Trinity 16 (2024)

We are more than halfway through the season of Trinity. Soon we will begin preparing to celebrate the first act in God’s rescue plan, his incarnation. But while we are still in this particular season, It is good that we work week in and week out to get all the meat of the bone of Trinity season.

Today's Collect says: let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness.

Its a prayer that asks God to defend his church, and an acknowledgment that without that help we have no hope of succeeding in the church's mission.

What is the church's mission? Well in the Anglican Tradition, we say that the church is a gathering of faithful people among whom the pure gospel is preached and the sacraments dually administered. Being a faithful community, hearing the good news of God revealed in the scriptures declared, and participating in baptism and communion. And today’s collect reminds us we have no hope of succeeding without God’s intervention.

This is the Wester, protestant view the church holds that has been so popular since the time of Saint Augustine. That most highly regarded church father, after reading the Bible and focusing on the words of Saint Paul, see that we need God’s grace to go before us preparing the way.

MAin point *********

So Saint Paul to the Ephesians:

Today we pick up mid-thought. He is telling the hearers not to be discouraged that his ministry of proclaiming the Gospel has landed him in Jail. And he wants so much for them not to be discouraged that he bows to his knees in prayer:

Along with the prayer not to be discouraged, he is praying that God grant the grace necessary for specific things in the next verse. But before we look at the what let’s look at the how. He is asking that God reach into his unlimited bag of Glorious riches. We need to always be mindful that we ask a God who has bottomless resources. Having what we need to persevere as a church is not a matter of “what does God have on hand.” It is a matter of how does God intend to grow us in faithfulness. His resources are limitless.

Well I promised you a “what,” not just a how. Saint Paul is praying that from God’s limitless supply of everything, that the saints would be strengthened in the inner being of the saints. I would say that he is asking that God be their treasure not just on the surface but in their inner being, he would be their core treasure.

Having God in his limitless power strengthen the people and root them, would mean that could comprehend the, with all the saints the breadth, and length, and hight and depth of the love of Christ. Not just the knowledge of singing a Sunday school song but a true revelation of God’s goodness. You would see something about God that surpasses your human mind's capability to see. A revelation that would bring you to your knees and change you from the inside out, make something new.

And once this revelation takes place you would be filled with the fullness of God.

Being filled with fullness is a bit of a vague sentence. On one hand that is helpful and the other hand confusing.

Reminds me of Austin powers “I dont know what”

Having the fulness of GOd means that those things that ache in our soul will be satisfied. This week I was looking at some baby pictures…I felt the ache. There are deep soul cravings in all of us that seek to be filled…by what, we dont even know, but the fullness of GOd will satisfy them

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

Now Paul is going to offer to the readers a good word or Bene-Diction. He is the one in prison, he is the one tourtured for the Gospel and yet he prays for this church he lives.

To him who is able

Todo far more abundantly, Grk Hyper(abundandly)

Over our desires.

In the midst of work already started.

To that worker (God)

Be the glory in the church

Definition of Church and Doxological reality.

In Christ! Not just a human messenger but God.

Not just for now but for always.

Main Point.

So for us today,

We are not the church at Ephesus, and yet God had this preserved as his word for us, that in some way we would be strengthened by it.

First off, we should remember the sufferings of those in ministry, not as discouraging but for teh Glory of God. There is opposition, violent opposition to the church all around the world. And yet the church Grows.

The Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church.

Second, how we ought to pray.

Bowing, before the God who is over all peoples, knowing what he has at his disposal to help, that the Spirit would act within us, so that Christ would dwell.

Triune prayer

The Role of the Holy Spirit.

And as the Spirit points us to Jesus, we would be filled, those hardest to reach cravings would be full.

Finally that the end result is not our comfort and not our will, but the displayed glory of the God, the God we worship in Spirit and in truth.

That which we crave is universal.

We all want something infinite to fill our finite selves to the point of overflowing.

The secular word says that craving is a tool of evolution to help us work together and survive hungry winters.

The Gospel says we where separated from the source through Adam, and that Jesus came to restore us.

Today we are going to eat the food of infinite and everlasting life. The fortaste of our heavenly experience.

Jesus Chrsit died on the Cross to give us what Adam lost. Jesus give us access back to heaven and to the tabel of God that overflows with food. Baptised Christians, say yes to the spriit that lives within you and come before the THrone of the father, to eat the broken body of the son.