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What Brings the Greatest Pleasure? A Concordia sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14
What Brings the Greatest Pleasure?
Ephesians 1:3-14
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bring you as much pleasure as you receive it and share it with others as it brings God!
The Pleasure of a Job Well Done
This week I had to drop off nine cases of books at Concordia University. Mark Siegert, one of the professors in the Cross-cultural Ministry Center and I used dollies to bring them from the car to the building, a distance of about 100 feet up a gradual hill.
As we finished, we both laughed. For we both managed bookstores before we got into ministry, he ran Concordia’s and I ran Pepperdine’s. Back in the day, we would unload with our crew, shipments of 200 plus cases. And barely be tired. That day, we were both exhausted after three simple trips! On the way back, I thought of those days, I remember the feeling after a long day shuttling cases of books, and watching the sun go down over the ocean, drinking a coke with my employees.
There is something special about doing a good job, and the sense of pleasure from accomplishing it with people you call your friends.
If that is so, how much more pleasure would God have, from accomplishing His greatest work, and celebrating it with those he loves?
The Job He Has Done
In Paul’s epistle to the church in Ephesus, we heard this morning about the work of God and the pleasure it gives Him. In fact, Paul was so impressed, he told us about this work of God in 12 ways, which I want to go over again.
1. He blessed us with every spiritual blessing as we are united to Jesus
2. He chose us to be in Christ to be holy and without fault, any fault, as He looks at us!
That I think is a bit of work! At least in my case!
3. He adopted us into His own family! He did this, again, by uniting us to Jesus, to His death and resurrection! This wasn’t just down to make us happy, to give us joy, but this is what said gave God the greatest pleasure! Making us His kids in every sense of the Word.
4. He poured out His glorious grace on us, for we belong to Jesus
5. He is so rich in Kindness He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son
We need to pause here, and stop and think that Jesus’s blood paid for that sin you committed on Wednesday, yes, that one sin you thought you could hide, that no one would know about. He paid for that sin, with the blood poured out, there on the cross.
We need to understand this, not just the thousands of sins that we commit over a lifetime, but that sin that haunts us, that we fear if it became known, it would ruin us. That sin, as well as all the others, paid for so that we could be adopted.
6. He will bring everything together as one, at the right time!
What a day that will be, no more division, nor more struggle!
7. Because we are united to Jesus, we have an inheritance waiting for us, we have a place!
8. Because He chose us, everything in life will work out according to His plan!
now there are days I don’t understand how everything works out into His plan, and I have to be honest with that. There are those times I don’t see it, yet, what gets me through those times is refocusing on His plan, on His desire that all would be with Him! When I refocus on that, the suffering is still there, but somehow its grip on me diminishes in strength. For the more we look to Him, the surer we are of His love, and therefore His promises
9. Even though others were saved first, God made sure that because we have heard His word, He has saved us as well!
Number 10 in this recounting of God’s work is amazing, and I wish we had hours to go into it.
10. He identified us as HIS! He picked us out of the lineup and said, you are mine, and He did this by giving us the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, just as He promised long ago!
11. The Holy Spirit, given to us in baptism is the guarantee of the promises He gave us.
This wonderful comforter counted here as the guarantee of our salvation is just eh beginning of it. Again, another sermon series could be on each of these points that Paul is sharing with the church in Ephesus!
and the final one, something that expands on an earlier point.
12. He purchased us to be His people.
We are His people, and this is the work, the thing God has labored at, and suffered to see happen.
We are His, identified as His, adopted as His, united in Christ’s death where He paid for all our sins and freed us from them so we could have this wondrous relationship with Him!.
And someday, the sun will set for a final time, and all of us will arrive home.
This is what brings Him pleasure, not the
And find God rejoicing, with the largest of smiles, pleased at the work He has done, making us all His own.
Christianity is not just about getting us to heaven or avoiding hell, it isn’t just about doing good and not doing evil. It is about being in a relationship with God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ whose blood was shed so that relationship would become possible.
Not just for you and me, but for every broken person that Christ died for, for every person He would save, for every person that God would adopt, for we know the pleasure it brings Him.
May he work through each one of us, helping us to see many more come to hear His of His work in their life! AMEN!
The Lessons of Nostalgia….and Thinking/Being Home
Devotional Thought of the Day:
1 Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! 2 Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God. Psalm 90:1-2 (NLT)
331 Rest in divine filiation (the love between father and son). God is a Father—your Father!—full of warmth and infinite love. Call him Father frequently and tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much!, and that you feel proud and strong because you are his son. (1)
I have spent this fall in an interesting sermon series, one that has made me go back and look at part of my youth. In the middle of the series, I went home, driving the same roads that I’ve talked about in the series, walking the same paths my Dad and I trod with my son. Re-living those conversations when I was sitting in the backseat – a young child with his siblings.
It has been painful along the way, my dad passed away last year, and many of the journeys, to my old elementary school, to Lake Ossipee, to the beaches at Salisbury, even to the old candlepin bowling alley, brought back many memories, some good, some challenging. Lots of tears, and the odd reversal – now I was the dad, now I had a son.
All of this – there sermon series recounting backseat conversations of childhood, the trip, it all coalesces into a huge lesson of nostalgia, and a realization about God’s presence.
I overlooked – to an extent – the verse above in Sunday’s sermon. There is a lot there – He is our home, or as we heard a couple of weeks ago, our refuge. But to hear God is our home, the place we come to be nourished, to be sae, to come when we are sick and find healing and rest. There is a blessing there that goes beyond explanation. To realize we are the children of our Heavenly Father, that we are on this journey to our home, is overwhelming.
It even overwhelms the overwhelming challenges of this life.
He is our Dad, our Father, the one in whom we trust.
With Him, we are Home.
And He is here… with us.
Amen
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1312-1315). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
He Has Sent, and Sent Again, and therefore, We Call Out to Him!
He Has Sent, and Sent Again,
and therefore, We Call Out!
Galatians 4:4-7
† IHS †
May you truly know the grace and mercy of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, which has seen you through this year, and will accompany you in the next!
The Trinity at Work…as the Father sends.
One of the things I find fascinating is the heritage of the church in Ireland. Perhaps we know about St Patrick and his three leaf clover, or the a Celtic cross and the knots on it like I am wearing today, the kind of cross the one hanging over the altar is modelled after. There are others. Bede, the author of “Be Thou My Vision”, and one of the great historians of the early church, and Adain and Finian. The early Irish Christians were known for their artwork, especially their Biblical manuscripts and stone and metalwork. If you do a little research, they were also know for their missionary zeal, for bringing word of God’s love to mankind.
One of the reasons we did our Advent series on a Celtic look at advent, is that of the theologians I’ve read, the early Christians in Ireland and Scotland were amazed at the interaction of the Trinity in Scripture. The mystery of how Three are One, and One are Three, and the paradox of what that means for us.
It’s been said that every denomination plays favorites among the Trinity. Some focus on the authority of God the Father. Others, especially us in the Lutheran sphere, focus a lot on the work of Christ, how He came to make us right before God, how when we are joined to His death and Resurrection, we are cleansed of our sin. Others have focused primarily on the Holy Spirit, with an emphasis on personal holiness and using the gifts the Spirit gives us, as we are made alive through the Spirit’s power.
Yet God is three, and yet one, Three who love us and work in our lives. We see it in today’s reading, as we hear Paul tells us that the Father has sent Jesus, and sent the Holy Spirit, and that is why we can truly call on Him, our heavenly Dad.
He sent Christ to deal with our sins
We’ll get to the Father at the end of the sermon, so we start looking at what St. Paul tells us about the Father sending Jesus to us. Quite appropriate as it is the fifth day of Christmas, don’t you think?
Paul says in verse 4, “when the right time finally came, God sent his own son,” He sent Jesus. The word there for sent is “apostled”, to send someone was an emissary, an ambassador with the authority and power to establish a relationship.
What it would take, in this case, was simple. He had to buy our freedom from the things in our life that captivate us, that seem to control us, that oppress us and stop us from loving God, and stop us from loving each other and those that so dearly need it.
That is the what is so devastating about sin, the actions and thoughts and life that we count on, that society tells us brings us joy and fulfillment; they don’t bring us joy, they enslave us. We spend so much time chasing them, and when we “get” them, trying to defend them, or defend why they are the center of our life. This sin, for all sins are part, ends up owning us, owning our time, our lives, our souls.
Which is why Jesus came to purchase, why he came to take us off the market. To not only purchase us, but also to free us and to make known that we are adopted by the God the father. To enter into not just a business relationship, but also one of family, of not just respect, but love.
He sent the Spirit to confirm our adoption.
It is incredible to think of this freedom that has been purchased for us, these chains that have been broken. It is so incredible, that I think we often lose sight of the freedom, and the incredible relationship that we have with God. Which is why the Father sent the Son, and then they sent the Holy Spirit to us, to confirm in us that which Jesus had already accomplished.
If we need it confirmed, and I most definitely believe we do, for so many things would try to steal the peace and comfort of knowing God’s love, the Holy Spirit is here, in our hearts. The proof, the guarantee of God’s love for us, that He will never leave or forsake us.
Knowing that presence, knowing our place in His heart, and His place in our hearts, we are prompted to call out to God, as a child calls out to his father. Sometimes this is in time of need, in desperation. Sometimes it is in excitement, as we realize His glory, as we are excited in His presence.
Luther wrote:
63 In addition, you must also know how to use the name of God aright. With the words, “You shall not take the name of God in vain,” God at the same time gives us to understand that we are to use his name properly, for it has been revealed and given to us precisely for our use and benefit.
Since we are forbidden here to use the holy name in support of falsehood or wickedness, it follows, conversely that we are commanded to use it in the service of truth and all that is good—for example, when we swear properly where it is necessary and required. So, also, when we teach properly; again, when we call on his name in time of need, or praise and thank him in time of prosperity, etc. All this is summarized in the command in Ps. 50:15, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.” All this is what we mean by calling upon his name in service of truth and using it devoutly. Thus his name is hallowed, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.[1]
Here is why the Spirit comes and dwells with us, why He comes into our hearts, so we have such a relationship with God, that we can run to him, when hurt, so that He can comfort and bring us peace, or when we are excited, and want Him to share in our joy.
This is our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a God who comes to us, a God who brings us into His presence, who share with us His glory, who gives to us in ways that are so incredible, that we struggle to believe that He didn’t make a mistake. The entire Trinity, their work focused on communicating to you and I a love that is beyond anything we can imagine.
A love for us…
So what do you need to cry out to Him for?
So maybe this morning, we’ve found ourselves in need of crying out for His help, crying out with our last hope. This is your God, who sent Jesus to make it so, and the Holy Spirit to convince you that it is the fullness of time for those cries.
Maybe this morning you are just overwhelmed with His grace, and you need to cry out to Him with excitement, with praises that go on.
Both cries are appropriate, and we can, as His family join in those prayers, and in those praises.
Then, may we all realize, that because we are His children, because the Trinity has heard our prayers and praises, that we can dwell in their peace, in their love. For God is here, He has freed us from all that would hold us captive, and has made us His children.
It is the fullness of time for us as well…. To know the Lord is with us. AMEN?
[1] Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 373). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
