Untitled Sermon (2)
Notes
Transcript
More Beautiful
More Beautiful
Guided by Brian Loritts and Matt Chandler
If you have ever experienced a major change in life like moving out of the house, going off to college, getting married, or having a child how many of you thought you knew what you were in for?
No matter what people tried to tell me about going into the military I thought it would be different for me.
No matter how many people tried to encourage me to prepare for the MCAT I thought I could wing it.
No matter how many people tried to help me have appropriate expectations of married life I still had mostly wrong ones.
And as far as the whole having kids and raising kids Kristi and I thought we would handle it with ease...
And when we dove into the waters of adoption we prepared as much as possible, but there were things almost immediately that caught us off guard: house pets, elevators, toilets, and afros posed challenges we could never have foreseen.
What about Christianity? Has that played out for you like you thought it would? Has Church been as easy to do as you thought it should?
It’s tough, isn’t it. And it is even tougher when you try to be a Church with people who don’t look like you, talk like you, or vote like you. I know it is the Church that God wanted me to plant. I know it is the Church that God wanted me to lead. I just honestly wish it was easier to get people to figure out how to be different and still love one another.
It was tough in the early church too. When the Church came to places like Rome and Ephesus where lots of people of different races and religious backgrounds lived they found it difficult to be a unified Church. In the same Church you might have one person who used to cast spells on their enemies, another would visit the temple prostitutes in order to get help with fertility, and another refused to eat bacon. Following Jesus was calling them into this new community that was redefining normal. It was encouraging people to forsake old habits, adopt new ones, and to be ok with someone who enjoyed a ham sandwich.
We know a lot about the magnificence of Rome, but you may not be as familiar with the equally magnificent city of Ephesus. It sat on the Mediterranean and at the mouth of a major river. It is described by one historian as "the leading city of the richest region of the Roman Empire.” A recent study of Roman milestone markers demonstrates that mileages to other cities in Asia Minor were measured from Ephesus. It had a theater that sat 24,000 people and was home to the Temple Artemis aka Dianna. The temple is referred to as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The entire temple, which was a little larger than a football field, was made of marble including 127 columns which could reach heights of 60 feet. Being on the same level as a modern day New York, London, Tokyo, or Paris…Ephesus was a metropolis with great diversity of people and practices.
And it is here that Paul visits in Acts 18 and reasons with the Jews and others for two years. It is here that he leaves his church planting partners Priscilla and Aquila to firmly establish it. It is here that the great preacher Apollos joins the community. It is here that Timothy struggles with being a young pastor. It is here where a significant supernatural event happens when the Holy Spirit fills Jews and Gentiles. The Church in Ephesus is a big deal, and so in the Letter to the Ephesians we might expect to find some pretty good stuff about how to be a multicultural, multiracial, multipolitical Church. About 30 years after the events of Acts 18-20 Paul writes these words.
From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will—to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth.In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory. And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation)—when you believed in Christ—you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit,who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
What a rich introduction. There is a year’s worth of sermons in the first 14 verses. We’ve got predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, grace, God’s will, and the Holy Spirit just to name a few. But today what I want you to soak up is this words hēmṓn and hēmás. They are translated we, our, and us and they appear 11 times in 14 verses.
They are a unified body. They are this incredibly profound and colorful family. Where there very easily could have been factions and them’s and those people there were just we. In verse 1 Paul refers to all of them as saints. And Paul reinforces this in the next 8 verses.
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him,—since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength.This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realmsfar above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and he gave him to the church as head over all things.Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Verse 15...”Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.” How awesome would it be that one day late in my life I could write such a letter to regeneration Church.
Verses 17-18:
1:17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, 1:18—since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 1:19 and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength.
Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Eph 1:17–19). Biblical Studies Press.
Even though Ephesus seems to be getting a lot right Paul prays that it would happen even more.
The hope of His calling Genesis 2 Man rebelled and Genesis 12 God will bless every nation through Abraham. nation meaning ethnicity. Vertical reconciliation.
The wealth of the glorious inheritance in the saints... Horizontal reconciliation
9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great crowd that no one was able to number, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes and with palm branches in their hands. 10 And they were crying out with a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation to our God
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!”
Harris, W. H., III, Ritzema, E., Brannan, R., Mangum, D., Dunham, J., Reimer, J. A., & Wierenga, M. (Eds.). (2012). The Lexham English Bible (Re 7:9–10). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
If Genesis 12 is true and Revelation 7 is true then we must seek to be willing to engage in the struggle to be diverse but unified. To be different but still us, we, our. It’s not going to be easy. Our feelings will get hurt. Our expectations will be challenged. Our goals will need to shift, and we will need to devote ourselves to new habits, but if we do it then something more beautiful awaits.
It’s kind of like Paul saying to the Ephesians, hey you are a wonderful Church, but it can still get better.
The greatness of his power toward believers…the promise of resurrection and eternal life.
Sadly, it is this last thing that often trips us up. We refuse to do the hard work of horizontal reconciliation now because we know it’s going to happen in heaven. At least I think you should know. Like you are aware of the fact that English Speaking American Christians will be a significant minority in heaven, right? You are aware that the majority of people in heaven will have also lived in skin that isn’t white.
In order to become that kind of Church in order to be better prepared for that reality its going to take some courage, some confession, some repentance, some faith, and a lot of love. When we set out to plant regeneration Church this was our pursuit. We want to be a diverse Church that somehow navigates our differences in a loving familial kind of way. We wanted to become something more…more beautiful.
Are you willing to explore that with us? If so, the next few weeks are going to be an incredible challenge and blessing.
Pray