God's Gift (Ephesians 1.3-14)

There have been many words used to describe Paul. Apostle. Missionary. Visionary. Revolutionary. Tent Maker. Trouble Maker. Tyrant. Misogynist. Close Minded. Open Minded. Intelligent. Rigid. These are just a few of the words and titles that have been given to Paul over the centuries. Some were given by enemies, some by friends. Some have been given by those who have studied him thoroughly and others by those who have had a passing acquaintance with his writings (i.e., they have heard about what was written).

But there is a title that applies to Paul that is often ignored. That is the title of pastor. Pastor. The word is one that brings to mind all kind of images. But the one that comes to mind the most is that of a shepherd. It is from this image that the word comes as it is a part of pastoral, or one who works in the pasture. And Paul is one of whom we do not think of as a pastor. Pastors tend to stay in one place and work with one community. Paul did not stay in any one community for a long time, three years being the most that he stayed anywhere. So, why give him the title of pastor? Why not the title of evangelist and leave it at that? Well, because Paul was a pastor. Oh, not in the traditional way that was described earlier, but in a way that we can all understand.

See, in his letters Paul is writing to encourage, to give a push that was needed, to celebrate with those who celebrate, to admonish those needing it, and to mourn with those in their grief. These are all things that pastor’s do. But for today we will be looking at the one area of Paul that is often overlooked: that of an encourager or a bringer of good news.

In many of Paul’s letters there is instruction and admonition that is needed to correct a situation that was out of hand. This could be the Judaizers in Galatians or one of the many situations with the Corinthians. Paul is always writing and discussing what needs to be done and how there needs to be discipline among the disciples. This is what the most well-known letters of Paul are composed of.

Ephesians is a letter filled with good things. It begins with a call of blessings to God for what God has bestowed upon the Christians. It is a letter addressed from a Jewish Christian to a church full of Gentile Christians. It is a letter full of doctrine and ethics, teaching that is necessary for the church to grow. And it begins with God’s gift to humanity, the doctrine of election.

When I was in the process of coming to this position, I had to sit with the Presbytery’s exam committee to see if I was orthodox enough to be a part of the presbytery and to be a pastor of the church that I was called to (if you do not know which church that is, where have you been?). When the exam began one of the committee members asked me what was one doctrine that I had trouble with that the Presbyterians affirmed. See, we all have trouble with some point of doctrine. It is just human for us to have issue with something that we do not have control over or something that seems to us to have been decided long ago but does not have much to do with today.

My reply was without much of a pause: I said election. See, I had grown up Baptist and we believed that there was something that we had to do for salvation. We made the choice to follow God and Christ. We walked down the aisle to the strains of “I Surrender All” to claim that we were going to follow God, also known as giving your life to Christ. It was what we did that brought this about. We had the faith and we were the ones who were exercising it. Election, we were taught, took the decision out of our hands and made us just puppets to God.

So, you can see that I would have some misgivings. But I also said that while I had trouble with the doctrine, I also knew that it was there in the Bible and therefore I had to wrestle with it like I had to wrestle with other doctrines and teachings. The answer drew some nods around the table and I must have said something correct because they passed me on to be accepted into the presbytery. But the question still lingered with me. What is it about the doctrine of election that brings about so much controversy? And what does this portion of Ephesians tell us about it? What does it have to do with God’s gift to us as humans?

One way to look at this is to see what it is and what it is not. Let us look first at what the doctrine of election is not.

Election is not divine determinism, where God is a tyrant who turns humans into robots without any functioning will of their own. It is not something that takes away our faith and makes it superfluous. It is not something that takes away a call for evangelism. It is not something that takes away a need for active discipleship. And most of all it is not “bad news”.

Theologian George Stroup gives five points of what election is to help us understand the doctrine. The first point is that election is a statement about the wonder of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Election becomes misunderstood when we begin to seek the limits of its scope. This would include wondering who is in and who is out and who belongs to what camp. What election affirms to us is that the grace of God in Jesus Christ is beyond anything that our wildest imaginations could possibly fathom. It is important because it tells us about who God is and about those who have received the grace of God in Christ.

Second, election is all about the sovereignty of God. This passage is full of the telling of God’s work in making us destined for adoption, in the mystery of God’s will and in the inheritance that comes from God’s election of us (see verses 5, 9, 11). Election is good news because it reminds us that we belong to God, not because we were less sinful or did more work that made us better in God’s eyes, but because God chose to be merciful to us.

Third, “God’s election is always “in Christ,” and Christ is “the looking glass” in which Christians should contemplate their election.” (Stroup, Feasting on the Word, 568) The appropriate response to the grace in election is gratitude and praise. Karl Barth said that gratitude follows grace like thunder follows lightning. When we look upon ourselves it is easy to become discouraged about our stance with God. There is nothing that we can do to remedy our stance. But in Jesus we see the mercy and grace of God and realize that those have been extended to us through Jesus.

Fourth, election is a reminder that we are adopted children of God. Because we have been called, or elected/chosen, by God to be children of God, we have the same rights, privileges and inheritance as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We have the grace of God that brings new life to us that will never be taken away. Our lives have been changed and we will never be the same.

Finally, election is not something that makes us special in relation to other people, but calls us to action. We are called to follow Christ, to take up our cross and follow him. We are called to a life of active discipleship not a life of taking it easy because we know that we have been elected by God. God in election calls us to the specific tasks of service to both God and our neighbors.

Election is found throughout the bible. God elected Abraham and called him to a new life. God also called Isaac and Jacob to be a part of the plan of redemption. But the most obvious example of election in the First Testament is the redeeming of the children of Israel in the Exodus. There God called them out of slavery and made them into a new nation. They had done nothing to deserve this and were unable to save themselves. And yet, God called them and gave them new life.

God calls us in the same way. We have done nothing to merit God’s grace. But as Paul says: “God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ[1]”. In God we have a new life and a new inheritance.

And further we have a pledge toward our new life. This pledge is like a down payment, a guarantee that what has been promised will come to fruition. The pledge that we have is the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit we have been sealed with God in Christ so that what had been promised to us in election will come to pass.

God’s gift to us is the gift of election. As I have hopefully explained, we have done nothing to earn this gift. But God in mercy and grace gave us this gift. What are we to do with it? Do we look down on others and say that we have the gift and it is a shame that others do not? Or do we go out and tell the world the good news that has been give to us? Do we go out and do the good works that God calls us to do because now we can to those works and follow the commandments because we have an example in Jesus who shows us the way? Do I really have to answer those questions?

Election can be a difficult doctrine. But it is one that shows us the grace of God through the Trinity. Daniel Migliore says that election has one central purpose: that all the works of God (creation, reconciliation and redemption) have their beginning and goal in the free grace of God made known supremely in Jesus Christ (Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding 3rd ed. pg. 91). Because of this the Trinity, which exists in eternal communion, graciously extends that same communion to us. Election makes no sense without the work of the Trinity.

Paul knew what election meant. He understood as a Jew and as a Christian what it meant to have the grace of God extended to him. We have missed a great deal of this, I believe, because we live in a society of the myth of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. We have to make it on our own and owe nothing to no one. But in reality, we all owe something to someone. Someone always has done something for us to help us along the way. The grace of God in election far surpasses anything that we or anyone else ever did for us. May we remember this gift of God in our lives. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.