FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

EPHESIANS 3:1, 14-21
January 19-21, 2013
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Pastor Tim Smith

Podcast: Download (Duration: 18:43 — 4.3MB)

Jan 20 from Saint Pauls on Vimeo.

3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— 14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (NIV)

The Bible talks about several different unions between God and his creation. There is a union between God and creation—the Concurrent Union—in which, as Paul says, “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). There is a union through which God preserves and cares for the world, as Paul also says: “God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Tim. 6:17). There is a unique union of God and man in Jesus Christ by which our Savior was both under the law and the lawgiver so that he could save us from our sins (Gal. 4:4-5). There is also a sacramental union of Christ’s body and blood with the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10:16). But here we learn about another kind of union altogether. It is the union of God, and here in particular, Jesus Christ, with each of us who believe in him.

Last week, Pastor Sutton showed us that “God looks at the heart.” Today, the Apostle Paul shows us that God also dwells in our hearts, and although we often think—correctly—of the Holy Spirit as the one who dwells in our hearts—and he does that beginning at our baptism—Paul’s point before us in Ephesians 3 is that Jesus Christ himself also dwells in our hearts. And it’s as we contemplate this truth that we meditate on this theme: HOW WIDE AND LONG AND HIGH AND DEEP IS THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

How WIDE is the love of Christ! – Paul reminds us in verse 1 that the work of Jesus includes the Gentiles. It was not limited to the Jews. This came as a surprise to people who were used to the idea of gods and devils being localized, so that if you had trouble with your luck or your fields or your finances, you might just move to a new place, and worship the local gods, and find better fortune. Even the Greeks thought that the Jewish God was for the Jews, and the Jews fell into thinking that the Jewish God was for them alone. But Paul points to one horizon with one hand, and to another horizon with the other hand, and he visually spreads out the hands of Christ on the cross—these are the people for whom Christ died. Not just a few. Not just those who love him. Not even just those who know him. No—Christ died for all. That’s how wide is the love of Christ.

How LONG is the love of Christ! – Paul describes the length of Christ’s love when he says this: “For this very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who believe on him and receive eternal life.” (1 Tim. 1:16). This is the love that Paul says “Surpasses knowledge.” This is the love that is patient with the sinner, patient with you, and you don’t know why. All you know is that, if God were not patient with you, you don’t know what you would do. You would be lost. If God embraced his anger over your sin, if God lost his temper with you and let go, how much more terrifying would that be than anything you can imagine? This of course is what it would be like to be in hell, where God’s anger over sin is never tempered by patience, never quenched by atonement, never satisfied that it has come to an end—God’s anger in hell lets God’s wrath fly at maximum velocity at the condemned, at full force, full tilt, and does not let up.

When you are caught in a bitter winter wind you have the hope that soon you will be in your car, in your house, or at your destination soon, where the wind can’t get, and where it’s warm and quiet and comfortable. The love of Christ has pulled us from the full vent of the wrath of God and brought us not into the eye of the storm, with storm and more storm all around, but into the love of God where the storm of his wrath will never blow.

The love of Christ has rescued us, so that we are, as Paul says, “Filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Filled to the top—like when you hold a glass of water under the sink and let the faucet keep filling and filling and filling. Grace, or as the Apostle John says, “Grace upon grace,” more grace after we’re filled with grace, keeps on filling us up, without danger of waste, and without end, because God’s grace never stops coming. It lifts us out of our sinfulness, and lifts us up. How high?

How HIGH is the love of Christ! – Jesus Christ dwells in us. Listen to Paul’s words again: “I pray that he may strengthen you with power…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” That’s not just a way of saying that Paul hopes that you have Christ in your heart the way that you keep the memory of your loved ones in your heart—No, this dwelling of Christ in your heart is how you are “Filled to the measure—filled to the top—of all the fullness of God.”

Our Savior lifts us up and carries us to the Father in heaven. In the Old Testament, the High Priest could only come before God in the Holy of Holies through the blood of sacrificed animals, through the ceremony of the scapegoat and the sprinkling of the blood of the goat that didn’t escape, and with that blood covering his sins, the one man on that one day under that one condition could enter for that one moment a year. But Christ’s blood covers us all, forever. We can enter into the presence of God the Father for eternity because our sins have been covered by the blood of the Son of God, and no other sacrifice will ever be required. You know the Taylor Swift song: Say the words with me and say them to your sins through Christ’s red blood: “We are never ever ever getting back together.”

How DEEP is the love of Christ! – The last verses of our text are also the last verses of this chapter and the hinge on which this letter to the Ephesians turns. Christ “is able to do immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” What are your fears? What are your doubts? What are your questions? The answer is in Christ. Jesus Christ penetrates our inner selves, dwells in us, and he knows our thoughts and our misunderstandings, our misgivings and our mistakes.

Do you know a parent—maybe you yourself are one—a parent of a child with a disability, or a birth defect, a syndrome or a spectrum or a deficit or some other disorder—there is no parent of such a child who doesn’t love and cherish that child.

You and I, all of us, are God’s children, and every one of us is a child with special needs. We have our unique sins, our private or personal or public temptations and missteps. And yet, our Father in heaven loves us. That’s why Paul has made these points. Before he goes on to the Ephesians about the way they should show their love for God, their lives of Sanctification, their lives of saying “thank you” to God with their words, and actions and reactions and even their thoughts—he wanted them to know just how deeply God’s love goes.

They say—they don’t know for sure—that at the center of our earth there is a heart or a core of superhot iron-nickel alloy, as hot as the surface of the sun. If we were able to tunnel down into the infinite heart of God we would still find the same love, burning hotter and hotter for us, and never fading. It is the love of God, the love of Christ which dwells in us.

Imagine for a moment that you are adrift at sea in a small lifeboat. You might have a paddle or even a rudder, but these things don’t accomplish much against the vast rolling waves of the sea, which have been carrying you along for many days without hope. Then another boat appears and comes right alongside—in your thirst and delirium, you’re too exhausted even to grab hold, but the boat tosses a line and a sailor even ties your lifeboat so that now you’re being towed to safety. There is now a tie, a connection, a union between the boats. You realize that you are being taken to where the other ship is headed. You are not in command, but you are being saved. You also realize that you’re main task is to see to it that you don’t untie that line. Don’t cut it. Don’t let it go. Try even not to trip over it. Cherish that line, that connection; relish the knot that has connected you to safety. If you cast off again, you will be lost.

This is something like the mystical union between God and us. He has rescued us, and we are now connected to him. In fact, he dwells within us. We are no longer heading wherever we wanted to go in our sinful state. And we shouldn’t care. That was what got us lost in the first place—let it go. But now God himself is steering the boat, and we go where his will drive us. We must never imagine that in doing so we somehow have ourselves become divine, and equally we are compelled never to cast off the ties that bind God to our hearts, the bonds of faith, of God’s love and of his forgiveness. So we turn as he turns us, we yearn for those things for which he yearns. We strive to be better Christians, better citizens, better parents, better spouses, better people, better Christians, precisely because Christ himself is here. His presence makes the devil cringe and cower, and makes us rejoice and revel in his love. He lives in us, and we live in him.

How wide and long and high and deep is Christ’s love. Love for us, love for you.

“Know this love that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled to the top
of all the fullness of God.” Amen.

EPHESIANS 3:2-12
January 5-7, 2013
Epiphany
Pastor Tim Smith

Podcast: Download (Duration: 16:10 — 7.4MB)

Jan 6 Capture from Saint Pauls on Vimeo.

“The first foundation of the salvation of the sinner is the merciful love of God, through which God is moved not only to want the deliverance of fallen humanity, but also to resolve to bring about this deliverance and to offer the means through which the lost can partake of that deliverance.”

The “lost” includes all of us. There is no one who is more or less lost than anyone else. There is no one who needs more of Christ or less of Christ than anyone else. We all need everything Christ has to offer. In Paul’s day, this meant that the boundaries of the Kingdom of God had seemed to have been moved by God himself. No longer was “Israel” a term for people living in a certain place on a map. The Kingdom of God, the true Israel, included Gentiles—people born outside the line of Abraham. God’s grace is for all. One of Paul’s great proclamations of this truth is here before this Epiphany, recorded in Ephesians 3:2-12.

2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. 7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

I: PROMISED TO THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH
II: MADE KNOWN THROUGH THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH

When I was a boy, I knew a woman in my church who worked at a security hospital much like the one over in St. Peter. There was a man there who she helped take care of, who had committed horrible crimes. I remember her wondering, even after his death, whether he ever could have been forgiven?

Who could we think of who might seem to be completely outside the sphere of God’s forgiveness? Would it be someone who had murdered the innocent, just because they were innocent? There are many candidates. What about someone who went on a rampage killing Christians—just because they’re Christians? There are a few who have done that. What about someone who had become a leader in a campaign against Christians, infiltrating churches and collecting lists, with the goal of destroying the Christian church, the Christian faith, altogether? And who almost succeeded?

The author of our text was that man. Saul of Tarsus had been a Pharisee and an opponent of Christianity, excelling in that opposition. He was there taking responsibility for the stoning of Stephen, he planned to draw out and persecute the Christians of Damascus, when God stopped him, personally, by appearing to him in a vision on the road up to Damascus. And Saul was changed by that vision. He became the very thing he had tried to destroy. In fact, Saul’s conversion is one of the most amazing miracles in the Bible. Because it was a turning point, not just in Saul’s life, but for the church, for the spread of the Gospel—for you and me.

Because God sent Saul—later called Paul—to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And that’s why he says in the first verse of our text, the administration of God’s grace… was given to me for you. Those last two words are so important: FOR YOU. The Gentiles—the Christian converts in Ephesus and around the world, even us right here—we are the “you” to whom Paul is writing and speaking. The administration of God’s grace was given to Paul for our benefit, for our salvation.

It’s no accident that we have entered into the kingdom of heaven. Paul was sent out to get us, through his preaching, through his years of ministry, and through his epistles we still read today as key portions of the Holy Word of God.

This was the mystery made known to Paul by revelation. The word “mystery” in the Bible occurs about twenty times, and it almost always has the sense as it does here of something that needs to be uncovered and explained. It’s a mystery that’s been solved—not a cold case, or an unexplained mystery that will cause people to scratch their heads forevermore—but a truth that has been proclaimed that simply wasn’t known before.

There were hints in the Old Testament that the grace of God was for more than just the children of Abraham and the children of Israel. The Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon and was left breathless by the word of God. Naaman the Syrian was healed by Elisha and became a believer. Daniel preached the word of God to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Ezekiel proclaimed the word of God: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their evil ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!” (Ezek. 33:11).

But now, Paul says, this message was being made known much more clearly: Forgiveness through Christ is possible for everyone: God’s Grace is For All.

This is God’s will—and it’s not necessary to notice this to understand the passage, but it’s comforting to notice that Paul brings out all three persons of the Holy Trinity when he describes God’s will toward the Gentiles. It’s not as if the Holy Spirit is more concerned about the Gentiles than the Father or the Son—no, it’s the will of the unified Triune God, as Paul describes in verses 2,4 and 5: “God grace given to me… the mystery of Christ (and the “boundless riches of Christ”)…revealed by the Spirit.” This was God’s will promised to the Old Testament Church, but made known more fully though the New Testament Church.

We are not worthy to be Christ’s ambassadors in the world, but nevertheless we are called to be so. Paul’s words, “Less than the least of all the Lord’s people” could describe any one of us, and how many of us have used these words to describe ourselves in our hearts! But God’s grace was given to us.

Grace is love we don’t deserve. When the most blasphemous are blessed, it is grace. When the most merciless are shown mercy, it is grace.

When the least sympathetic are shown sympathy, it is grace. When the unsparing are spared, the uncaring are cared for, and the blackest heart is turned white as new snow—it is grace.

The sinful are forgiven, and that is the grace of God.

The hopeless were given hope—and that was grace, too.
The exhausted were refreshed—that was grace, too.
The spiritually dead live again, and live forever—this is the song of grace.
The lost were found again—this is the laughter of grace.

The struggling and the parched are refreshed again and again through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament—what is this but the Bath and the Meal of Grace?

The wondering and the troubled are returned to the precious word through liturgy and preaching and this is the breathing of grace.

The absolution is spoken, and we know so dearly that we are forgiven: This, too, is the touch of grace.

I don’t suppose any of us will ever know just how distant it would be to be the unforgiven outsider Gentile, never a part of the kingdom of God, never to have known about the manger, the cross or the empty tomb. And by the grace of God, we never have to.

What we have is the message of these things to take to the world. To be patient with the stubborn. To be true to the skeptic. To be open and honest with the doubting. To hold nothing back from the questioning. Never to speak one thing and mean something else: Christianity is and never can be a message of lies or deceit. The truth is too precious to pepper it with anything else.

The angels themselves see the spread to the Gospel in the world—through our humble labor, our gentle patience and honest talk, and we see it, too. God’s grace is for all. It is the eternal purpose of God, accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.