Friday, March 28, 2008

Next Week I Swear

I am super busy. I apologize for all my empty promises in the past. This week I am giving 2 talks on top of all my other stuff, but next week I will have time to start blogging again. I will be speaking at a Fraternity conference this weekend, which is exciting, and in a few weeks I will be speaking to a Sorority. A few weeks ago I spoke at a Greek Leadership Conference, and since then have been getting requests to come and give talks. I have a heart for these kids, so I couldn't be more thrilled.

God is doing some amazing stuff at Umass, opening doors for me to meet students. We have been having some great Doubt Nights, which have just ended up being at my house on Tuesdays, which was not the plan, but kind of cool anyway. We feed the students, which any college kid can appreciate, and then have some great conversation about everything.

I promise to blog more about this next week, as I will have nothing to do, as well as the following weeks. I will be in N. Carolina for a week and Florida for a week, so won't have much to do but write and speak places, so I will catch all of you up on what has been going on in my life and in my mind. For now, here is this weeks sermon.

It has come to my attention that I have been to harsh on Umass basketball in my sermon a few weeks ago. It seems that the Umass teams that exist today are nothing like the teams when I worked t the Mullins, since these teams may be good. So I apologize to any Umass fans out there. However, as I say this, I would like to draw your attention to the Amherst College Quidich team, who from now on will be getting the blunt of my sports jokes, because even if thy are good, they are playing Quidich. I am glad that you laugh because, I you remember the school yard come back, “Did you stay up all night to think of that?” well in my case the answer is very often yes, and if you don’t laugh it makes me feel sad inside.

We are back to Ephesians this week after a brief break for Easter and we will be finishing up the third chapter of the book. Now, for the first half of the semester, as we have been going through the first half of the book of Ephesians, Paul has kept us in the heavenly realms. His language and prayers are lofty and theological. And there is good reason for this. In the second half of the letter Paul is going to talk about some pretty practical stuff. But before he brings us to the day to day workings of church, he realizes that there is a need to ground us theologically.

There are some very good reasons for this. How can we begin to do church if we don’t fully understand God, who he is, and what he has done. This is also a subtler point than we may think. Our theology defines us. Paul knows this, and so is trying to get the church all on the same page, trying to get them to think correctly about who they are and their relationship to God, and then after this task is complete, we will tell them how to live then, with this knowledge.

So then is this final section Paul is going to pray on last prayer. With this prayer he is going to try to cement in the minds of the Ephesians, what for Paul, is the most important of the theological concepts. And what is this truth. Turn with me to your programs:

Ephesians 3:14-21

14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that 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, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you 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.

What Paul is praying is the following: that we would be strengthened by the Spirit, that Christ would live in us more fully through this power, and that we would fully grasp what is meant by God’s love for us. That is a paraphrase, but it is the crux of the prayer. There then seems to be three parts, and at the risk of being redundant, I will repeat them. 1. That we would be strengthened by God, 2. That we would be filled more with Jesus and 3. That we know, truly know, God’s love. We will spend a little time on each of these things, and actually see that one flows from the others.

All that being said, a few weeks ago, we may remember that I preached about a section in Ephesians 2 where Paul fist prays for the Ephesians. In that prayer Paul talks about the overwhelming power of God. He reminds us about what this power is. He tells us that it is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. In that section he is praying the Ephesians may know what the power of God is. Here he is praying that they might have it.

Very practically we need to know what God’s power is before we can have it, but it also does no good for us to understand God’s power on an intellectual level if we don’t use it. Paul knows this, and is praying that first we would understand, and then, that we would do. Paul here is asking that we would be strengthened with the Spirit in our inner being. And this strength is going to be important for the remainder of the book. It is this strength that is going to allow us to live as Christians. As I said last time we looked at a Pauline Prayer, very often I find that we as Christians live defeated lives. This is partly due to our ignorance of the strength of God. Earlier Paul prayed that we would be able to grasp this strength. Today Paul prays we would have it.

Paul is praying here that we would be strengthened in our innermost being. In our innermost being. This is far more than some surface, good for one time, get out of jail free, kind of strength. This strength isn’t that we would be able to walk away from temptation on occasion, but that our whole being would always have this supernatural power. That this power would just become us. That we could consistently walk away from temptation. That living redeemed lives would be something, we don’t just long for, but actually do. Paul is praying here that the power that raised Christ from the dead would not just be some clever phrase that we pass along, but something we know to our core. He is praying that our identity would be fulfilled. We would not just speak in lofty language and fill our hearts with empty promises, but that we would become who God has called us to be. That we would live lives God has called us to live. That we would be strengthened in our inner most being.

This is something I have had a little bit of experience with. And I am actually not going to talk about drinking this time, though certainly it pertains. See drinking is part of my story, but it is really only small part. The truth is that all of my life was screwed up, and drinking was a symptom more than a cause of that. And then I went to detox and my life was all better. At least that is how I tell the story right. Well the truth is much more than this. See what I hadn’t done before detox was know the power of God. And it wasn’t just with drinking. In fact drinking may have been the last thing in my life to go out of control. My life was a mess in every aspect well before I picked up a bottle. I felt alone and powerless in other aspects of my life, and in a way that is what drove me to drink. Anyway, I went to detox, came out, and really what had changed was two fold. One, I knew the power of God, and two, I had it in my innermost being.

It was the only reason I am able to be here today. It is not like temptations have gone away. They haven’t. God did not remove my desire to drink, per se; he offered me His strength, which allowed me to fight the temptations as they came. In fact, I would almost say I have more temptations today. It is a lot harder to be a father and husband and obey Jesus than it ever was to be single. Today I have to deal with all the same issues single guys do, alcoholics do, but I also have to sacrifice myself for my wife and love my kid. Which seems like it would be easy because they are awesome, but when it is 4 am and you have to work in 2 hours and your kid won’t go to sleep, and your wife won’t make her go to sleep, it is a lot harder to love them selflessly, because they are a lot less awesome.

Anyway, the point is that I have been strengthened by his Spirit, through grace. But this strength has become me. I know I can rely on him in the future because he has proved himself faithful in the past. This Spirit who raised Christ form the dead, this Spirit of God the Almighty, is not only living in me, but accessible. Not only accessible, but abundantly so. Paul is praying that we may be transformed by this truth in all that we are. That the deepest darkest places would also be strengthened and transformed. That it is all possible, that God himself would do it. And notice then what happens. We are strengthened and through this we are brought closer to Christ.

Now this doesn’t mean that God has favorites or that if we sin less than our neighbor God somehow loves us more. God’s position doesn’t change, ours, however can. When Paul writes that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith in verse 17 and further that the fullness of God might fill us in verse 19, he is not saying that it doesn’t already. If you are a Christian, you have Christ in your heart. Jesus doesn’t leave you because you are struggling. We read throughout Scripture, beginning in the Law that God will not leave nor forsake us, his children.

What I believe Paul is communicating here is something about ourselves. It is what happens to us once we have been strengthened by His Spirit. Paul is communicating the change that occurs when we not only understand the power of God, but we live it. Paul is telling us about what happens to our condition when we stop living defeated, and instead accept the strength of God, let Him change our entire being, and begin to have the redeemed life He has planned for us.

And this is sort of a gradual change. The way I has worked in my life is that I accept a little bit of His strength, and somehow I am able to stop being sinful in a certain way, and this brings me closer to Jesus, which in turn gives me more strength. It is not that Jesus was any less in my heart, but that I was able to experience more of Him.

Let me give you an example from my life.

As I have said before, I was not the greatest husband when Sarah and I first got married. I am not knocking myself here; I don’t think any guy is a good husband at first. I had a wife whose needs were completely different than mine, and I had no idea how to handle this. For a while I threw myself into work, because it was easier to do that come home and work on a relationship. But I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but didn’t know what to do. After Sarah miscarried it got worse, and we were strangers passing in the night. At the same time my spiritual growth was not the best it could be either. Well there as a marriage conference hosted my MERCYhouse and after it Sarah and I were able to begin working on things. What I thought I couldn’t do, like change the way I talked, or be more selfless, began to change because of prayer and repentance. And soon we had a marriage again. And also my relationship with Jesus was better.

Part of the reason for this is when I knew I could not change I my own strength, I would have to cry out to Him and he would change me, in his strength. Once I was able to us the power that the Holy Spirit was providing, I was able to be the husband that God called me to be, and through this, He drew me to himself. Every time Sarah and I had a fight, I would run to God, ask him for his strength, and then approach Sarah, ask for her forgiveness, and try to make things right. I was able to do things that I never thought I could do, like humble myself, because I was relying on the Spirit and his power.

So, as I was strengthened each time, I was brought closer to Jesus. His fullness was more able to shine though, I let him live more fully through me. This is what Paul is saying here. And the converse is also true. If we are not living in His strength, we often feel alone and far away from God. I know I do. The times I feel furthest from Jesus are not the times I am suffering, or the times when I don’t know how we will pay our bills this month, or when we have had real pain, like death. The times I feel most unfilled with Christ are the times that I did not rest in His strength and decided to sin. The times that I have looked both temptation and God in the face and chosen temptation. The times I am felt as though Christ does not live in me are the times that I have tried to kick him out so that I might do as I wanted to, instead of what he would have me do.

This is one of the reasons that I drank for so long. I was sure that God wanted to be far away from me, a terrible sinner. I was sure of my salvation, but less sure that Christ would live in such a man as myself. And occasionally I still feel this way today. I would be lying if I told you that once I had experienced Christ’s power I never faltered. My relationship with God has not been one of a straight line up. There have been days and weeks and months where I would forget that the Spirit of God was in me and filling me with unimaginable power, and because of this would not live redeemed, and my relationship with God suffered.

But at the same time, I can say with assurance that as I have grown those times are getting fewer. Each moment hat I am able to walk away from temptation and rest in his strength, I am brought closer to Jesus. And this is Paul’s prayer for all of us. That we would not only know God’s power in theory, or have a relationship with Jesus in theory, but that we would be transformed down to our core, that we would have a real and vibrant relationship. That Jesus would be our strength and portion, savior and friend.

And all this brings us to the last prayer of Paul’s, which is where our sermon really lies. He prays that

…you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge

Paul’s prayer is that we would understand God’s love. Before we move on here, I want to make a few technical remarks. First, there are multiple words for love in Greek, and we need to know which one is being used. Also note that each word had specific and distinct meanings. There was eros which is a romantic love, but could also be used for beauty. So it could be conceivable to use the same word for your spouse and a picture. Then there was philia, which is a friendship love. Next there is storge, which is a love for a family member, and thelema which is love for prominence and such, and finally we have agape, which has no romantic connotation like eros.

Agape has to do with holding one in high regard. It also has a self sacrificing aspect, as well denoting a total commitment to the thing being agaped. Also, when used in the New Testament, it is found to refer to both friends and enemies equally. It is the word used by Matthew when he quotes Jesus as saying, “love your neighbor as yourself.” As well as the love used in John’s gospel when he talks about God. And it is the love used here. Again, this love has nothing to do with natural relations, like storge, and not romantic like eros. It is a sacrificial love.

Another technical note before we go further. Just because this love surpasses knowledge, as Paul says, doesn’t mean it is not knowable. I mean, this is what Paul is praying that we would do, know this love. How can this be the case though? I think the only way to explain it is by analogy. This first analogy is kind of the opposite of what we have going on here, but I think it is helpful to get an idea if the difference between different types of knowledge. It gives us a glimpse into the difference between knowing and knowable.

I tutor in Math occasionally. (And I’m really good if any of you need help.) As I have tutored, I have picked up on a curious phenomenon. People will know a formula, but have no idea what it means, when to use it, or how it works. What I mean is that they know some combination of letters and numbers and signs is supposed to be true, but they can not apply it. For example

If a > p then there exists a b, such that 0≤ b≤ p-1, and b is congruent to a mod p

What this means is simply that any number that is greater than p, when divided by p will have a remainder b. This isn’t really what this means, but this is church, not a math class, so I won’t get you all excited about geek-dom.

The point is that for a specific class, knowing some formulas about modular mathematics, which is what that last equation deals with, is very important. But now all of you know that equation too, but you don’t know it.

What happens when tutoring is they truck thorough the problems, knowing what formula they are supposed to use, but not understanding why or how- and then something happens. A light clicks, the wheel starts turning, and then they are making jumps that the book hasn’t told them to make yet. They know modular mathematics. It is a part of them. When they look at a problem, what they see isn’t numbers, symbols, and letters, they see math.

What they knew in theory, they now know in their being. That is an example of how English fails us, and how something can be known, yet unknown. Again, I think we have here a basic English problem. In other languages there are multiple words for various English ones. The French even have two words for knowing, savior and connaitre. Savior has to do with facts and connaitre with persons- and not facts about persons, but actually having met them and gotten to know them. So, in French at least, like math, you can know something, like the fact about a person, but not know it, because you have never met them. We can know a lot about famous people, but most of us don’t really know them.

What about what Paul is talking about. How can something be knowable but beyond knowledge? Clearly Paul thinks that God’s love can be known, but is beyond all knowledge. Can we find something else that can be known but at the same time beyond knowledge. I think the French gives us some clues to how this may be possible. I can know all the facts about falling in love with someone- how it is supposed to feel, how I will act, etc., but I will not know what falling in love is until I have done it. That example may seem like cheating since Paul is also talking about love, so I will give another. I am stealing this example from John Edwards, so if you have a problem with it, take it up with him. I am pretty sure he is just over the bridge.

Edwards’ example is relatively famous, and yet it is so simple- honey. I hope all of you have the spoons that were given out. I am going to pass out some honey; I don’t want you to eat it yet, but get a little on your spoon. I am now going to tell you some things about honey. It is made by bees. It is sweet. It is made also from flower nectar. It is also super sweet. In fact it is sweeter than sugar. More than this, it has other subtler flavors (like a good wine) that depend on the type of flower the honey is made from. Bears like it a lot. It is also wicked sweet. Did I mention it is sweet?

Now you all know that honey is sweet, right. Well if you don’t, I am telling you that it is. Here is the thing though, until you eat it, you don’t really know how sweet it is. You can eat the honey now. See, it is really sweet. God’s love may be beyond knowledge, i.e. facts and figures and things that can be expressed clearly in words, like the sweetness of honey, but it can also be known by tasting it, like the sweetness of honey. And this is what Paul is praying for the church. That we would know, eat of, drink in, know, God’s love.

So now, with the technicalities out of the way, let’s begin to dive into this love. Paul prays we would know the breadth and length, the height and depth of God’s love, this love that surpasses all knowledge. Now I just gave some compelling arguments about how something can be known, yet be beyond knowledge, but I now want to real that back in and say that, on some level, Paul is trying to communicate that God’s love can not be fully known, at least not yet. That is not to say that we can’t know it now, just not all of it.

Paul does pray though that we would begin to grasp it. And he says that it is big. Here these verses again

18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge

Do you hear how big it is? Paul prays that we may have the strength to understand just a little bit of it. This is the pattern that Paul is praying then, that we would be filled with strength grow closer to Christ, and as we do know more about this love that is beyond us.

Recently I had one of these experiences. Last week was busy. I know for most of you, you got to go on some cool trip, but I work for the church, and last week was Easter week, which means I was able to do anything but go on a cool trip. Easter and Christmas are very busy times if you are employed for the church, as you may have guessed. So, like the model employee I am, I did my work and planned an awesome Good Friday service. Well, somewhere in the week, I kind of lost sight of Good Friday, and just wanted to plan the darn thing so I could finish my tasks.

And then Good Friday came. I was very stressed because things weren’t done when I wanted them to be done, I had more work than I should have because of some lousy time management the previous days, as well as a sick kid, and on top of all this, the computer decided to stop working. But the service started nonetheless, and things were going pretty well, I think, and then someone gave their testimony, and I stopped working for a bit, and listened. And then some songs were played, and I stopped working and I sang, and then some Scripture was read, and I stopped working, and I worshipped. And by the end of the service, it was all I could do to not cry on mic. And the reason for this?

I was able, at that moment, to understand a little bit of this love that surpasses all knowledge.

As I heard about what Christ did, how he was flogged. How the flesh was torn from his back, how he walked to a place called Golgotha, how he fell with a 100lb cross on his back, how he was wearing a crown of thorns. As I really listened to how he was stretched out upon a wooden beam and how his arms were then nailed down, how his feet were bound and nailed as well, how the crowd mocked him, about how the Father turned away and let his one and only Son slowly suffocate to death as his mangled, beaten, and bloody body did everything it could to survive, and how with his last breathes he asks that his God, the very one who let him up there to die, would forgive the very same people who hit him, spit on him, crucified him. As I heard afresh that the sinless Lamb became as sin so that I might go free, I understood this love that surpasses all knowledge, and I cried.

I cried at his pain, I cried at my guilt, I cried out of joy. This is what Paul is praying for all of us. That we may know with our whole being this love, the height and depth and width and length.

I am going to plat a short clip that helps illustrate this love. ( clip is from “Blood Diamaond”)

That Father took back his son, and loved him in spite of all the terrible atrocities that his kid had committed. And this is only the tip of the iceberg for God’s love. For one, we are adopted. God was under no obligation to love us, like a father is for his kids. We were not his kids to begin with. We were orphans, rebellious jerks, who forsook God and decided to go it alone. Like the Prodigal Sons we walked away, telling God he was dead to us, and gave up our family rights. And God took us back anyway.

As we stood before him, crying about the sins we had committed, about how unworthy we were, we cried along with us and told us he loved us anyway. This is more than the love of a father; it is the love of the Father.

But more than this, not only did we walk away from him, we then killed his one and only begotten Son. We didn’t just murder others, we murdered the one most precious to him, and still he held us in his arms and told us that he loved us.

And not only did he hold us, he is the one ho sent his son to die for us in the first place. He loves us so much that he was willing to sacrifice is son, the holy and blameless Lamb, that we might be able to fall at his feet, and he look upon us and tell that he loves us.

This is the love of God, that he would take on human flesh, suffer and die, become as sin, that we might become sinless. This is the love of God, that the wrath that was meant for us, was poured out on another, Jesus Christ, that we might go free.

This is the love of God, that regardless of who you are and what you have done, no matter for how long or ho far away you have run from Him, no matter how great the atrocities, or how dark your soul, He would pick you up and tell you, his adopted child, that he does not care, he forgives you, he loves you anyway.

This is the Love of God.

This is what Paul desperately prays that we would understand.

This is the height and depth and breadth and width. This is the Love of God!

If you are here today and you want to experience this love that I am talking about, it is not hard to get. All you need do is lay yourself before the Father and ask for the forgiveness he wants to give. There is nothing you can do that is too great a sin. There I no thought or act so grievous that he won’t take you into his arms and tell you that he loves you.

If you are not a Christian, this first starts with becoming one. Accept the ransom the Jesus paid for you. Accept his love. He died a horrific death that you may live, and all he asks is that you accept it. Come before his Cross, kneel before his thrown, and ask that you may be forgiven today. Ask that you may be welcomed into the family, ask that he would adopt you. Find your identity in Him and begin to know this love that surpasses all knowledge. Cast off this world and its chains, and run as a child into the arms of the Father, who has been waiting for you all this time. Throw off your despair and pain and brokenness, and accept instead the full measure of his love, its height, and depth and breadth and width. Come to God and regain the life he always meant for you to have.

If you are a follower of Christ, I say the same things. Know more fully the love he has for you. Even more so now that you are his son or daughter. Were before you were orphans, not you are His children. Nothing you can do will change that fact. You are sealed. The Spirit lives in you. You have access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Stop running from God, and instead move to him. His arms are still out for you. You are his child. He loves you. He loves you with a love that is beyond description, with a love that drove him to a cross, with a love that washes you clean as the morning snow.

I want all of us to hear, one last time this prayer of Paul’s:

14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that 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, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you 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.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

This weeks sermon

I usually try to open with a joke, but over the past few sermons I have given, I have talked about my awesome style way to much to make yet another joke about it, and other than that, I really got nothing, so I won’t open with a joke today.

Over the past few weeks we have been walking through the book of Ephesians. For the first for weeks we learned in whom our Identity was found, and then over the last two weeks we began to learn what that means. We went from Christ to Corpse, and then from Christ to Community, and now we will continue with from Christ to Calling.

Before we move to the text for today, we should put it in context. We are reading a letter written by Paul to the Ephesians. Paul began the church there, and then moved on to plant other churches. And the state of the Church at Ephesus has been deteriorating ever since. Paul eventually sends Timothy, a man who is like a son to him, to straighten out the mess. The general push of the letter so far has been, as I already said, the Ephesians Identity in Christ. He has been telling them what it truly means to be a Christian. It is not just going to a worship service once a week. Paul is giving the Ephesians some amazing truths. He has said that we are predestined in love, that we are fellow heirs with Christ, that we have immeasurable power through God’s Holy Spirit, that we are given a rich inheritance from God, that we have been raised from death to life, and that the old patterns of the world that used to define us no longer have any sway.

With all this already said, then, Paul goes on to Ephesians 3. Turn with me to your programs:

1For this reason I, Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

We are going to look at this section in two parts. I will call this the first part, and the next part the second part. In this first part we are dealing with the first six verses of Ephesians 3. Now, I admit that the first few verses seem a bit convoluted- and they are. Part of the reason for this is that we are reading a translation from Greek to English. Regardless of what translation we use, it is still a translation, and as such can be kind of sloppy at times. We also need to remember that the Greek text has no punctuation. In fact, there are not even spaces between the words. This is where the art of translation comes in, but this is also where the greatest discrepancies can be found as well. After reading and re-reading this section over and over for the past few weeks, as well as reading multiple translations, I feel confident that we can read verses 2-5 as an aside. If Paul were writing for a modern English audience he most likely would have put parentheses around these verses.

So then the paragraph could be rearranged to read like this: I, Paul, the guy in prison, proclaim the mystery of the Gospel to you. And the mystery is that there is no longer Jew and Gentile. Gentiles are part of the same redemption that the Jews are privy to. You know that I am telling the truth because you have heard of my testimony and know me. This mystery was no known to our ancestors, but know is being revealed to God’s Prophets and Apostles.

Now I will admit that I am taking some liberties, and definitely don’t look to what I just said as Scripture, but that is the general push of the first six verses of chapter 3 of the book of Ephesians. Now all that in and of itself is a full sermon series, but we have already covered a lot of what has been said over the past few weeks, so I am going to deal very lightly with the text here.

What is important here is that Paul has credentials to speak about the faith, and then the truth he speaks. The truth is that there is no longer a dividing wall between humanity, that in Christ all are equal. All are called by God and given the same faith to cry out to him. There is no special place based on race. All who are in Christ are fellow heirs and part of the same body.

But we covered that last week, which is why I am not spending a lot of time on it today. The sermon for today has to do with the remainder of the text. The second part, if you will. Turn back with me to your programs. We read

7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, 10so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

The second half of this section of Ephesians has to do with calling.

Paul says of this gospel he was made a minister. And what Gospel is this? The one he has been talking about. It is the Gospel that assures us of our salvation, raises us from the dead, and destroys walls of hatred. What Paul is saying here, which he says many other places is that he was made an Apostle to the Gentiles- he didn’t chose it, it chose him. This is closer to our modern sensibilities than we think at first. One of our favorite story lines is the reluctant hero, who in the words of Shakespeare has greatness thrust upon them. We love to see the average person perform extraordinary tasks because the situation demands it of them. This is the plot of the greatest movie ever made, “Braveheart”, right. William Wallace just wanted to live free in a quite village in Scotland with his wife, but his wife is killed and he then leads his country to freedom. Although he didn’t know it at first, he was called to be the leader of a revolution. This is the plot of the “Die Hards”, “Star Wars”, and even found in the Giant Alien Brain episode of Futurama.

And this is also the story of Paul. He was a Pharisee who in his early days would not so much as cross the shadow of a Gentile. His salvation was in his own holiness and legalism. He helped kill Christians in Jerusalem, and then sets his eye of the church in Damascus. On the road he is struck down and blinded by Christ, who asks him why he is persecuting the Church. Paul then gets to Damascus, although severely disabled, and sent to a Christian, Ananias, who heals him. Paul then wants to go to work for the church, but, rightly or wrongly, no one trusts him. He gets taken in by this crazy Jesus follower named Barnabus. Barnabus wants to set Paul loose and let him work for the church for some insane reason. Barnabus goes to Antioch and sees all these Gentiles coming to Christ, and is fired up. He leaves and decides to find Paul, who is in Tarsus at the time, and takes him back to Antioch. Paul gets to guest preach at a synagogue, and instead of the usual sermon, talks about Jesus. Some Jews believe, and others want to stone him, so Paul and Barnabus are forced to flee in the middle of the night. But this first missions experience set Paul on fire, and he decided to become a life long missionary because of it. The Apostles are fine with this since they still have their fears, and don’t want him hanging around Israel, and so Paul begins his job of missionary to the Gentiles.

Now this story doesn’t seem very much like a calling at first. It is not like Paul converted to Christianity and instantly knew that he needed to go. But what did happen is that circumstances and experiences moved Paul forward to a place where it was obvious what God had called him to do. The case could be made that this is only because Paul was called to ministry. And if we just looked at Paul’s life, you would have an argument.

It was fairly obvious to me that I should become a Pastor of some kind. Recently I feel more of a call to church planting, and hopefully, God willing, I will be a biblically faithful Mega Church Pastor with even more awesome shirts to wear, shirts that I can only dream about now, shirts that, unless I was a Mega Church pastor would tell the world that I am that guy, shirts that… anyway, back to the sermon.

But not all of us have a clear call, or at least we don’t think we do. I would bet that as Paul stayed in Tarsus, a recent convert to Christianity, an outcast- because he betrayed his Pharisee family, and wasn’t accepted by his Christian family yet- he wondered what his calling was too. I can see him asking God, if he wasn’t meant to be a Pharisee, what was he meant to be. Does this sound familiar to anyone in the room?

But notice that just because Paul wasn’t sure for a time what his calling was, doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. He actually had an extremely important calling. It is the same for us.

And this idea of calling doesn’t start in the New Testament. It is actually one of the first things God does. To get to the roots of calling, we need to go all the way back to Genesis 2. We pick up the story of creation in a Garden that God has created for this new creature he will call man. He forms him from the dust of the ground and steps down from heaven to breathe into him the neshema, or breathe of life. He then, in a move that is straight out of cartoons, picks man up, and places him in the Garden. God then causes all the plants he had previously created to sprout up with in the confines of this garden. And then what? Does God say, just enjoy what I have done? No. He gives Adam a job. We read in Genesis 2:15

15The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Adam was called to be a gardener. And it was a holy calling. But then Adam screws the whole thing up by not shepherding his wife properly, who gets deceived and eats of some forbidden fruit. God gets mad, asks Adam what happened, at which point, like a petulant child, he blames everybody but himself. God then tells him that part of the punishment for his sins would be that, in Genesis 3:17-19

17And to Adam he said,

"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
'You shall not eat of it,'

cursed is the ground because of you;

in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return."

So then work becomes toil. What was mean to be fun and relaxing becomes hard and stressful. What God designed to be good, we twisted into something terrible. But the idea of Calling was not killed. Later we read about Abraham being called. Moses was called to lead God’s people to the Promised Land. Now there was brokenness involved and failure, but he was called nonetheless. Later we read God telling Moses that Joshua should succeed him. God tells Joshua that he had been called to finish Moses work. After Joshua we have Judge after Judge arising when God calls and restoring Israel. After this we read of God appointing Saul as king, and later David. David was a sheep herder with no experience in International Relations and didn’t even have an Economic Stimulus Package, but God uses him anyway. He calls David to be Israel’s king, and, wouldn’t you know it, all of David’s experience as a shepherd culminates in his kingship. He is able to kill a giant because he had to defend against lions and bears in the past.

Later we have a period of Prophets. These were men who God gives a message, a vision to, and then tells them to relate it to their country men. God calls each of them. It is fairly obvious as a calling, since each one of them was killed, and you would have to be either called or crazy to want a job that leaves you friendless, penniless, and thankless.

And then we have Jesus, who in a very real way called each one of his Apostles. And nothing of their past was wasted.

The calling, which began in Adam, continues to Paul, and is still given to us today. It may not be as easy to figure out, and there may be periods of wondering, but that doesn’t disprove its existence. The difference between our calling and Adams is one of function, not form. What I mean by that it we are not necessarily given a directive from God in a picked-up-and-placed-in-a-garden- and-handed –a-rake kind of way (although we may), but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a holy calling.

We are told that there is one body many parts. Paul, in the last few verses even refers to the church as a body and us as its members. We are told in other Epistles that we have gifts given to us individually, and for the community, or body. We are also told that these gifts are divvied out by God himself. God decides who is a hand and who is an eye. It is not us. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I we were all to chose which part of he body to be, I don’t know anyone who would pick armpit, or that spot between your feet that gets all the gunk in it, but these parts are of absolute value. Without and armpit, where would the arm attach? God, being bigger than our selfish desires, knows this, and so creates many parts so that they all may function properly.

Now, you may object and think that the gifts are Spiritual gifts; they have nothing to do with vocation. And on some level that’s true, but on another, it is far off. How is the church to function with no money? It can’t right. So someone needs to make money to pay the pastor. And if you are the one working to pay the pastor, and you don’t have the spiritual gift of administration, you will not be a secretary very long. God didn’t create you to be a secretary. But he did create you to be something, and our gifts may be able to direct you to where that is.

Notice though, how Paul came to have the calling he did. He says back in verse 7 he was made a minister according to God’s grace. It was not because he was so great- it was because of Grace. Paul knows first, that he has a calling, and second, that it, like everything else, was a gift of Grace.

Now for a while, this is something that I struggled with. When I came to Umass, I felt like I was the new cool Christian (I know, there is really no such thing, but I thought then there was). I had just come off from a Bible study I was leading at my High School, as well as being, I thought, the most valuable staffer at a Christian camp. I thought back then, that I was called to be a pastor; however, I thought it was because of how great I was. I thought that God needed me, sort of. Now, on some level, I knew he didn’t need me, per se, but, on the other hand, who else was he going to use? Those other kids? I was much better than them.

I was in fact so important, that I didn’t need to follow all the rules that other Christians had to follow. My pride, like so many before me, led to my destruction though. I ended up in a downward spiral that would last for years, and leave me scarred, in debt, and utterly broken. Which, in some way, was a good thing, because I finally understood this grace that is spoken of so much in the Bible.

Paul kind of shares my story, a little. At some point in his life he was converted to religion. He did all the Bible studies he could, answered all the questions right, did all the right rituals, thought he was the new cool Pharisee. He was, in his own words, a Pharisee among Pharisees. And at some point his pride caused him to fall. He thought that his way was so right Jesus couldn’t possibly be the Messiah. And a man who worked so hard at trying to be holy before God, misses his opportunity to actually be holy, and instead goes about persecuting Christians. And God strikes him down. And Paul repents and converts. And Paul becomes humble.

Paul knew who he was, a murderous blasphemer who should have not been blinded by Jesus, but destroyed by him instead.

But instead of being destroyed, God, in his Grace, saves Paul, and more than this, gives him a calling. And he doesn’t give Paul a calling that is totally foreign to him. God doesn’t say I will now make you a Shoe Salesman, (not that there is anything wrong with shoe salesman) but instead gives Paul a calling that is inline with everything Paul had been working for. God uses Paul’s knowledge of Scripture, as well as his racist past. Paul can teach the Bible, because he knows it. He can reach across cultures because it is part of his redemption. He can tell others to tear down their walls, because he has had to tear down his own.

This is my story too. I felt called to be a pastor, but fell due to pride. However, I am preaching to you right now. What happened? I became humble- don’t laugh, that’s not a joke. Seriously though, God used my passions and desires, he used my past and my experiences, and by his grace I am able to do what I always felt called to do.

The greater principle here is that of redemption. God redeemed Paul’s life. That means he is saved yes, but it also means that everything else can be different too. God’s plan isn’t that we are saved, but still have to live will all our junk and skeletons until we die and go to heaven. God’s plan is redemption. In a very real sense, it is for right now. Two sermons ago we learned that God redeems our lives, last week we were told that God redeems our community, and now, we are learning that God also redeems our calling. Though Paul was the least of the saints, he was given, called, by grace, the privilege to preach to the gentiles. God redeemed him then. Paul was redeemed from death, redeemed from racism, and redeemed in vocation.

And God does the same for us. Though work became toil, God’s plan had always been to redeem that through Jesus Christ. God has a calling for you. He can redeem your past. By his grace you may truly live the life he has for you. You may have no clue what your calling is right now, that does not matter. You may not be able to see how God will use your past, that too, does not matter. He will.

Before I joined staff here, I could not see how God would make me a pastor. My resume doesn’t exactly shine in the personal purity department. I struggled with what I was to do. I got a job at Mullins Center, worked hard, and thought maybe that was what I had to do my whole life. I couldn’t see working for the church. But God had different plans, and the desire I had stored up in my heart he made come true.

And more than this, my past has been used. I have been able to minister to people with drinking problems. I was able to hang out with Umass kids. I was in a fraternity in college, and I drove it into the ground. I took us from an official chapter with 30 members to having only 4 in one semester. Part of the reason for this is that I just pledged drinkers like myself, and more than half of them flunked out the next semester. They were great guys, but we drank more than went to class, and it is awfully tough to get through college if you don’t attend. But even this has been redeemed.

Recently I was asked to speak at the Greek Leadership Conference at Umass. I was asked to talk about how I ruined my fraternity as well as what I have learned since. And since then, I have been asked to come and speak at a Fraternity and Sorority about alcohol abuse and leadership principles. I wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t live the life I did, but more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to do this if God had not extended his grace, and not only redeemed my soul, but my life.

That is not to say that work isn’t hard. Sometimes it is the hardest thing I have ever done, but it doesn’t have to be toil. The days that it is hard, I can cry out to God and ask him for strength. Instead of looking as work as an end, namely to make money, I can now look at it as a means to worship God. I no longer need to find meaning in a job, because my meaning is in Jesus- work is just another way to express it.

We as Christians can accept this redemption and work differently than the world. We can do what our boss asks, even if it is stupid, because we can submit to him as unto the Lord. We can work hard, not to make ourselves look good, but to make our supervisor look good, and to make the Christ in us look good.

I know I talk about Mullins Center a lot, but it is the last lay job I’ve had, so just bear with me for one more story. Before I left, I worked for this great guy named Spen. Now Spen, although a great guy, was a little OCD. Everything on his desk had to be in exactly the same spot as it always was, or he couldn’t do his work. So, obviously, we would routinely mess with his desk. That’s not the story though.

See, because he was OCD, he wanted things done his way. Sometimes his way was good, sometimes, me and my crew thought his way was less than good. Sometimes it may have even added work onto us. If I was not redeemed, and my job not redeemed with me, I may have just done things my way behind his back. Now I am not perfect, and sometimes I did this, but for the most part I tried to honor him. I would defend him to my crew, do as he asked, and even try to anticipate his next wish. Why? To make his life easier, to give him grace, to show him Christ. And although the other guys complained and toiled at the task at hand, I just needed to work. This is how our work can be redeemed.

And then I got to take a position of work that was more of a calling. I get to wake up daily and do what I have been created to do.

This is not to say I don’t wake up some days and wish I could go back to bed. I don’t think Paul was always happy about not being able to sleep in either (I just assume everyone likes sleeping in as much as I do, even the Apostles, ‘cause why wouldn’t you). But when I really think about it, I wouldn’t want to do anything else besides what I am doing. If I were to win a billion dollars today- which if you believe my email from the deposed king of Nigeria, I have just waiting for me in an off shore account- I would be doing exactly what I am doing now. Well, I shouldn’t say exactly. I would pay someone to mow my lawn, and clean my house, but vocationally, I would still want to work for a church and plant my own someday. I would still think about how I could do some art to bring a different face to worship, and I still would feel the most alive when I am up here speaking. And it is the same for Paul.

He starts off this chapter reminding the Ephesians that he is a prisoner, and he ends this section telling them not to worry about it. He says:

13So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Don’t loose heart. It is okay that I am suffering. If I had a billion dollars, I would still be in a Roman jail awaiting execution. How can Paul say this? It is his calling. In Acts 10, the moment of Paul’s conversion we read:

10Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord." 11And the Lord said to him, "Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, 12and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." 13But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. 14And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." 15But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. 16For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." 17So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." 18And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19and taking food, he was strengthened.

Paul’s suffering was part of his calling, and Paul knew it. How can Paul be so nonchalant about it? Look at Paul’s life. First, he is redeemed. He no longer needs to be a slave to sin. Next, he no longer has to hate. After that, he gets to plant multiple churches. He is the liaison between the Gentiles and the Jews. He gets to see many become Christian, watching them cast off the chains that he still remembers. He watches person after person become redeemed by Christ, and move from death to life. He then watches these disciples faithfully pass on the message of Jesus, and watches the churches he started grow and flourish. He then gets to shepherd them, becoming their spiritual authority. And finally, he writes about half of the New Testament. And the price for all this- prison and death. Not so bad.

I mean we are all going to die anyway, and if God is in charge, you’re going to die when he wants you to, and not a minute earlier, so there is no need to fear death. Paul gets this, embraces his calling, and so can tell the Church at Ephesus, look, its no big deal. This is part of the calling, and I have accepted it. More than that, I have been born for this very purpose. I would have it no other way.

Don’t mishear me, not all of us are called to die for Jesus. Don’t get scarred. That is not what I am saying. I am saying though, that if it is in your calling, when it is time, you wouldn’t have it any other way. I am saying that each one of us does have a calling. I am saying that this work can be redeemed from toil. We can have redeemed work lives, just like we can have redeemed though lives, redeemed relationships, redeemed anything.

This salvation that Jesus offers us is for the right now, and is a salvation from, not just death, but from our former life. By accepting Christ, we not only get into heaven, we join the Kingdom of God here on Earth- and our lives can look completely different, can be completely different.

If you are sitting here today and wondering what this life is for, or what you are supposed to do with the rest of your years, I tell you, you have a purpose. God has created you for a calling. It may not seem obvious to you right now what that is, but you have one nonetheless. When Paul was in Tarsus, he had no idea that he was to be the Apostle to the Gentiles- but he was. When Paul listened to Jesus call and found a man called Ananias he had no idea that he would write parts of the Bible. And when Paul went to Antioch with Barnabas he had no idea that he was going to plant some of the first churches the world had known, but he was.

The common strand flowing through all of Paul’s converted life was that he never stood still. He didn’t always know what his next move should be, so he would move in a direction until he was told not to. If he had sat in Tarsus and never went to Antioch, would he have ever caught the bug for missions? But he was obedient, and faithful, and open to what God was doing in both his life and the lives around him, and because of that he, not only starts a church in Ephesus, but later writes them a letter explaining the mysteries of the Christian faith, and we still read it today.

If you don’t know what your calling is, move. Pray, ask God to direct you. Examine yourself, find out what you are good at, and what you love to do. What would you do for a living if you had a billion dollars? Get into community, ask them what they see in you. They often see things in you that you can’t see for yourself. Start living a redeemed life at work, at home, in community. And most importantly- move. God works through our movement. That is not to say that sometimes we are not called to be still, but even then we know by moving. Follow Barnabus to Antioch. Don’t stay in Tarsus until you figure out what your calling is, that is not how it works.

If you are here and you are not a Christian, hear the new life Jesus is calling YOU towards. His promise is not just of a room in the clouds, but of a new life right now. The barriers between you and God can be broken down, the walls you have erected between yourself and others can fall to the ground, and the toil of life can become a joyous calling. You can have the life God originally created you to live, if you would only accept it.

I’m not saying it is going to be all sunshine and roses. I have tough days and depressed days, and days when I don’t want to follow this Jesus guy, but even then, it is infinitely better than what I had before. I no longer need to feel purposeless, since He has given me purpose. I no longer need to feel isolated and alone, since He has given me His church. I no longer need to hold onto resentments since He has forgiven me. I no longer need to toil since He has given me a calling.

You too can have this redeemed life that Paul is talking about, that I am talking about. It is by grace. It is a free gift of God. You can’t earn it. You can’t work for it. You can’t buy it. It is free. And it is yours if you want it.

If you are here and you are a follower of Jesus, I implore you as I did in my last sermon, to accept this abundant life that we are given. Stop living defeated. Now, the last time I said that, it had to do with the sin that hangs so close to us, and this time I say it about everything. Stop living defeated at work. Stop living defeated with no work. Cling to God and ask him to reveal the calling he has for you. He created you for a purpose, and part of that purpose is a job. It is meant to be fun. It is meant to be worship. Stop complaining at work, and instead work as unto the Lord. Stop being lazy, and work twice as hard as the world. Stop sitting in Tarsus and follow someone to Antioch. Stop lying down in defeat and start moving.

The worship band is going to come up and start playing, and I encourage you to use this time to search. Search yourself, search God, search the Scripture. Repent of just trying to toil through life, and come before God asking to work. He has created you for so much more. He has created you with a calling.