Your Glory
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 23 viewsNotes
Transcript
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
I was not around for the conflict with the national church that the ACNA came out of. I started walking on the Canterbury Trail shortly after several conservative Anglican movements began. I did speak to one priest who described a regional meeting and that helped me understand the need to stand apart from their former church home. He described a moment where one of his parishioners was called on to read a passage of Scripture, one that lists the qualifications for a minister in the church. In the middle of the reading, people started laughing. The parishioner looked around her. Did I have food on my face? Did I misspeak? My friend described afterward approaching some colleagues who had been laughing and asked about what had happened. They replied that the Scripture passage didn’t describe anything they were remotely interested in being characterized by. Something was seriously wrong.
This would have been an eery moment, watching Scripture being laughed at by people who had bee followers of Jesus. It makes me think of the moment in Acts 19 where Paul and Timothy are shouted down with “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.” Part of why I bring this up is because it happened in Ephesus, and our passage is written to Christians who would have remembered that event. And it’s also a picture of what it means to belong, what it means to bear witness to the truth God has entrusted to us. And Paul explores those themes in the epistle reading today.
Our passage in Ephesians starts out with “For this reason…” Well, it looks like we need to backtrack a bit for some more context. For what reason? Let’s back up and look at our starting point. The verse before our passage goes like this:
22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
And even this is saying more than it at first appears. The you is Jews and Gentiles, in Ephesus and in general. So, in Christ, you Jews and Gentiles are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now, for this reason, and because God brought a better and clearer revelation to the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, Paul can say with authority the following from vs. 6
6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Not through the apostles of the church, or the priests, or even primarily through the Eucharist. Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Now what is the gospel? Gospel means good news. It’s the report of the truth about God reconciling the world to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, that because of those events, death does not have the last word, and we will live forever with the one who saved us. That is the good news, that is the Gospel. And that news is what makes Gentiles a part of the promises of salvation that the Jews were chosen to bear for millennia, that the true God would be their God and that they would be his people, that he would set up an everlasting kingdom of justice and peace, of safety, righteousness and love, one that cannot be conquered. The Jews lived with that hope. Through Jesus it became more than a hope, but because of him, the hope the Jews had was a new reality that begins to unfold, and the news itself, hearing and believing that news is all it takes to be a part of it.
Paul goes on to tell us that God made him a minister, a bearer of news so good it can save you, to bring it to the Gentiles, as he puts it, “to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light the eternal mystery of God’s plan. God had a plan. He kept it hidden for ages. And now, through the church, in this season after Pentecost, of the church’s birth and expansion, this plan of God is ready to be revealed to everyone, little kids, older folks, people far away, people nearby, even principalities and powers, ancient spiritual authorities that probably thought they should have seen it coming. But they didn’t, because God was saving the good news to be revealed by the people who benefited by it, the church, made up of Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ. And now, it’s up to us to unveil it for everyone and everything. So this news is what makes us belong. It’s what we hold in common. And this tremendous mystery, that’s been kept in secret until the right time, has caused Paul to suffer. He’s in prison. He’s persecuted. But he tells them not to lose heart over his suffering for this thing, this treasure, this news, because it’s their glory. He doesn’t want them to be distracted, to value their common glory less, simply because he’s persecuted over it.
So I want unpack how important this good news is. First, it’s important to note that news that isn’t shared isn’t news. And if hearing it can bring you or your neighbor eternal life, this news not being shared isn’t any good. So the good news is only good and news if it’s shared. If you had a laser pointer that could turn things to gold just by pointing it at something, would you use it? If you had a laser pointer that could cure someone’s cancer just by pointing it at them, would you use it? If you didn’t, would it be fair for someone to take it away from you and give it to someone who would use it? Probably! Why? Because with something that can do that much good, you owe the world, you owe humanity, you owe your neighbor to use it to transform their lives profoundly. And how much more so for eternal life than even a cured disease, or some financial gain! A tool that can do more good than either of those things has been given to you. Paul is suffering for it, but he doesn’t want them to forget that it’s their glory. It’s your glory, even when it brings suffering. A piece of knowledge as weighty as the secret plan of God, given to you for revealing to the world, is a secret that will bring suffering sometimes when it’s brought to light. When Paul brought it to the Ephesians there reached a point where they were in a giant amphitheater and the whole city gathered and shouted them down, yelling “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” for hours and hours. When confronted with God’s ancient, but newly revealed secret, the world, the spiritual principalities and powers have stuck their fingers in their ears and yelled, “La la la la” for two thousand years now. And it can still happen today. But we shouldn’t lose heart. If it comes to a point where we are laughed at, shouted down, legislated against, beaten, or killed, that doesn’t stop the good news from being our glory. And Paul wants us to remember that.
Paul next tells the Ephesians his prayer for the Ephesians. He prays this way, speaking of God the Father:
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
He prays that they would be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in their inner being. If you’re going to carry something as ancient and important and world changing as God’s eternal plan for saving humanity with you, you are going to need a strong heart, made strong by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that Christ can dwell in your heart by faith. Paul is asking Jesus into your heart. Paul is praying that Christ would dwell in their hearts, in our hearts, by faith. Faith is a response of trust and belief, one that hopefully comes to characterizes us. From that strong spiritual position, where we’re strengthened by the Holy Spirit, with Christ dwelling in our heart, through a response of belief and trust in him, Paul is praying that, being grounded in the love of God in Christ, these Gentile Christians may have the strength to comprehend this gift of God that they now carry into the world: the wisdom of God, the commandments of God, the interconnected narrative of God’s word. Because to know God’s word, is to better understand the context for the secret you carry. The more you know about why the secret was kept secret, the more valuable the secret is when it’s revealed. We can look back at the Old Testament and see the vehicle for God’s secret plan of salvation. We are shown how necessary a new solution is. We are shown how other plans that make sense to humans are not going to work out and that helps us know that new alternative plans either aren’t all that new, or don’t compare to God’s plan in comprehensiveness, or ease of application. If a vaccine could give us eternal salvation, God’s plan of “hear and believe” is easier to accomplish. So Paul’s praying that they will grow in the knowledge of things of God, because as they do, it will make them experience Christ’s love all the more. More true knowledge is better for your faith, not worse. The more you can see about Christ as the new Adam who did not sin, as the Joshua who accomplished a harder mission, as the Son of David who wasn’t led astray, as the uncreated, eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the more you learn about the process of crucifixion, the more connections you see from thousands of years before Jesus pointing to him, the more you are prepared to see Jesus as he is, and the more you can do that, the more you will love Him as secret, as Son, as the source of goodness, as Savior, as Messiah, as human, as God, as friend and brother who gave up his life for you to be saved. And as you increase in your love of Jesus, that love will expand from head knowledge to experiential knowledge into what Paul calls being filled with all the fulness of God. The goodness of the gospel is something your head can always learn more about. And it’s something your heart will grow to appreciate, magnify, and glory in. And you will be equipped for that thing that is your glory: to reveal the long-kept secret, the good news of God, in Christ Jesus.
So Paul wants us to be strengthened in our common identity, as bearers of the good news. It’s here that we find belonging and meaning and love in Christ. It’s this mystery that we do in remembrance of him in Communion. Let it be what gives you life and encouragement today and always.
I’ll end our time with Paul’s words from vs. 20, but before I do, let me pray Paul’s prayer for you, for us.
Father, we ask that according to the riches of your glory, you will grant us to be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend together, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.