half and then in the second half, Chapters 4,5 and 6 what it means to live as the people of God and as we have seen that second half begins with an exhortation to or a plea for dedicated living. To live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Now, we know in our own experience that love, even human love, is a powerful motivating force. It is, isn't it! Light as opposed to darkness is a very compelling metaphor, not least in the New Testament and here in Ephesians Chapter 5 as we have read it and as we follow it now, we find that they have not only joined together but they flow into one another and we need to understand and appreciate not least in the Church of the 21st century that New Testament Christianity is about integration. The integration of Christian experience, that is, what we are in Christ, and Christian theology, what we actually believe, and Christian ethics, that is how we live as Christian people not one or another as opposed to any of the others - all three. Experience, theology and ethics and that is quite plain in this letter to the Churches in the letter to the Ephesians. We are called, to a life of dedicated living; to a lifestyle which is radically distinctive and culturally different from the lifestyle of the society in which we are placed and so there is the need as we saw last Sunday morning for the daily renewal of our minds, remembering how we learned Christ and have come to know the truth as it is in Jesus. And so we need actively to pursue and to cultivate our Christian life. John Stott has a marvellous sentence in which he says, “Holiness is not a condition into which we drift”. We are to pursue righteousness. We are required, as we have read in the verses before us this morning, we are required to walk in love and in the light. To live a life of love and to live as children of light, that is how we will live worthy of the calling we have received.
* 1. Love: True or Counterfeit? [1-7]:
Let us look at these two major things. Love, but what kind of love? True love or counterfeit love? Because you see, whatever God produces, Satan manufactures the counterfeit. Now do we understand that? Whether its love or whether its truth or whether its gifts or whether its signs. Satan always seeks to manufacture a counterfeit. Love - true or counterfeit and that's what this section is also about.
God is our Father and so because He is our Father there is the expectation in us as His believing children to bear the family likeness. We need to be giving some evidence that we have inherited what we might call the family spiritual genes. You know what happens the minute there is a new baby born into any family. All the older relations in particular, begin to start the great puzzle as to who this child looks like. The child has hardly any recognisable features for anybody but they start to tell you he is like Great Auntie, he is her double, all kinds of interesting things but then as the child begins to grow and develop, you soon see that the child has inherited some of the family genes in one way or another because there are family likenesses that begin more and more to appear, not only physically but very often in personality. More than that, we are urged here consciously and conscientiously to imitate God. “Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children”. It is always a source of amusement to adults, almost unending amusements to adults, to see children, particularly very young children, begin to imitate the adults in their family. They copy them and sometimes they copy them so exactly it is hilarious; but that is the whole thing, they want to be like these adults in their lives and they begin to copy what they do. It's a natural thing. Paul says we should be consciously copying what God is like in His nature and character, to imitate God. You know how children begin to learn to draw, most of them begin in terms of tracing pictures and they go on from there. They trace the outline, they are copying. Are we copying God?
More than this, in verse 1 it is made quite plain that Jesus is our model. Paul says Jesus is our model – “as Christ loved us” and the Gospel is full of how Jesus loved in terms of innumerable acts of Gospel service, in terms of loving attitudes and loving words and in terms of a heart of loving compassion - just as Christ loved us and he talks also about Him giving Himself for us. So the model is not only the words and the attitudes and the deeds of Jesus but also in terms of the heart principle of Jesus which is supremely demonstrated on the Cross. He is our model; here is the model of authentic, genuine love. It was, Paul says, a sacrifice, speaking of the costliness of love. So often in today's world, love is imagined as something that is at least cheap, it not at the very worst tawdry. In fact in the Bible love is costly, it is sacrificial, it is a fragrant offering is the other image which Paul uses, a fragrant offering to God. Do you remember that marvellous incident in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? How she came into the house, you remember, where Jesus was and she broke open this jar of ointment, poured it over Jesus' feet and it says the house was filled with the fragrance, with the aroma of the ointment. It was filled with the fragrance and of course some of the disciples had criticised what she had done but nonetheless the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment and Jesus said, “let her alone because wherever this story is told till the end of time people will remember what she has done for me”. That's true. A fragrant offering to God. That's true love.
But just to finish it off, so we stay being Trinitarian you understand, if God is our Father and Jesus is our model, then of course just to fill in a little bit, the Holy Spirit is our enabler, because He is the one who pours the love of Christ into your heart and into your life and mine. So if this is true love, being imitators of God as dearly loved children, of being in our new lives, our spiritual genes so to speak and manifesting that, and consciously setting out to copy, to imitate God with Jesus as our model and relying on the Spirit to be our enabler, then what we have got to be beware of is the counterfeit love. We need to understand that Dr. J B Philip's old translation, a paraphrase of the New Testament Romans 12, verse 2 is very appropriate and very true in terms of human experience; “Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mould”. It is most apt and descriptive because there are pressures – subtle and not so subtle - upon us to conform. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed . . .”, that 's what it's about.
Love, authentic and true or love which is counterfeit. Christ demonstrated, Jesus modelled authentic love. Agape, the love which is of the very being of God Himself and that Agape love of God is characterised supremely by the fact that it is self-giving. It is self-denying and self-giving. Counterfeit love on the other hand is selfish, self-serving and self-promoting and so he speaks in verse 3, “but among you there must not be even a hint of sensual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed”. Sometimes the word is covetousness. We must understand that all of these things are in terms of what we might call love or the sensual area of love. Fornication or sensual immorality has to do with deeds or acts; impurity has do to with fantasies and dream and imagination and the covetousness has to do with inner desires and wanting. You will remember the Commandment "Thou shalt not covet" and among the things that are included there are the neighbour's wife or husband for that matter. In the Sermon on the Mount it says about the adultery Jesus said, “you have heard it said by those of old time thou shall not commit adultery but I say unto you whosoever looketh and desires her in his heart”, in the heart, the whole idea of coveting, of desiring. Nobody knows anything about it. So why is he so strong about these manifestations of counterfeit love because as we saw last week in Ephesians 4:27 he says “don't give the devil a foothold”. Its significance is that when you are trying to do something difficult or strenuous the foothold gives you a grip; the foothold gives you strength to find leverage. Don't give the devil a foothold that he may have leverage in your life. Rather we should be pursuing true righteousness and holiness.
He goes on and says – adding to the notion of actions, imaginations and even desires but he says, and we come back to last week again, we have to watch our talking in this regard as well. He says there should be no suggestive talk, because suggestive talk in terms of love or human intimacy only serves to degrade and defile and to cheapen love, even human love and human intimacy. And so you see Christians, far from being criticised for their attitudes to sexual relationships and so on because the Christian attitude to sex is not prudery, it is certainly not shame but it regards it as a precious gift of God to enrich our lives. Live as children of love says Jesus and then in terms of the counterfeit, the very strong warning in verse 6, “let no one deceive you with empty words”. I think that this is the one that the New English Bible originally translated as “specious arguments”. Let no one deceive you with empty words. Do you remember the picture in the story in Genesis about Adam and Eve in the garden and the serpent came you remember and spoke, deceiving with empty words. Do you remember how in the temptation of Jesus, Satan comes and speaks seeking to deceive with empty words at times even trying to turn the words of Scripture itself. Seeking to deceive with empty words. Deceiving us with empty words by urging that the world's view of sexual relationships and the world's view of sexual fulfilment is valid and we have to say that the Church is becoming increasingly infected and affected by the world's view of these things. It is all in the headlines from time to time. Don't be deceived by empty words, empty words which suggest “but it's only”; that it's not a serious matter at all. Paul says don't be deceived because God's wrath and God's judgment is upon such activity. Don't be deceived by their tantalizing offer because that is the way of the path to disobedience and he finishes up by saying, “do not be partners with them”. Love, true love, or counterfeit love; be imitators of God. “Therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Let no one deceive you with empty words”.
* 2. Light and Darkness [8-13]:
But what about light? It is not only a separate section, it is actually still relating to what we have been talking about already but the idea of light and it's light in contrast to darkness so it's light and darkness in verses 8-13. He says in verse 8, “once you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord”. That's why we have not been partners with them in such activity, once you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord. And again there is the emphasis on the radical transformation of our very nature and being at conversion, new birth. What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart. 1John talks about walking in the light, that is, in the kingdom environment - but here, what Paul is talking about is something a bit more than that. Jesus said, you remember, “I am the light of the world” [John 8:12], but in the Sermon on the Mount he also said that not only am I the light the world but “you are the light of the world” [Matthew 5:14]. So we are not only to be walking in the light, sisters and brothers, we actually are light. Once you were not only walking in darkness, that's the force that's there, not once you were walking in the darkness but once you were darkness but now in Christ you are light in the Lord. You, I, we, - all of us together - are light in the Lord. You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before people that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live as children of light, be what you are, live out your new nature which is light in the Lord and he says the fruit of light, the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth. A very different kind of trilogy is it not from sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or covetousness which is idolatry. The Sermon on the Mount talked about you shall know them by their fruits. The fruit of light, something of a mixed metaphor isn't it. The fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness and truth. Goodness that is in relationship with other people, righteousness in our relationship with God and truth in terms with our own personal integrity so that all the time we live in the world we are demonstrating that we are the real thing. That's what integrity means no mask, no pretence, no kidology, we are walking in love and in the light and so he says, “find out”.
One of the things about walking in the light is that we should be finding out “what is pleasing to the Lord” [verse 10], that is finding out includes the notion of discerning, of approving, of searching, of sifting, of examining and of exploring. Find out what is pleasing to the Lord. That is the way of maturity as we saw in Chapter 4, verse 13 following it is also picking up the notion of let no one deceive you with empty words, which is the opposite, the counter, to finding out what is pleasing to the Lord. These are the two things that are together. Let no one deceive you with empty words but rather find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mould - J.B.Philips or if you prefer don't let the world around you suck you into its lies and its darkness. And I have to tell you pastorally that there are lots of Christian people who get sucked in to the lies, and the darkness and the deceptions of the world. You see when we talk about walking in the light; light is both at one and the same time the notion of truth as in Grandma's old hymn, “when we walk with the Lord in the light of His word”, light is truth and holiness. Truth and purity, it's living according to the truth as it is in Jesus.
To come back to what we saw last week and so have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness have no fellowship, the word koinonia is the word that's in the middle of that sentence in the original, have no fellowship with them, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness. Where is our fellowship, where is our heart relationship? If we walk in the light, as distinct from darkness, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another, and then of course we need to finish it you see, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses, or if you prefer, keeps on day by day, moment by moment keeps on cleansing us from all sin. Live as children of light. And it goes on there to talk about the need to identify, to rebuke and to curb evil, just as there is the need to identify and to encourage and to promote goodness. Remember the early part of Romans 13, that's what the state is supposed to do as well.
* 3.Wake Up! [14]:
So where does all that bring us, love true or counterfeit, light or darkness, live as children of love and live as children of light, find out what is pleasing to the Lord, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather rebuke them and in verse 14 it quotes perhaps a baptismal hymn or something but whatever it is the quotation is there and the two key words are wake up. And so here is, if you like, a wake up call to Christians. A wake up call for the Church because let's face it, the Church is either sleeping or day dreaming. A wake up call to Christians, to the Church in our time regarding authentic love which is agape and the light which is of course still shining in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out and for the need to live worthy of the calling that we have received. You will remember those words in Romans 13 where it says, “do this, understanding the present time, the hour has come for you to wake up”,[there it is again,] “from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here so let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on armour of light” and so it goes on.
A wake up call, a wake up call to the Church in our time, in terms of waking up to the urgency of our situation because time is passing, the night is almost over, the day is almost here, the urgency of our time and situation because people are still lost outside of Jesus. Wake up, wake up to the danger of delusion and deception, yes, even inside the Church. That Christians, in fact, are being taken in by the old lies, dressed up as new truth. It's true. Wake up to the subtle drifting away from Biblical truth and Biblical truth and Biblical standards and Biblical lifestyle to follow the ways and attitudes and the self centredness and the self gratification of the world in which we live. It's time to wake up and it's a wake up call to true priorities - the priorities of an authentic Christian alternative radical lifestyle, the priority of the need to live in love with Jesus as our model, to the priority of the need to walk in the light, both as truth and purity. Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and walk or live in love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Once you were darkness but now are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light. Let no once deceive you with empty words but find out what is pleasing to the Lord and in God's name and in God's name wake up. Amen
9. Live Wisely!
15Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:15-21
As we have seen in these two chapters of the letter to the Ephesians, we have seen all that God has purposed and done for us from all eternity. That of course was in the first three chapters. We have seen all that He desires to effect in us and through us to the praise of His glory and we have seen all that He is bestowing upon us here and now in Christ by His spirit, and we have seen in Chapters 4 and 5 how we are people of God are called to dedicated living. We are called to live worthy of the calling we have received. We are called to a radically different lifestyle, you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. We saw last Sunday morning something of the wake up call to the Church, to live in love and to live in the light and this morning's passage speaks about the call to live wisely. We need to understand Biblical of wisdom is essentially practical. It's a very practical wisdom. It is knowing how to live in the circumstances, to the praise and glory of God.
You remember the television series Hill Street Blues a few years ago. You remember how the opening captions were. It always began with the morning roll call, with officers signing on and the Sergeant taking the roll call and allocating the respective duties for the day. One group was sent here and another team was sent there and so it went on and then they dispersed for the duties of the day. Always he stopped them and he always said, “Hey, the careful out there” - because the City was a dangerous place. Be careful out there. We need to understand that what is being spoken about here about being careful, how you live not as unwise but as wise. It’s an admonition and exhortation to watch how we live because it is dangerous out there. The world out there is in fact a place of spiritual danger for Christians and so we are called upon to be careful out there. We are called to be wise as we live out there and then if you care to follow it, the subsequent verses speak about various components about being careful and living wisely.
* 1. Be Alert! – “redeeming the time” [16]:
Verse 16 says be alert, be alert or make the most of every opportunity or the more familiar King James version about redeeming the time because the days are evil. You see Christians, if they are to be careful, if we are to live wisely, essentially understand that there is a countdown in progress. We talk, don't we, of losing time, we talk of passing time, we even talk of wasting time. We need to understand as Christians that there is not, there is most definitely not, all the time in the world, because time is truly passing and so we cannot simply as kingdom people drift through life. We must always be living with a purpose and that purpose is to the service of God and the Glory of God. Be alert, redeem the time, make the most of every opportunity. There is not all the time in the world because time is passing, the world will end and Christ will come and there will be an accounting. Redeem the time, be alert. Make the most of every opportunity, make the most of every opportunity to learn more and more of Jesus. Make the most of every opportunity to grow in Him day by day. Make the most of every opportunity to serve the Lord in our lives day by day. Redeem the time, the picture is of buying up the moment, buying up the opportunities. 'This week only' kind of thing. That's how enterprising retailers get us into their stores isn't it. A special offer this week only, the next 24 hours only, these 48 hours only, you get in there, it cannot be repeated. Redeem the time, go through the market place of life, picking up the opportunities, opportunities which will never come again. Do you remember that verse in James 4:14, what is your life. In the King James version it says, “it is even as a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanisheth away”. Some of my friends in Theological College used to tease me a bit unmercifully about the fact that I wanted to get on with things and then one day we were doing some 19th Century Church History and I became absolutely facinated with the story of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a very famous preacher of that era. The interesting thing was he started off in a little independent Chapel in Waterbeach, East Anglia and then came up to the big City and began a new Church and then he want to the Great City Temple and so on. anyway, when he left Waterbeach for London, already with a successful ministry behind him, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was 21 years of age. What is your life? You see the temptation out there, the temptation of the world is when we are younger, you have plenty of time, plenty of time to do this thing, plenty of time to serve God, plenty of time. You are entitled to enjoy your youth and you do all the crazy things that young folk do. Defer it, there is plenty of time and when we get into middle age perhaps and so you are enjoying the fruits of all your labours, you have plenty of time and we forget the old Gospel song that says, life at best is very brief, like the passing of a . What is your life, redeem the time, because the days are evil and because the days are evil we need to be buying up every opportunity to witness because people are lost. Be alert, be careful out there. We need to be alert and redeem the time. We need to be careful how we live.
* 2. Be Discerning! – “understand what the will of the Lord is” [17]:
We need to be alert, we need to be wise because we should be discerning. Be alert, verse 17, be discerning, don't be foolish, “understand what the Lord's will is”. You see, one of the spiritual dangers that we face out there is that we dare not be muddled in our thinking. That is the same as being foolish in this verse. We can compare that what is said a few verses earlier about “living as children of light”. What does it mean to live as children of the light? Verse 10 says, “find out what is pleasing to the Lord”. You see we have the plain instructions of the word of God. We have the model of Jesus and we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Be discerning, “understand what the will of the Lord is”.
You see by assurance and conviction we are less likely to fall pray to spiritual delusion and deception. By meditating on what God is saying in His word, we will grow in grace, be nourished in Christ and be less likely to drift away from things we have heard, and by constantly reminding ourselves of God's standards as set forth in His word. Living in light, we will not excuse ourselves or bemuse ourselves into falling for the world's code of living. You see we are actually called upon, called upon to live in love and light and truth. That is the Lord's will, understand what the Lord's will is. You see often we don't need to go and wander about through all kinds of mysterious highways and byways of Scripture trying to find out what the Lord's will is, that is what he is calling us to - to live in love and light and truth. That's His will. You see primarily God wants us to be something, rather than do something. The world is a place of spiritual danger, so be alert, redeem the time, be discerning, “understand what the Lord's will is”.
* 3. Be filled! – “Keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you” [18]:
He says, “be filled” in verse 18 or, more literally, “keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you”. It is a startling contrast is it not, wine and/or alcohol and the Holy Spirit. You see we all crave life that is stimulating - or in terms of the old Gibbs SR Toothpaste advertisement, life that is “tingling fresh”. Many people really do not that alcohol is in fact not a stimulate at all; it is in fact a depressant and that's why people in the various stages of alcohol can go through the stage that we might politely describe as maudlin. It is a depressant. Rather be intoxicated with the Holy Spirit, open to all He is willing to give us. “Be filled”; notice, it is passive, because He is the One who is active; He is at work actively filling us. The tense is continuous present. It is something that is an ongoing thing. Keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you. It is also a command. It is not some kind of option for the spiritually inclined. Keep on letting the Spirit fill you, because the spiritual danger out there is that we might be lulled, the pressures and the tensions of the world might lure us into some area of spiritual superficiality, tempt us into spiritual shallowness and even draw us into a place of spiritual emptiness The antidote for all of that is keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you.
* 4. Be Thankful! – “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” [20]:
The next couple of verses we might summarise as be thankful, “be thankful, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”, says verse 20. The previous verse [19] speaks about encouraging one another in praise to God with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In terms of our fellowship, so often our conversation is some kind of gripe session. You know complaining and moaning and criticising rather it should be psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Encouraging one another in praise to God.
The second half of that verse talks about joyful worship to God – “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord”. So often as we speak to God we are concerned about muttering and murmuring. Remember how the people of Israel in the wilderness “murmured against Moses and against the Lord”? Verse 20 sums it up, that sense of heart gratitude to God, a constantly flowing spirit and attitude of thankfulness to God focussing on His goodness and grace, His constancy and faithfulness. Yes, there are the hard places and the difficult experiences that can bring pain and grief, suffering and loss. All of these things come to us all in one way or another, at one time or another. But the spiritual danger out there is, you see, to adopt a murmuring, complaining and criticising attitude. Paul says the antidote to that is a spirit of thankfulness to God. Always, he says, always and for everything giving thanks to the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be alert, redeem the time, be discerning, understand what the will of the Lord is, be filled. Keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you, be thankful always and for everything give thanks to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
* 5. Be Submissive! – “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” [21]:
One thing more, as you see the paragraph come to an end in verse 21, we might call it, be submissive. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”, says verse 21 - but the world's attitude, the world's ethics is not one of submissiveness, it is rather, “assert yourself!”. We run classes in assertiveness training. Assert yourself, stick up for yourself, demand your rights, don't give in to the expectations or the requirements of other people. That seems to produce a hardness of spirit and an insensitivity to other people and yet along side that we have a world that seems to idealise in our time those who might be described as “Snags”. Do you know what a “snag” is? - A snag is a sensitive new age guy. How can you be both sensitive and self assertive. I can leave that to your imagination. Kingdom values are quite different. Run again, in your minds, through the qualities of the agape love of God as listed in 1 Cor.13, love does not insist on its own or its own rights and so on. You see, biblically, this is not weakness, in fact it is true strength. It is not being namby-pamby; it is a servant heart. Notice the submission is mutual, - “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”. The sense of respect, of esteem, of servanthood is mutual and this it he general principle of body life among the people of God. It epitomises our attitudes to and our relationships with one another. Submit to one another then out of reverence for Christ. Later the general principle is applied to specific situations. In the very next section of this letter it talks about husbands and wives, parents and children, master and slaves and we need to recall that in the first Century the rights were all on the one side and the obligations were all on the other. In the Christian world view there is mutuality of rights and obligations or place or privilege or prerogative. They are mutual always. So then we are called as the people of God to live wisely in the midst of a watching world, to live wisely and not foolishly, to live carefully.
The King James version word is “circumspectly”. We need to live circumspectly because we are indeed constantly in spiritual danger out there. Certainly Jesus has said, “no one will pluck them out of my Father's hand”, and that is true - but we have to live wisely and we have to take our own precautions as well. And so out there is where we are called to live, out there is where we are called to witness and out there is where we are called to serve.
- Don't just pass time, redeem time.
- Don't be confused and fall for anything that the world might say. Understand what the will of the Lord is and live in the light.
- Don't be superficial or shallow or drained of all spiritual vitality rather keep on letting the Holy Spirit fill you, because He will.
- Don't be a grouch and a murmurer or a complainer or a criticiser because that eats away at your own sense of well being and love. Rather be thankful.
- Don't be self assertive or aggressive but rather be submissive to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Amen
10. The Holy War
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For 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. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
19Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
Ephesians 6:10-20
During these past few weeks we have seen that the Letter to the Ephesians gives us some general principles as to what it means to be the people of God - not only there and then, in their time and place, but here and now in our time and in this place. I guess those of you who are a bit older know about the writings of the famous John Bunyan. John Bunyan wrote two very famous allegories, the first is better known than the second. The first, of course, is The Pilgrim's Progress. The second one had the title the Holy War. We have already seen in Ephesians 5:14 the wake up call to the Church. Now the wake up call to the Church leads into the clarion call to arms, readiness for battle. As other passages in the Bible make plain, so do these verses in Ephesians Chapter 6 are quite explicit, they speak of warfare and the battle. The “finally” with which verse 10 begins doesn't really mean, “I am now about to finish”, so to speak, it really means henceforth or from now on then, “from now on put on the full armour of God”. From now on and so Paul is telling us that not only that the spiritual battle is to be expected but that it is in fact the norm. So whether or not we are personally experiencing and rejoicing in God's blessing or even as a Church doing that, then if that is so; we had better be prepared for the onslaughts and the buffetings of the enemy. If we are moving forward with God in our time, then we have to be prepared for the resistance and the counter attack from Satan. However, it seems, we as Christian people are singularly unprepared for spiritual warfare. We naively believe that the world isn't like that. It needs to be part of our inner attitude.
We know that athletes talk about psyching themselves up for a major race or a major athletic event. Getting themselves into the right mental attitude. The average Christian person is mentally and spiritually unprepared for warfare. We need to, as the Bible has it, gird up the loins of our minds. You remember the prophetic admonition in the Old Testament about those who were at ease in Zion or a more modern translation has it, those who are complacent in Zion and that can be true both personally and corporately; both in terms of our personal discipleship and in terms of our congregational attitudes and witness. Some things become so comfortable. It all seems so easy. We seem to perceive and apprehend so little of the dimensions of the Cross which is the symbol of our discipleship and so little of the dimension of sacrifice, of walking the way of the Cross. So often in our Christian life and experience we seem to be cushioned, that is, isolated or even remote from real life in the real world. Sometimes we seem so complacent, indifferent rather than convicted or passionate about what is going on in the world and our responsibility under God. Complacency rather than a sense of commitment and so often we seem so comfortable letting the world around us squeeze us into its mould. We need to be reminded of Paul's words to Timothy about enduring “hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”. So does Church for us have any kind of resemblance to the training camp to prepare battle-ready troops, an assault corps that can take on anything that the enemy puts up against us. We scarcely seem to realise at times that there is a war going on around us, never mind that we personally are involved in such a thing. That sense of discipline is called for; that sense of understanding and insight is called for.
* 1. The Warfare:
Modern communication of radio, television and satellites, I guess, has brought the horror and devastation of total war onto our front pages and in living colour on to our television screens. No longer as in historical times are wars fought between professional arms with fairly well recognised rules of conduct and warfare. Now whole cities and indeed whole countries, it seems, can be devastated and civilian populations terrorised at will and decimated in their turn. The modern armoury includes a whole range of awesome weapons, atomic weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons. We need to understand, that, so too in the spiritual realm that we are involved in total war against an implacable force whose aim is not just to contain or to hinder the advance of the Kingdom of God and the reign of God but to overthrow it and so in the New International Version the word is “our struggle is not against flesh and blood”. The familiar King James Version is “we wrestle not against flesh and blood”. It is changing the metaphor from that of the gymnasium or the schoolroom to that of the battle front. We tend to think of total war as somehow or other nowadays by remote control; a matter of pressing anonymous buttons in remote underground bunkers, releasing missiles and other fancy weapons that will lance through the atmosphere or is it the stratosphere nowadays and fall on some unsuspecting target thousands of miles away and do so with devastating accuracy. It has a clinical, almost sterile touch to it all and this was highlighted because we saw it in the recent wars against Iraq. Nightly on television, we saw it almost play by play just a matter of hours after the actual event; indeed, sometimes it was “live”. It seemed almost like some kind of grotesque video game. It is so impersonal.
But what is spoken of here, of course, is not of such circumstances, we are still two thousand years past, and so what Paul is talking about in his metaphor of total war is of vigorous and deadly close hand to hand combat; in which we are closely, directly and personally engaged. It is a personal life and death struggle. It can be daunting. It can be messy and it can be dangerous. But in terms of this warfare, notice how the enemy is described. It is described as not flesh and blood, that is the enemy we face is not really human at all. Sinners or whatever word we want to use, for all their blindness or their unbelief or indeed even their opposition to the Kingdom of God, they are not the enemy. The Bible always views humankind not as the enemy but as the victims. There is a world of difference. They are the victims. They have been duped by the great deception. The enemy is composed, as Paul puts it, of “the rulers, of the authorities, of the powers of this dark world, of the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” or as the Revised Standard Version has it, “the cosmic powers of this present darkness”. Darkness, and the Bible repeatedly says, that humankind prefers darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. They refuse to come to the light lest their deeds be made plain. The darkness is always struggling against the light, trying to put it out, to overcome it – hence all this animosity, this bitterness, this hatred, this warfare. Jesus talked about because you loved me therefore this world will hate you. The world hates you because the world hated me says Jesus. This is the mystery in the upper room, the mystery of the world's hatred, the warfare against the cosmic powers of this present darkness. And so humankind in their blindness, in their unbelief, in their hostility, in their resistance to the Kingdom, is not the enemy. They are the victims. So it is not just human powers or even human establishments or institutions, although they too can certainly be taken over by evil and become institutional forms of injustice and oppression. But it's against these things and in verse 12 four times as each little phrase or paragraph is introduced it's begun on each occasion with “against” – indicating all-out war – with the idea of vigorous hand-to-hand combat, against the reality and intensity of the conflict in which we are engaged. So there's the warfare we are engaged in - against the cosmic powers of this present darkness.
* 2. The Armour:
The passage also speaks very eloquently of the armour. To be equipped for warfare the soldier in the Roman legion needed armour. So too, we are urged to put on the full armour of God for the spiritual conflict. It is only by doing so that we are able to stand our ground on the evil day and or to stand firm as the tide of battle ebbs and flows to and fro around us. One commentator suggests that these pieces of the splendid panoply are listed in the order that they are to be put on. Another suggests that the first three items are of much importance that the believer should never as it were go out without them. “Don't leave home without them!”, as the TV advert urges us regarding a well known credit card. He talks about the belt of truth. The belt was tightened as the sign of going on duty. We need to “belt up”, to tighten the belt of truth; truth in terms of integrity, truth in terms of authentic commitment to Jesus as lord, giving ourselves to the Lord in effective dedication. Put on the belt or truth as we go on duty day by day. Put on the breastplate of righteousness; our great protection in life is the righteousness that Jesus has imparted to us through His death and resurrection. We can claim or offer to God no righteousness of our own and so He covers us for our protection in the mantle, the armour of His righteousness. We have to put on the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. We are told that the Roman legionary’s shoes were thickly studded with nails. That was to enable him to have a good grip of the ground surface so that when push came to shove, as so often it did if you were fighting in a phalanx, you could hold your ground and so with these strangely equipped shoes, you were able to march on and on, bearing the Good News of the Gospel of Peace.
John McArthur suggests that the second three items were always to be ready in the camp or adjacent to the battle field in case they were required. The shield of faith, is it the activity of faith or the content of faith, that's intended here. I wonder if they can really be distinguished in the heat of battle. Faith not only deflects but faith absorbs and quenches the fiery darts of the evil one. Put on the helmet of salvation. In 1Thessalonians 5:8 it is the hope of full salvation which is identified as the helmet. “Take up the sword of the Spirit”, the Word of God. It is the short two-edged, cut and thrust sword he referred to, and again because it is the sword; again there is the implication of that close hand to hand struggle. The warfare, the armour; - put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, stand against the devil's schemes. That means day by day, consciously, deliberately we put on the full armour every morning, and as well as that, of course, we are together against the foe, that is, fighting together against the enemy, not fighting one another. We are fighting together, not in isolation, we are fighting together, protecting one another by one another's faith.
* 3. The Strategy:
So these verses talk about the struggle that we are involved in, the warfare, the armour; but also, I suggest, it talks about the strategy. Notice the repeated use of the military metaphor – “to stand”. It refers to standing up to and holding out against the determined and repeated onslaughts of the foe. We need to match the resolution, the commitment and the determination of the enemy. We can only do that, not in our own strength, of course, but by being strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. From this time on then, “be strong in the Lord and His mighty power” [10]. How? - by putting on the full armour of God. Be strong in His power.
#Verse 11 says “take your stand against the devil's schemes”. Remember he uses both force and fraud. He seeks both to devour and to deceive and dilute. He uses both crack assault troops and the insidious fifth column from within the gates. We need to remember he has an extensive dirty tricks department, full of all manner of satanic stratagems. Take your stand against the devil's schemes.
# Then again he talks about “when the day of evil comes that you may be able to stand your ground”. The strategy is to be able to stand. The purpose of the full armour of God is that we might be able to stand your ground. In Chapter 1:3 Paul takes about “the full spiritual blessing” which is ours in Christ. Here he talks about “the full armour of God” that we might be comprehensively and thoroughly equipped to stand and to withstand. To persevere when the particular time of personal family or even congregational testing or difficulty comes upon us. The New English Bible translation is, “when things are at their worst, you may be able to stand your ground”.
# He repeats the idea again; “and after you have done everything, to stand” [13]. Again the Good News Bible elaborates a little when it says, “after fighting to the end you will still hold your ground”. Still be able to stand. The struggle, you see, is unremitting in its intensity and severity. We can't call time out or half time or a truce, it is unremitting. It repeats again, “stand firm then”, [14]. This is how it is achieved, and again it repeats the advice about the armour. Stand firm then, put on your full piece by piece, the strategy is to hold your ground, to stand firm.
We need to think only of our own particular spiritual heritage of faith in the Reformation or, even perhaps more appropriately, in the Covenanting times, so particularly full of oppression, of horror, of torture and death. Noble and commoner, women and men, younger and older equally and the like, suffered and in many instances laid down their lives for what they called in their quaint way, “the crown rights of the Redeemer”. They had signed the National Covenant in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh, some literally in their blood. After a particularly bloody battle [Drumclog] those who were taken prisoner were brought, many of the wounded, suffering and dying, were brought to Edinburgh and dumped in the Kirkyard of the Greyfriars Church and so it became what we would call today a concentration camp. They were just left there and those who survived, survived only because of the goodness of the people in the surrounding tenements who would from their windows throw bread and aid to them to give them some measure of comfort in their imprisonment. Historically speaking, that wasn't all that long ago. Perhaps we don't quite go to war or right literally on battle fields nowadays but let's be quite clear about the reality of the warfare. The warfare, the armour, the strategy is implied here without being specifically stated but let's tease it out a little bit more.
* 4. The Victory:
There is one more thing about all this and that is the victory. You see there is not only privation, suffering and sacrifice in this warfare - and there are these in plenty of measure. There is also the victory. Do you remember the words of Jesus to His own, “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world”? This same world that hates Him and hates us. On the Cross His shout of accomplishment was the cry of victory, “Finished!” - I have done it, not they've done for me. In the Book of Revelation, we are given the picture of the war in the heavenlies with a kind of split screen so to speak. We see on the one screen what’s happening on earth, the struggling Church facing pressures from without, the pressures of the Roman empire and all the rest of it, and on the other hand the compromises within. On the other screen there is what's going on in the heavenlies and the fact that in Heaven God reigns and His purpose is being fulfilled. And so in the letters to the Churches in Revelation 2 and 3, we have the familiar refrain at each conclusion, “to the one who overcomes I will give . . . .” whatever it is.. in the particular instance. So we are in fact as Christians, s disciples of Jesus, as soldiers in His army, we are the overcomers, because we are promised to be, in terms of Romans 8, “more than conquerors through Christ” who dwells within us and God is able to do, as we saw in Ephesians 3, “God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or imagine according to the power which is at work within us”. The power that raised Jesus from the dead and drawing all this together is our Lord's own promise of His return in glory and that lifts our spirit - and that, sisters and brothers, in the midst of all the world's darkness, in the midst of all the world's pain, hopelessness and despair that, sisters and brothers, fills us with hope. The light still shines out in the darkness and the darkness has not and cannot put it out. Every Communion Sunday points back to the Cross and Jesus' victory upon the Cross - and it points forward to His coming, where He says, “Behold I am coming soon”, and the cry of the Church, the believing, longing, wrestling, witnessing, struggling, fighting Church is, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Amen