The Key to Absolutely Everything
Ephesians: Fitting in to God's Plan • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 15 viewsThe key to absolutely everything is that God is bringing everything under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
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I used to wonder about the meaning of life.
What is life about?
Why do we exist?
What is our purpose in life?
Most sources that I encountered treated this as an unanswerable question.
Life is chaotic and confusing.
The answer is different for each person.
You have to discover your own answer.
But there is one key that holds everything else together - Jesus.
I know it seems too simple, like the “Sunday School” answer to every question.
But Jesus is really the center of everything and when our lives revolve around Him, they begin to make sense.
The problem is that we focus on our problems.
Worry, fear and grief cause us to focus on self.
The first step in healing is to acknowledge God as our source.
Putting Jesus at the center is not a cop-out or a cliche’, it’s the way the universe was designed to operate.
It’s everything as it should be.
Jesus is the KEY to absolutely everything!
Knowing the mystery of His will.
Entering into his purpose
Yielding to Jesus’ Lordship.
Knowing the mystery of His will
Knowing the mystery of His will
Everyone wants to know God’s will for their own life.
What career path should I pursue?
Who should I marry?
What do I do if I think I’ve already made the wrong choices?
I believe that each of us has infinite potential, but that God gives us choices.
How can God be flexible enough to give us choices?
Wouldn’t every bad decision that we make somehow mess up God’s perfect plan?
God’s plan must already be so messed up! How is it ever going to work out in the end?!?
So, when we are asking to know God’s will, we are actually asking God to steer us toward our greatest potential within the choices we have made.
When we are asking to know God’s will, we are asking God to steer us toward our greatest potential within the choices we have made.
What if God’s will is really bigger than that?
Each of us has a narrative, an idea of how we think our lives are supposed to go.
For the Christian, God is part of our narrative. God is supposed to make our lives better and take us to heaven when we die.
But then, when our narratives don’t play our the way that we expect them to, we become disillusioned with God.
God is supposed to intervene to make our narrative work out. Isn’t that what says?
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Whose purpose? His purpose! What is God’s purpose?
Entering into His purpose
Entering into His purpose
What is purpose?
Other translations use the words His kind intention, His good-pleasure, His long-range plan.
Purpose means God has a plan for the ages that He delights to accomplish.
The Bible tells us that it’s a good plan because God is the ultimate good.
Everything working together for good is assured because God is good and his plan is for good.
In other word’s, it’s God’s good … and our good if we’re in agreement with God.
Let me spell it out... His purpose means it’s God’s narrative, not ours.
Could it be that our frustration with knowing God’s will is because we are trying to get God to fit into our narrative instead of we fitting into His?
So what is this plan?
Here Paul tells us that God has shown us the plan:
“set forth in Christ” - the plan is Jesus
Not - Jesus has revealed God’s plan - he is God’s plan!
Jesus is the new Adam - the start of a new way to be human!
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
“Reign in life” - Jesus puts us back in charge of our destiny.
The hope is that we will voluntarily align ourselves with God’s plan.
Every choice, every decision is an opportunity to align with God and work toward His purpose.
Every time our narrative fails, we focus instead on his plan.
“for the fullness of time” - is already in motion but there is and end goal.
“for the fullness of time” - is already in motion but there is an end goal.
Here we are almost 2000 years later and things are still messed up, perhaps more than ever.
Actually, no. While the world’s population has gown astronomically since the time of Christ and there are more unbelievers than ever, the percentage of believers to unbelievers has been increasing steadily.
Today one third of the world professes faith in Jesus Christ.
So where is this plan headed?
English Standard Version Chapter 2
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Eventually, everyone is going to say that Jesus is Lord.
Presumably this means either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Which would you rather have it be?
Yielding to Jesus’ Lordship (uniting all things in Him)
Yielding to Jesus’ Lordship (uniting all things in Him)
Jesus is Lord
Every student of the New Testament knows that is was the disciple’s expectation and that of the Jews that the Messiah would overthrow the kingdoms of this world (IE: the Romans) and establish God’s rule on this earth.
Jesus said that the Kingdom which they were looking for arrived when he arrived.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
We know now that the “gospel” means that Jesus had to die and rise again to provide atonement for our sin, so that we could be spiritually saved and transformed.
The declaration of the Apostles and of the early church was that “Jesus is Lord”, essentially that Jesus is the Divine ruler of the universe no matter who appears to be in charge.
Jesus is uniting things in heaven and things on earth.
What Jesus did was actually bigger than overthrowing Rome, He undid the effects of Adam’s sin and defeated satan. That changed everything in the unseen spiritual realm.
Things on earth seem to be changing rather slowly. Peter addresses this:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God wants all (or as many as possible) to reach repentance.
Repentance means having a change of mind (and of heart.)
It is better that people should change their minds voluntarily and come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ than to find out the hard way.
This means letting go of our own narratives and embracing His plan, His purpose and His will for our lives.
How do we do this?
On the larger scale it means that we join God in His quest to bring the whole world under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
This is the goal of missions, we go as Jesus did. We go humbly, identifying with the people that we are trying to reach.
We share the Gospel both through words and actions.
In every place we go, we declare “Jesus is lord over…!”
For all of us, we see ourselves as ambassadors, agents of reconciliation.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
We are all missionaries and ministers in the places where we have influence.
If our lives are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ then God can use us to reach others through our influence.
You have influence and as you come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, things under your influence will also align with God’s plan and purpose.
Everything in me must come under the Lordship of jesus Christ.
How can I align with God if I am divided?
We are all divided, at the very least we are both flesh and spirit?
“The prayer minister is an evangelist to the unbelieving areas of a believer’s heart.” – John Sandford founder of Elijah House
Jesus is the KEY to absolutely everything!
Knowing the mystery of His will.
Entering into his purpose
Yielding to Jesus’ Lordship
Questions for reflection:
What is your understanding of God’s will for your life? Are you asking God to follow your narrative or are you following His?
Are there areas of hurt, disappointment or disillusionment in your life? Where is Jesus in all of this? Ask Him to bring clarity and to align your thoughts with His.
How can you partner with God in His plan? Are there areas of yourself that you need to bring under the Lordship of Jesus? How can you use your influence to extend the influence of the Kingdom?