My Fair Share

INTRODUCTION

We are continuing our series this morning called Union. We are in the book of Ephesians, and it’s about who you are when you are in the family of God, in Christ. By the way, if you call yourself a “Christian” if you claim to have placed your hope and joy and satisfaction in the hands of Jesus Christ, if you have turned from your past way of life to follow him, you are saying you are “in Christ,” and all this applies to you. If you have not, my prayer is that you would hear today what a comfort it is to know this Jesus, to rest in his presence, to trust in him fully and completely.

PRAY

Today we are looking at the second of the “in Him” phrases, these short declaration right at the start of Paul’s letter. Last week, I shared that “in him” refers to your starting point in your relationship with Jesus. You don’t earn his love, his favor, you don’t need to prove yourself to him. Jesus descends to the depths of the earth to find you and bring you into his family, and in him you are redeemed, you are forgiven, and you are united. Before you have done anything, before you have even begun to live out your new identity, you can find this when you dwell in his presence. We struggle with believing this when we are going about our own thing, pursuing our own ways, and keeping Jesus at arm’s reach. So in order for you to truly hear and understand what I am telling you today, you’ll need to practice the art of stopping and resting today. I need you to take your Sabbath seriously, to stop looking out, to stop striving forward for one day, and to hear God’s voice calm your heart and inspire worship and awe of him.

Today we have a new identity word for you. Let’s open it up to verse 11:

Ephesians 1:11–12 CSB

In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

YOUR LOT IN LIFE

In these couple verses, Paul makes a big statement about your identity as a follower of Jesus. He says that, in Christ, you have received an inheritance. Now, it’s quite possible you read that and thought, what does that have to do with my identity, who I am?, the stuff that defines me? And that’s a fair question. What does an inheritance say about your identity?

I’ve been thinking through this over the last week, and here’s what I came up with: Inheritance actually has quite a bit to say about who you are.

First, an inheritance can mean a few different things. It’s not just a sum of money or goods passed down to you.

FAMILY

Inheritance tells me about your family. At a physical level, the features you have were passed down to you by your parents. Your height, your eyes, your genetic traits, you didn’t earn those. They were given to you. It’s a part of who are. But it’s not just that, the social opportunities you have, the advantages or disadvantages you have to succeed or fail, addictions that you struggle with, personality quirks or tics or disorders, much of this comes because of the family you grew up in. You are a product of your ancestry. AND what you do or earn or learn becomes the foundation for those who go after you.

NATION

Inheritance also tells me about your nation. As a citizen of the U.S. or any other country, you have certain rights or privileges that come with being born here. There are laws that favor you because you are a product of this nation. You receive support and have benefits offered to you that you don’t deserve for any other reason but birthright. Ask anyone who has journeyed here in search of a better life. It may be potentially a change for good, but there are absolutely more challenges and hoops and obstacles that must be overcome, language barriers and social norms and appearances. But often even those struggles are worth it, with the hope that you can build a legacy; your future family will not have the same struggles.

But even just your pride of nationhood, the cultural identity you have, you didn’t earn, that was passed along to you. Whenever I have visited a different country, I’m also curious to see the interactions that take place when I explain where I’m from. To these other places, my political or religious or societal or economic ideals are not defined by my individuality, but by my nationality. We truly inherit much from our nation.

FATE

Finally, inheritance tells me about your fate. There is so much bound to who you are and what makes you, you, that you have no control over whatsoever. It’s the hand you’ve been dealt. Or, to use another phrase you have heard of before, it’s your lot in life. And in fact, that’s literally what the word here means: Your lot (Gr. klero) has been cast. A lot was this object, like a stone or a stick or an arrow, whatever you had around, that you could toss onto the ground, and however they fell was the decision. And the biblical idea here is that lots were this sort of divine decision making process. To the human thrower, it was chance, but there was a conviction that God determined how the lot fell. There’s even a saying from Proverbs about this:

Proverbs 16:33 CSB

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

Here’s where this came to connect to inheritance. Casting lots were all about impartial human decisions that required a divine voice. And one of the biggest things that happened was when a relative died and he had land and goods that needed to be divided among his surviving members. How do you decide fairly? You cast lots. And if the lot fell to you, that meant that God determined the land belonged to you. You were his chosen one. And if not, too bad. God decided you weren’t deserving.

Here’s what all this comes down to, and why Paul brings this up. For the longest time, it was determined that if you wanted to known by God, and counted as his people, his nation, and lay claim to his land, then you have to belong by birth. You have to be of the right ethnicity, the right lineage, the right blood. Your fate was inextricably linked to your family inheritance. And if you were born a “gentile”, an outsider of Jewish heritage and culture and history, you could not claim God as your God, his hope was not your hope, his joy and peace and love, you could not share. And as sorry as that was, that was your lot. The die was cast.

Do you ever feel like fate has dealt you a poor hand? Like your inheritance just isn’t working out? I don’t know what it might be. Maybe it’s addictive behavior that was passed down from a parent. Maybe it was an abusive home that has affected relationships ever since. Maybe the financial situation you grew up in made getting an education impossible. And maybe you are the outlier. You overcame that poor hand and made it out to the other side while others struggle. But it still has a hold on you. Your identity is still locked into the odds you had to beat, and you still fight them every day.

Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you’re the child of privilege. You had two parents who gave you a great home. You grew up in the church. You’re proud of the nation you grew up in, you had every opportunity available to you. Your inheritance brought you prosperity. And because of it, you put all of your identity in preserving that privilege. You work constantly, because you can’t let the opportunities you were given go to waste. You fill up your weekends with family events and sports and activities because you worry your kids will resent you and the chain of prosperity will be broken. You go to church every single Sunday, you go to Bible studies, you give regularly, not necessarily because you have a relationship with Jesus, but your family is church-going people, and so are you.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Family and heritage and history and legacy are beautiful things and can be honored and valued. But ultimately they are mere shadows of the inheritance you have in Christ. And you can tell a lot about a your identity in which inheritance you cling to the most.

YOUR FATE IS IN GOD’S HANDS

Now Here is the message of the gospel. This is the good news of Jesus.

In him, you have received an inheritance… we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will...

While the twisted ways of this world kept casting lots to determine the course of your life, God has had a different inheritance in mind. He’s been planning this one since the beginning. Before the world foundations were placed, the all-powerful Creator laid the framework that would lead to you being called his child.

I’ve been working out this week what means to be called predestined; I get that it can be a loaded word. Maybe you have heard of it. It’s a word that has caused friction among believers, divided entire church movements into separate camps: the Calvinists, who are all about it, and the Wesleyan/Arminians, who are not so much about it. Now, before I wade too far into the weeds of theological argument here—which I do not care to do today—I want to introduce you to this word here, and what it means to your identity, and specifically to your spiritual inheritance.

So here we go: Predestined is the Greek word pro’orizo. Pro means first, or before. We use that root pretty often in English. The second word, horizo, is interesting. It’s a boundary marker, it means to define space and territory. It’s actually where we get the word horizon, which is the edge of visible space; go outside and look out as far you can, and when you get to the line that marks earth and sky, you are practicing horizo, boundary marking.

Now, here’s what I found that fascinated me this week. In the Bible, specifically the Old testament, the word is used 19 times, and mostly humans are the ones doing it. It’s used as a word of separation. I claim this territory for myself, these are the boundary lines, you can’t cross them because I said so. Separation, division, territory. For thousands of year, humans have been laying down boundary markers, drawing lines in sand, claiming territory and inheritance for themselves by casting others out. Your earthly inheritance, for good or for bad, is the product of this human boundary marking. Wars are fought over these, domestic and foreign. Family’s are torn up because of them. Churches are divided and separated because human beings have decided who belongs in God’s family and who does not.

Why do we do this? Because boundary marking is a word of power. You draw the lines, you get to decide who’s in and who’s out. Acceptance means worth and value—you’re the chosen one! Rejection means you are not enough. So we tirelessly work and fight and try to prove our worth to the human powers that offer acceptance, because their inheritance means the world.

But here’s where this word got me. Long before the world was even formed, long before humans started marking their territories. YHWH laid down his own boundary markers. He laid claim to this earth, and he laid claim to you. Before you ever came to be, God saw you and knew you and chose you for himself. And God’s boundary markers cannot be changed. Why? Because God gets what God wants. You were predestined, according to the plan of the one who works everything out the way that he wills. If God wants it, God gets it. And nothing will stop him.

There will be those who try. There will be those who try to define your worth by other means. Human lines of value will be drawn, boundary lines around how much money you make, or how much education you have, or how many kids you have, or how well-traveled you are, or who many friends you have, personally or in the metaverse. Or what skills you have or do not have. Human lines are drawn because they protect our human worth, they keep us safe from outsiders, they make us feel secure and safe. And most likely, you’ve either found yourself on the outside of one of these lines, or you drawn them yourself.

But the good news is that God does not care about these lines. God drew up the parameters of your inheritance, he determined your worth, long ago, and then he set in motion the plan to bring it all about for you. God’s inheritance means your worth does not fade or perish with this earth. The lines do not shift and change. You do not have to protect your value or prove it to anyone. Because at the end of the day, God wanted you, he pursued you. His inheritance means endless, overflowing peace, perfect love, pure joy and satisfaction and contentment. Total security. And God will and has done whatever it takes to ensure that you have now—not later, not when you die—you have now received this inheritance.

But there’s this thing about inheritance. Someone has to die first. In order for the Father to pass on the territory of heaven to you, he gave up his only Son’s life for yours. The Son willingly left his rightful place, at the throne of the kingdom of heaven, and died so that you, in his place, might be called sons of God.

RESPONSE: WORSHIP

What can you do when you hear this? To hear that Christ died for you and offers you a share in his own inheritance, in the abundant life of heaven? To know that your worth is not determined by the will of man, but by God? To know that you your security, your hope, is not the product of your life, but of Jesus’ death? Honestly, there is nothing that you can do to pay him back, or to prove him right, or to earn his favor. But there is one thing we can do.

We can worship.

Ephesians 1:12 CSB

so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

If you have put your hope in Christ, if your expectation of what is to come and who are is built around the person and work of Jesus, this inheritance is yours, and it is all because of who God is. You stand here today, secured and safe and loved and known, because YHWH is faithful. You are in family of heaven because YHWH is compassionate and gracious. You no longer bear the weight and burden of your sin because YHWH is forgiving. He is kind and loving and true. You are who you are, because he is who he is. And every time another enters the fold of God and puts their hope in Jesus, we turn to God and we thank him for working out his beautiful, good, perfect ways. For drawing near to hurting and broken people and laying down lines of love that welcome in, not cast out. One of the most beautiful things we do in response to knowing who God is by how he loves us is to love him in return, to say to God, you are the only thing that matters. You are the one who’s inheritance I care about. You reign and rule over all things, and because of that, I am found in you; I can’t explain it, I can’t fathom it, I can barely express it, but I am. My future is secure, my hope is found. My place is in you.

If that is your cry, let’s praise him together this morning.