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.

This weeks sermon

If any of you were here over winter break, you may remember that I made a lot of references to my shirt in my last sermon. I want to assure you that I will not be making any references to it this week- although, like the last one, this is an awesome shirt.

For the past few weeks Robert has been walking us through the first half of the first chapter of Ephesians. We dedicated the first three weeks of the semester talking about the first 14 verses of the text. Because I am not the lead pastor, however, I don’t have that privilege, so I will have to talk about the rest of the chapter in only 1 sermon. Also, because of the time constraints, I can’t give the 4 hour sermon I planned, so we are just going to have to move relatively quickly through this section.

If we remember the first few verses of Ephesians, Paul was telling the church some important truths about who they were- about their identity. Paul tells us that if we are Christians we have been chosen by God, in love, that he has adopted us, that we are holy and blameless before God, that we have an inheritance in Gods kingdom.

We were told last week that if we faithed in God we would be privy to an inheritance, and not only this, but that once we did take that step of faith, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of this inheritance. You may remember the analogy that Robert used last week of a trust fund. We can’t get all that we are inheriting now, but it is there. We get to have a little bit now and again, and part of this is the Holy Spirit.

This is where we pick up the text today. In light of the past 14 verses, the past three weeks sermons Paul writes:

15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The first thing Paul does here is thank God for these people. He says I do not cease to give thanks for you. And the reason for this is because he has heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love toward all the saints. Paul hasn’t really met most of these converts in Ephesus. Yes he planted a church there, but then he left. Now he hears of all these new Christians, and thanks God for them. Why God? Simply because of what we have been talking about. Repeatedly throughout Scripture, Paul is praising God for Christians. He is praising Jesus for calling us to himself. He is thanking God that there were people that God not only called to himself, but then responded to the call and faithed in Jesus. He is not excited about the good works they have done, or how well they follow tradition, he is excited because of their faith, and that is all.

Not only does Paul give thanks for them, he remembers them in his prayers. Paul is telling the church here that he cares for them. It ii one thing to be thankful for something, it is quite another to sacrifice time and energy over it. He doesn’t just see this church and think, well a church, that’s nice. He is proactive in his love for them. He takes time out o his day to pray for them.

What Paul is praying is very specific though. Lets look back at our programs and re read this prayer of Paul’s. It says:

17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe

We are going to stop and camp out here for a while. What Paul writes is very dense, so lets unpack it. The first thing that Paul prays for these people is that they would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God. This is the foundation for everything else. They have faithed in God, and now Paul prays that they would get to know God more. It is from this knowledge that the other part of Paul’s prayer flow.

At the simplest level, this is also how our faith can grow. I would guess that most of us knew very little for God when we first became Christians. I am not necessarily talking about head knowledge. May of us may have had a firm grasp theologically about God before we got wet, but we didn’t know God. He wasn’t our friend yet, and as such, we had no part in him. Just as we were taught last week that you can know about parachutes, yet you do not know a parachute until you have used one, so can we know abut God, but not truly begin to know him until we faith in him.

And this is part of what Paul is talking about. But from the next few verses, we can also infer that Paul is talking about straight knowledge in part as well, about knowing some facts. In fact, as we read on, what we will se is that Paul is talking about taking some facts that he is going to tell us, and making them a deeper knowledge.

Paul continues in his prayer that their hearts would be enlightened. Now today we think of the heart as being the center for emotions and feelings, right. We would never say use your heart to figure out that math problem, or just follow your heart when it comes to chemistry. We use our head for that. We follow our heart when it comes to love, but not for rational thought. This is not how an ancient would have thought about the heart. When we are told in the Old Testament, and by Jesus to love our Lord with all our heart and soul, we are not told to just love God emotionally. We are to love God with all we are. The heart, to the culture of the time, was both the rational and emotional. It was the epicenter of everything.

This is the context into which Paul asks that their hearts would be enlightened. He is praying that they would know truly and deeply, both on an intellectual level, on faith level, and on an emotional level. He is praying that their whole being would hold to the truths he is about to speak.

And what is this revelation that Paul prays the church at Ephesus would know? It is the fllowing:

that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might

This revelation is the knowledge of the hope to which we have been called, the knowledge of the riches of our inheritance, and the knowledge that we are able to gain immeasurable power through the hand of God, through the working of his might.

Before we go any further, I want to just point out a minor detail that is in fact very important. Notice in the previous statements who is the object, and who is the subject. It is God’s hope to which we have been called. It is God’s inheritance, into which we have been adopted. It is God’s power being given to us, and it is God working out his great might. Paul is not teaching some prosperity message. He is not spouting some name it and claim it message. This power is not in fact ours, it is God’s, and by his miraculous grace, we are able to share in it if we have faith.

This faith is not some mystical belief that is we just believe enough we can over come anything. It is not this idea that if we loved God enough, had enough faith, we wouldn’t get sick or have struggles. Like I said before, this is not a prosperity gospel message. This faith is the faith that Paul has been talking about all along. It is the faithing in God. It is, again, the idea of a knowing how a parachute works, and jumping out of the plane.

All that being said, Paul is telling the church a truth that I believe we here at MERCYhouse need to hear. We have been called to a hope that is Gods. We have an inheritance that is so right, we could not possibly imagine it, and we have immeasurable power being poured out on all of us who believe in Jesus.

Often we as Christians have decided to live a defeated life. I imagine that some of those at Ephesus also were living as if they were defeated as well, so Paul reminds them of what them have. In the earlier sections we read that we have an inheritance, and what we get now is the Holy Spirit. What Paul is telling us in this section is that even though we don’t get the entire trust fund now, what we have is so much more that we could ever use. God doesn’t just give us enough to get by, he gives us riches in the here and now.

So often I hear Christians talking about their addictions and struggles, and the general tone of the conversation is that they can not over come it. I here people say that if we are all sinners, what is the point of trying not to? If we all struggle, what is the point of fighting? They hear stories of other Christians who are struggling to over come some problem and wonder if it is worth it. They try and they try to stop what ever they are doing that is wrong, and they can’t, and they wonder is it worth it.

But listen to what Paul is saying. We have an inheritance right now! We have Power right now! We have a hope right now! This call of Paul’s is not for some future life. We have access to the trust fund God has set up. God is pouring out his riches upon us right now.

I know what some of you are thinking, “Well that’s great, but how do I get it? It is wonderful to talk about all this power and inheritance, but how does it look in an actual life?” Well, as you may have guessed, I am going to tell us.

I want to first just say that I don’t have a magic formula. There is not necessarily some list of things we need to do, and then we get to cash in our weekly check form Jesus. That is called legalism, and id a-biblical. What I do have to offer is a bunch of examples of how I was living less that godly in word and deed, and was able to over come the sin that had he in its grip and live more of the redeemed life that God has called me to live.

My first example is always my first example. The reason is that it is so dramatic. I used to be an alcoholic. I say used to because I know longer even think about alcohol. It has lost its grip on me. However 6 years ago, it was a much different story. All I could do was drink. I drank when I was happy, I drank when I was sad, I drank when I was angry, I drank when I was lonely, I drank when I was surrounded by people, I drank… well you can see where this is going. I was also a Christian at the time, but I was hopeless. I saw no was out of my alcoholism. I knew I was redeemed, but my heart was not enlightened. I had forgotten the hope to which I was called. I had forgotten the Power of God that was given to me, if I would only accept it.

I tried everything to not drink. I tried not drinking hard alcohol. That didn’t work. I tried only having a few beers… that didn’t work. I tried not drinking… that definitely didn’t work. I tried everything I could, and nothing worked. So eventually, like so many Christians before me and today, I resigned my self to sin.

And then I hit a bottom and surrendered my drinking to Jesus. I finally admitted that I could not control it, and asked God to take over. And he did. The moment I asked him to, he showed up and freed me from the bondage of my sin. What I did differently as realize that it was God and not me that could fight my battles.

Remember earlier I said that it was a minor point but very important who the subject and object of Paul’s writing was. This is why. It is God’s power, not ours, God’s inheritance, not ours, God’s hope, not ours. What we need to do is to have our hearts enlighten to this fact, and allow God to work his power in our lives.

Now my drinking story id very dramatic, but it was also very long ago, and it was ruing my life to the outside world as well. I was so far in debt because I spent all my money on booze that I hadn’t paid rent in 6 or 7 months. I was never in class, and would shake in the mornings. So it was easier to turn to God, in some ways. I know many of us struggle with hidden things, or things that are not ruining our lives, so let me give a few more examples of how God has worked in my life to call me to his inheritance.

As many of you know I am married. As many of you also know I have a kid. What many of you may not know is that a few months before Kiera was born, Sarah had a missed miscarriage. What this means is that the baby died, but Sarah’s body didn’t recognize it as dead, so held on to the baby. This time was the toughest few months Sarah and I have had to go through. Because her body didn’t miscarry we kept having hope that maybe the doctors were wrong and the baby was ok. It wasn’t. Eventually Sarah had to have surgery to remove the baby before cancer and other complications took effect.

When we were told that the baby was dead, Sarah and I hade been married less than a year. We had never had to do the grief thing together, and I had not had time to learn how to be a good husband. What happened was, instead of running to God, we both ran to other things. I turned to work and began staying very late at my job at the time, working 80 hours a week because it was easier than going home and dealing with reality. Sarah and I drifted apart to the point that we were just two people living in the same house that got to see each other naked sometimes. And it seemed hopeless.

We ha forgotten the hope that we were called to. I had forgotten the riches that God promises. So instead of praying and fellowshipping and loving my wife, I worked, and worked, and worked. I had my job my functional savior, and found my hope in promotions and money.

However, I still had the Holy Spirit, and just like my drinking, he doesn’t let us live unconvicted forever. This time, though, instead of resigning my self to the sin, I had known God better. He had brought me out of dark places before, and so this time I could turn to him as well. I could give over my grief and sin and reclaim the hope he had for me.

And yet again he was faithful. He brought me and Sarah back together, and allowed us to have a marriage again. He then went on to give us the cutest kid you have ever seen.

After Sarah got pregnant with Kiera, it also became apparent that I needed to quit smoking. I don’t know how much you know about smoking, but it is awesome. I never wanted to quit, and there are still days that I wish I smoked. I struggled day after day with quitting. Trying everything on the market. And nothing was working. But then I began to pray about it, have others pray for me, confess to friends when I relapsed and bought a pack. I cried out to god for the riches he has for me, and was able to quit.

I had struggles with lust and pornography, with anger, with control, with feelings of inferiority or superiority. And God has worked in me throughout to call me to a higher life.

I know what you are thinking, you don’t struggle with what I struggle with. Your addictions are no where near as bad as mine. I am such a worse sinner than you. I am in such a dark place that I could never have victory over my sins. And on some level you are right. YOU can’t have victory over your sin. That is not what Paul is saying. What he is saying is that Christ can have victory over your sin. He says we can have all this in the strength of God.

One of the reasons that earlier I said I can not give you a formula to follow to gain power over your sin, is that you are not the one who is gaining the power, but rather God is. It is God’s power, God’s strength, God’s inheritance, God’s hope.

And this Power is mighty indeed. Here is how Paul describes it:

20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Now I don’t know about you, but I know some relatively powerful people, and have seen some amazingly powerful things, but I have never seen a power that can raise from the dead.

I used to do research for some professors at Umass, and one of my projects was in the astronomy department. My job was to take the largest Radio Telescope and remotely control it to look at the center of galaxies and collect data from it. This was the world most powerful radio telescope. More that this, I was looking at regions of our Universe that are so powerful light itself can not escape. Regions of space so full of energy the very atoms we are made of would be ripped apart. But I never saw a power that could reverse natural law and raise the dead.

I have also met a lot of famous and powerful people. I drove around Scott Wylan, the lead singer of STP and Velvet Revolver, had dinner with Slash, and even got to wear his hat. There is a family friend who I so wealthy he gave Umass their hall of fame and buys any John Adams and JQA memorabilia to give back to the town of Quincy where he believes it belongs. I have rubbed shoulders with politicians, televisions personalities, and rock stars. But I have never met anyone whose name is above all others. I have never met anyone far above all rule and authority. Even our presidents and top officials have to answer to someone.

This is the power that Paul is calling us to accept. This is the person we have working in us and for us.

The power we have access to now is the same power that raised Christ form the dead and seated him above all names and rule and authority.

\Paul is reminding us again what our identity is. Earlier he reminded us of where identity is found, and now he tells us what that means. It means that we have an inheritance right now that we can tap into. The Spirit of God dwells inside of us at every moment.

If you are here and are defeated Christian, here this anew. Let your heart be enlightened. Because of our faith in God you have access to power beyond compare. YOU can have victory over your sin. Right now.

Yu no longer need to look at internet sites you shouldn’t be looking at. You no longer need to lust in your heart or sleep with someone who you are not married to. You no longer need to hold onto anger an resentments. You no longer need to let alcohol or drugs control you. You no longer need to live in depression and despair. You no longer need to live two lives, one that appear holy, and then the real you. The real you can be holy, right now.

You no longer need to lie or cheat or steal. You can be free. You no longer need to listen to the in that has held us captive for so long. You have been called to something so much more. To a hope that doesn’t disappoint. To a life abundant.

Through the power that raised Christ from the dead, you can say no to sin. You can be righteous right now. I am not saying that this is easy. In fact sometimes it is very hard. It is hard for a few reasons, first we don’t truly believe it, which is why Paul is praying for the Ephesians hearts to be enlightened, second, we either like to sin, or don’t know any other way- we are addicted, and third to live this way is a death.

We are told throughout Scripture that we need to die to live. That we need to loose our life to find it. This is painful. We are told to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. The terms were chosen carefully. It is painful. TO say no to what ever sin we are living in kills us. But this is how we can beat it. By not fighting our selves, but dying and letting Jesus fight for us we can have this life he is calling us to. The power is God’s not ours, and we need to stop relying on ourselves and our strength to have any of the riches God is holding for us. We need to die to ourselves and accept the new life offered us. And sometimes we need to die over and over. When I quit smoking it was a death. The me I had known, the smoker had to die. When I quit drinking I had to die. When I had to be a husband, I had to die.

The other reason it is hard is that we like to sin, or we are addicted. The difference between the two is that the addict has a love hate relationship with his sin, while the rest of us just like sin. Take me for example, I loved to drink, but hated it. I knew it was ruining my life, but couldn’t imagine another life. I couldn’t see a way out. Most of us, however, see a way out, the sin hasn’t fully taken over our lives, we just chose to sin anyway. We know we shouldn’t have friends with benefits, but it feels good so we do it anyway.

Here is the thing though, God has called you to so much more. If you can’t see a way out of your sin, I tell you Jesus is it. Yes you will have to die, and your life will look completely different, but in the power that raised Christ from the dead, you can live a redeemed life know. The trust fund is there, just waiting for you to tap into it.

The same can be said to those of us who just like to sin. It is a death to not do it. I used to struggle with lust, and it was a death to not look at dirty websites. It felt good to do it. I was choosing sin. But once I died, and I have to die over and over, and still have to die daily, Christ was able to live in me. What once seemed impossible is now just life, because I know the hope to which I was call, I am daily given riches beyond compare, and the power that raised Jesus is alive in me calling me to a life anew.

Maybe you’re sitting here thinking, well I am pretty good. I don’t have any addictions, I am pretty moral, I’ve never been an alcoholic, a pervert, etc. Praise God for that. And I mean it. You should be on your knees daily thanking God that he has rescued you from the terrible life of addictions. If your not thanking God, because you feel you are the one who has done it, then your sin is pride, and you will have to die to that as well to be given the life that God has for you. Paul clearly tells us that it is God’s power, God’s inheritance, God’s hope, not ours. If we are looking anywhere else bu to God we are idolaters and breaking the second commandment.

Here is the thing though, Jesus will still be there. It is still in his plans to give you an inheritance beyond your wildest dreams. He still is setting forth his hope, just waiting for your heart to be enlightened. The same God who predestined you before the foundation of the world is the one who is offering you knew life. The Lord of the Universe, who has been by your side every step of the way, is still right there next to you, but more than that, in inside of you. The God whose power raised Jesus from the dead is offering you the exact same supernatural might. If oyu would only accept it.

If you are here and you are not a Christian, know that the sin that you are living with, that you feel as a slave to can be conquered by Jesus. He is not just a savior for the future; he is a savior for now. God is calling you into relationship with him; he is offering you his son, his treasure, his might. He is stronger than whatever is controlling you right now, and he wants to make you his son or daughter. He has been waiting for you since he created you, since before he created you, since eternity.

If you are a Christian, stop living a defeated life. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. The very same Spirit! Not some cheap imitation knock off, not some beta version, not some trimmed down version. The full Spirit! The Spirit of God! All you need to do is die. Admit defeat. You are not strong enough to stay off sin. You will loose the battle in your own strength every time. God will win though. In his power and his might, he will give you the life he has always meant for you to live.

If you are here today and you are struggling with something, tell God. He cares. He wants to help. I know I used to think that I was dirty after I sinned and couldn’t approach God, Or if I didn’t tell him, it didn’t count. Well, he already knows what you are struggling with, and it is not like this last sin made you any more filthy in the eyes of God, or your good deeds make you any more good. He calls you because of who he is. He loves you because of who he is. He is here to help you in your weakness because of who he is.

So I invite you today to come before God and ask for the life that he has for you. Ask for your inheritance, live in his might, rest in his power. He is offering you a new life, a free life, and abundant life.

Before me is the Lords Supper. It is a tradition that Christians have kept for thousands of years. It was instituted by Jesus as a way for his followers to remember him. In a minute we are going to take communion, but before we do I invite you to confess your sins to God. Ask him for this life that he has. Ask him for his strength. As you come to this table, lay down your sword and shield, and stop fighting in your own strength. Turn to God and ask him to be your champion, and fight he battle he has already won for you. As you come to this table, lay down all that is weighing you down, all the junk you can’t carry, and ask Jesus to instead carry you. As you come to this table, lay down your life to God who laid down his as a sacrifice for you. As you come to this table die to yourself and accept the life that Jesus has for you.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and he broke it an said, ”This is my body, broken for you. DO this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Semester Plans

In my attempt to be more disciplined, I am blogging twice this week. Hurray! I just want to fill all of you in on my plans for the semester. If you read the last post, then you already know that I hope to do an outreach bible study, so I got that going on.

The next thing I am planning on starting is a help group for self mutilators. As I study the community, I see more people with this problem than you might think. Also, there is very little to no help for them. Sure there are trained therapists, but even they would tell you that the best cure is hanging out with others with the struggle and hearing how they have succeeded in not hurting themselves anymore. Since I used to do this, I think I can be a real help to people who do it. The plan is to have a 12 step type group that meets in MERCYhouse on Saturday afternoons. At least that is plan for now. We will see how it goes. Both the time and day are able to be changed, but I figured I needed a starting point.


I plan to continue the leadership house church. It continues to grow, and I don't know where we will put everyone, but it is bearing so much fruit I would hate to not have it.

I also am planning to devote 20 hours a week to Umass. To meeting kids on campus, eating lunch on campus, doing that doubt night on campus, getting all my coffee on campus, and even getting a table on campus. I figure if I want to start a church on campus in September, I better start fishing now.

The general idea is to find some seekers who are not really Christian yet, and get them to become Christians, and then get them to start a church with me. The only way to do this is to be on campus, so that is what I will be doing.

That is generally my plans I will keep you posted. I also will hopefully blog about something more interesting next week. See you then.

Recently I was on the MERCYhouse website ans noticed that Robert is blogging with intentionality, and it has inspired me to do the same. He has a lot more to offer in some sort of concerted teaching effort though, so what I will be doing is going to look a little different.

Over the next semester I plan to sow the seeds for a new MERCYhouse service starting at 7pm and hopefully meeting in the Southwest Residential Area. One of the ways I hope to sow seeds is by starting an evangelically focused house church, of sorts. The idea right no is a "Doubt Night" group. Here's how this thing would work.

Every Wednesday night, or some other day, yet to be determined, I would set up a pizza party in the dorms and invite all the non-Christians to come and ask whatever they want. I see it as a safe place where real questions can receive real answers. There won't be anything that is not allowed. I will answer what I can to the best of my ability, and find out the answers to question I don't know by the next week. I think that this kind of candid intellectual setting will draw in non-Christians, as well as give a safe place for Christians to bring their questioning friends. Food will be provided, and, since we meet every week, people will have the opportunity to build relationships and feel comfortable hanging out church guys. I hope to build a core of people who never went to church before, and through this experience decide to help me with this new service.

More than this, I will be gathering their questions, and then using them as a jumping off point for my sermon series in the Fall. The idea is that if one person asks a certain question, certainly more people have it, and if I preach on it, maybe they will come to here the answer to what their heart has been asking. That is the idea right now, anyway.


What does this have to do with me blog and being more disciplined with it? A lot. See I also intend to use my blog to answer the questions that Umass is asking as well. I will post questions that I received that night, and then through out the week, ( I am aiming for an update on Fridays and Tuesdays) I will answer the questions in a more thoughtful manner that I could during the Doubt Night meeting time. I figure both the Doubt Night, and the subsequent answer time on my blog will stretch me to the point were I am going to have to rely on God for answers.

Also, since the culture around me is very "Electronic", I have plans to let people submit questions on my blog that will be answered both at the group and online. And as I type, I wonder how cool it would be to actually record some of these questions and answers every week and make them a Podcast? That is a lot of work, so I don't intend to do it right away, but maybe someday.

What does this mean for this blog? Well there are a few possibilities. To do the question and answer thing effectively I may need a full website. If that is the case, then I will only be blogging here twice a month or so about my family and stuff to keep all of you in our lives. The theology will be moved to my website, as well as the rants. If, on the other hand, I don't get a website, you can look forward to seeing a lot of crazy conversations happening right here. More than likely there will be some mixture of the two options.

Regardless, I promise to blog more. I really do think it is important to keep all of you informed about what is going on in my life, as well as thought I am having. Thanks for reading.

Sermon and Stuff

SO the title is kind of misleading, because there is not much stuff- just another sermon. I apologize to all of you for being a slacker, and I will blog non sermon things soon.

Here is this weeks sermon though:

This week brings us to the final installment of our Winter Series, and fittingly enough, we will be talking about the final commandment. Does anyone know what Commandment this is? That’s right, don’t covet. Before we jump into the text, let me just say that I know half of you in this room are coveting right now. Who is it that is coveting? Well I think it is pretty clear that I is the men. How do I know this? Because this is an awesome shirt. Guys, stop coveting it. Now ladies, let m tell you that I got his shirt on sale, it was originally 200 dollars, and I paid 20 for it. Now all of you are coveting too. So all of you stop coveting, you’re breaking the tenth commandment. Now that that is out of the way, I think we can safely begin to look at the text.

Turn with me to your programs. In Exodus 20:17 we read:

17 "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s."

I don’t want to assume that we all know what this commandment means, and before we unpack what the entire commandment means, I think we need to define the word covet. Merriam Webster defines covet as follows

Pronunciation:

\ˈkə-vət\

Function:

verb

Etymology:

Middle English coveiten, from Anglo-French coveiter, from Vulgar Latin *cupidietare, , from Latin cupiditat-, cupiditas desire, from cupidus desirous, from cupere to desire

Date:

14th century

transitive verb 1 : to wish for earnestly <covet an award> 2 : to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably intransitive verb : to feel inordinate desire for what belongs to another

So coveting is simply desiring or wanting something that isn’t yours. That commandment tells us not to want anything that isn’t ours, a woman, a man, property, status, servants, money, reputation, job, anything.

It seems fitting that this is the last commandment. The other commandments either had to do with God directly, or with our actions against people. This commandment is completely different though. This is a prohibition against the heart, against out thoughts. It is also impossible to break one of the other commandments without also breaking this one. Why? Well, why do we steal? Because we covet someone else’s stuff. Why do we commit adultery? Because we covet someone else’s spouse? Even the command to keep the Sabbath relates to not coveting. Why do we work on the Sabbath? What is the real motivation? Because we covet someone else’s success, we desire to look as good as other people, we covet their Puritan work ethic. So God saves this commandment for last.

As I just mentioned, the other reason that God saves this commandment for last is because it deals with motivations, with the heart. Before we go any further with this, we need to take a step back for a second. We have to put this commandment is context. At the moment when God is giving these commandments, what is happening? Israel has just been brought out of 400 years of slavery. God has rescued them from Pharaoh. He then leads them through the desert. They have no food, water, or road maps, so God provides all of this. He leads them by day with a pillar of smoke, and by night with a pillar of fire. He gives them water from rocks and bread from heaven. He is leading them to the Promised Land, but first they make a brief stop at a mountain in the middle of nowhere. God meets Israel’s leader- Moses- on this mountain, and here he is going to give Israel the rules by which they will be known as his people.

The entire reason that God has done any of this is because way back in the day he made a promise to a cowardly idol worshipper named Abram. God changes Abrams name to Abraham and begins a relationship with him, even though he was unworthy. God’s promise was this, that he would be Abraham’s offspring’s God, and they would be is people. So hundreds of years later, on a mountain named Sinai, God is telling this man’s offspring, who become known as the nation of Israel, how to be his people. He gives them Ten Commandments. But he gives these commandments is a specific order.

The first thing God does is remind Israel of who he is and what he has done. He says I am the LORD who brought you out of slavery. Then he tells them to worship him, and him only, then he gives some behavioral laws, and then he ends this tutorial on how to be his people with the tenth commandment, do not covet. Why I am making such a big deal about this? Because it is a big deal. There are two things happening in just this simple giving of the Ten Commandments. The firs thing that is going on is that God is reminding them of Grace. He brought them out of Egypt before any of these rules were given. He remembers them because of who he is, not because of what they have done. That is why before giving any of the laws, he points them backward. The first thing he tells Israel is that he is the LORD who brought them out of slavery.

This is possibly the most important point in this sermon. God gives them the rules after he establishes a relationship with him. He doesn’t give these rules to Israel while they are slaves and tell them he will see them in another 400 years if they follow them. He saves them, calls them his people, and then he gives them the Ten Commandments. These rules are not the way that Israel gets God to love them, he loves them already. It is necessary to see the rules in this light. God is not some tyrant trying to impose his will on humanity. He doesn’t demand that they perform to gain his love. Israel had his love when he brought them out of slavery. The rules he gives them are ultimately for their good. He is a loving Father who wants his children to thrive.

As many of you know I am a father. As many of you also know my daughter Kiera is kind of dead weight. Let m explain. She doesn’t do anything for me. She has no job, she sleeps like 16 hours a day. She eats my food and uses my house, and doesn’t even do chores. She craps her pants, and I have to clean it up. She doesn’t say thank you for changing her diapers or giving her clothes to wear so she doesn’t freeze to death. Now I know what you’re thinking, she is only one, but that’s not the point. She is lazy, selfish, and rude. But I love her. I love her in spite of all this. How evil would it be of me to say to her I will only love you if you follow these 10 rules? Pretty evil, huh. One the other hand, her mother and I do have rules that Kiera must follow. She isn’t allowed to touch the stove, or electrical sockets. She is not allowed to play in traffic, or use sharp pointy objects.

We love her because of who we are, parents, not because of what she dos, but we still have rules that we need her to follow. Occasionally she breaks these rules. She is always trying to eat the cat food, which me and my wife have a rule about. We discipline her, pull her away from the food, and lock her out of the kitchen, but we don’t love her less. She is no less our daughter, I am no less her father.

This is the relationship that God has with Israel, and with us. He tells them remember that I am the loving Father who brought you out of slavery. In light of this grace, obey these next rules. He sets them up, not for His sake, but for Israel’s.

The first thing God is doing is showing his grace with the giving of the commandments. The second is just as important. After setting up his grace, he gives them a list of things that they should and should not do. Do not have idols, do keep the Sabbath, do not murder, do honor your parents, don’t steal. As Israel is hearing these, I imagine they are setting up check boxes in their head. Don’t murder, got it. Don’t steal, got it. Most of them are thinking that they are all set. It is relatively easy not to murder someone, right? How many of you in here have ever murdered someone? How many of you know a murderer? I do, so that makes one of us. See, it is easy to follow that commandment.

How many of you have ever committed adultery? How many of you know an adulterer? I know one. I know a lot of commandment breakers, huh. I just noticed that. Not too many of us though. It is relatively easy to follow that one too. Just don’t have an affair. More of us have probably stolen or know a thief, but for the most part, we can follow these commandments right. So could Israel. So we, like Israel here them, and we start patting ourselves on the back.

Hey, I’m alright with God. I have never stolen or had an affair. But then we get to this last commandment. Don’t covet. Have you ever wanted to steal? Have you ever wanted to have an affair? Have you ever, not even wanted to steal, but been jealous of someone else’s things. Have you ever wanted what they have? Have you ever looked at a married man or woman and wish you could be with them, even if you would never have an affair? Now we are in trouble. I mean all of you coveted my shirt earlier, so you are all in trouble.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks to this also. He is teaching about the Ten Commandments, and he says:

21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' 22But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.^] 27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

He is speaking here to Jews, who, like us, for the most part feel like we keep the commandments- at least the first nine. He is reminding them that the tenth commandment has to do with their hearts. It seems like God is setting us up to fall, sort of, doesn’t it? Here are all these rules, can you follow them? Yeah, you think so, well here is one more. But what is God really doing? What he is doing is calling us back to himself. He is calling for Israel to have a greater dependence on Him. He is calling us to have a greater dependence on him.

We are going to break these commandments. God knew that, Jesus knew that. The question is not then will we break the commandment, but when we do, what do we do? Do we run back to God and the cross, or do we try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and just try harder. The reason God saves the tenth commandment for last is to let us know that our outward actions are of no value. It does us no good to follow 9 of the 10 commandments. We must follow all of the law, or we have broken all of it. God is not concerned about how holy you look, but with how holy you are. The tenth commandment is given at the end as a final reminder that we are not holy. It is to call the people to a greater dependence on God. Remember, like Kiera and myself, God does not change based on Israel’s actions. His relationship with us is not based on what rules we have kept. He loves us the same. He loves us because of who he is, not because of what we have done.

Not only does Jesus talk about the Ten Commandments, but Paul also has something to add, and it is right along the lines we have just been talking about. Paul says in Romans 7

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

What does this mean? What is the point of this commandment? It would seem from what Paul says that the point of the Law is to point out our sinfulness. Not to beat a dead joke, but let’s quickly get back to my shirt- because it is an awesome shirt. I assume no one was really coveting my shirt, or even think about it until I pointed it out in my introduction. And the, because you have good taste, you did begin thinking about and coveting my shirt, and the awesome deal I got on it. In the same way, Kiera didn’t know that she should not play with our fire place until we told her. Once we told her she couldn’t go near it though, it attracted her more than ever. That doesn’t mean that she could touch the fire before we told her she couldn’t- the prohibition was always there- however, once we made it taboo, it became even more an object of desire. She coveted it.

This is the same way in which the Law works, according to Paul. Remember, though, that the law didn’t produce the sin. The prohibition was always there. The Law just told us that it was wrong concretely.

But again, the point of the law has always been to point out our iniquities. Again in Romans 7:10 Paul tells us that,

…the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

The commandment was death. Not because the commandment was bad, but because we are broken. In these Ten Commandments are Gods standards of holiness. We see them, and slowly we realize that we don’t measure up. Maybe we have broken some earlier commandments, and so even outwardly are seen as unholy. More likely we have broken this last commandment about the condition of our heart, and although we may appear outwardly holy, we are inwardly sick, twisted, broken and dirty.

The point of these commandments has always been to draw us closer to God. I don’t know if you remember, but in the first sermon on this series, I said the way to keep all the commandments was to remember the first. The commandments were given the way they were to first, draw us to God, next, point out our fallenness, and finally, draw us back to God. Never did God require that we keep his commandments to be loved by him. He pulled Israel out of Egypt before these commandments were given. The first thing he tells them is who he is. I am the LORD who brought you out of Egypt he says. He is teaching these people, us, to depend on him for everything.

And this brings me to the practical part of the sermon. The final reason for the prohibition about coveting was so that the Israelites would rely totally and fully on God. How? Well let’s take a step back and examine why we covet. Why is it that we see someone else’s stuff and want it? Why do we see someone else’s spouse and want them? Why do we see someone else’s position and want it? It is because we are not fully trusting in God.

One of the ways we may not be trusting in God is not believing that he is going to provide all that we need for us. So we start looking at others things and wanting them. We think that we need whatever everyone else has. Maybe we are having problems in our marriage (I know this doesn’t effect most of you yet, but someday it will), and instead of trusting God to help us work through them, we think that we can make ourselves happy by coveting another’s husband or wife. We don’t trust God to give us a family, so we covet another’s. We don’t trust god to give us a house so we coven another’s promotion.

We don’t depend on God for what ever it is, and so we start seeing all that everyone else has, and we want it. But there is even more that this. Our desire to covet goes deeper than just not trusting God. When we are coveting we have not only broken the Tenth Commandment, but the second also. We elevate something to the place of God. We worship money, so we covet another’s house. We worship sex, so we covet another’s wife. We worship security, so we covet another’s promotion. We worship power, so we covet another’s promotion. This prohibition against coveting is, as all the other commandments, a call to worship God, and God only. As I said before, if you don’t have the first commandment, none of the pothers matter. In fact, they all point to the first. This commandment is teaching us to rely solely on God.

And this truly is the heart of the commandment.

I want to take it a step further and say that the reason we break this commandment, and any of them for that matter, is that we truly don’t believe the Gospel. Saying this is during a worship service, I am sure the Christians in the audience are saying, “But we are Christians, so how can we not believe the Gospel.” And I will answer that if you break any of these commandments, you don’t fully believe the Gospel.

Let me explain. Again, I ask, why do we covet? It is not simply because we want more money, or a better job. It is because we don’t believe that God is good and gives good gifts. It is because we don’t find our security in Him. It is because we don’t fully recognize that we are God’s children, and that he loves us.

God himself tells us that he has plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Jesus tells us that God gives us good gifts. Paul says that God did not withhold his son from us, how will he not give us all things also. But we don’t really believe all this, so we covet. Instead of finding our security in God, we find it in money, so we elevate money to a place of worship, and then we covet it. Instead of looking to God for our happiness and joy, we look to others, and when we don’t find it in our marriage, we begin to covet other people’s marriages. Instead of finding our worth in Christ and his resurrection, we find it in our reputation and job title. We really don’t believe the Gospel.

But the only way to obey these commandments is to believe it. We can’t do it on our own. The law, with out the Gospel is a dead end. The commandments lead only to death if we don’t have this Gospel. God brought you out of Egypt first. Follow him, and then stop coveting. Follow him, and in his power, stop coveting.

Believe the Gospel, and find your all in him. Find your security, your happiness, your joy, your love, your self worth, your salvation. See how God has brought you to his holy mountain. See how he has had a relationship with you all along.

If you are here and you are not a Christian, hear all this again. God doesn’t require you follow all these rules before he loves you. He loves you right now. He desires a relationship with you right now. Have you tried to follow these commandments and failed? He knows. He is there anyway. The good news is that he did what you could not. When God gave Moses these commandments, he was talking to a murderer. The people were at the bottom of the mountain breaking every commandment given. He knew they could not keep them. When Jesus was telling those people in Matthew 5 that if they became angry they broke the commandment against murder, and if they lusted they broke the prohibition against adultery, he knew that they couldn’t keep his words. He knew as he spoke to these masses that he was going to die for them. He knew that, just a few years later, he would hang on a cross, dying as sacrifice for all the mistakes, blunders, and sins they had committed. He knew that you also could not keep his commands, and he died for that too.

The way to God is not following some rules, even these rules. It is through the crucifixion. Jesus did what we could not. He followed all the rules that we break, and he went willingly as a sheep to be slaughtered. As he hung from the cross, his last words were “It is finished.” What does this mean? What was finished? Everything. The Law was finished, these Ten Commandments were finished, God’s redemption of his people was finished.

When God gave these rules on Sinai, he gave them as a way to point to Jesus. The laws themselves were never supposed to give us salvation. Following these rules makes you no more or less loved in God’s eyes. These laws were supposed to point out our insufficiency. It is of infinite value that God saves his people first.

If we look to the last to save, we are going down a dead end. Paul said that the law lead to death. So it is for us. Bu the free gift of God is life in Jesus.

God calls us when we are sick, broken, and alone. He can heal you now. He can fix you now. He can forgive you now. All he demands is that, as the first commandment states, you would call him your God. All he wants is for you to accept his embrace, ask for his forgiveness, and become his child. These commandments brought death, but Jesus is offering you life.

It is not God who demands you follow rules before he calls you his child, but religion. God calls us as we are, not as others would have us be. We can not follow these rules on our own. In the Old testament there are 613 rules, the Ten Commandments being just the first. If we can’t follow these first 10, how can we hope to follow all the others? We can’t. That is why Jesus came. These Laws point the way to Jesus. They were set up to demonstrate God’s holiness and call us back to him. They were never designed to be our salvation.

Religion demands you become clean before you are rescued from slavery, Jesus only asks that you would follow him as he rescues you. The Gospel the good news is that it is finished. You can be with God right now, if you would only ask.

If you are a Christian know that Jesus is still the answer for your coveting. Remember your slavery in Egypt and worship God once again. Cast out your idols and ask God to purify your heart. Search yourself, ask God to search you, and bring all the baggage, jealousy, and coveting to the cross, where it has already been paid for. God is no different today that the day in which you first followed him.

If you have heard me preach before, you know that this is where I usually stop, but not today.

Usually the structures of my sermon are a weak introduction, some commentary on the text, and then I try to break all of you and show you how you need Jesus, and then I end. But I realize that at times I am doing a disservice. Yes it is true that you, whether a Christian or not need Jesus. Yes it is true that in your own power you can not follow these commandments. And I want you to hear that. Apart from God we are powerless. We are told that we were saves to sin, dead in our transgressions before we were redeemed through the work of Jesus Christ.

But Scripture doesn’t end there. That is not the final chapter in our life. Paul says that although we were dead, we have been raised, that although we were slaves to sin, we can now become slaves to righteousness. The Good News, this Gospel that Jesus proclaimed, wasn’t just that he was going to die for our sins and then we could be in heaven. The Gospel was also for the here and now. In the book of John we have some of the final conversations that Jesus is having with his Apostles- the people closest to him. And what does he tell them? Well, lots of things, but one of the final words spoke was this:

John 10:10

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

He also says that his peace- the peace of God- he is going to give. Paul tells us that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. He also states that it is no longer he who lives, but Christ lives in him. We are told that we can be slaves to righteousness, that the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead now dwells in us.

So what does this mean. It means that we can now follow these Ten Commandments. It means that we are already holy in God’s sight, and can also be holy right now, today. It means that, in the Power of Christ, we may truly live.

This Gospel isn’t for some far off land called heaven. I mean it is, but that isn’t all. It has something to offer right now. We don’t nee to be stuck in the same patterns. Our hearts truly can be changed, and we can stop coveting. Through what Jesus has done, we now have the ability to live as God would call us to live. You don’t need to be stuck in the same sns. YOU don’t need to be a slave to your addictions. You don’t need to live in despair, just waiting for the day when you will be in heaven. You can have it all now.

The first thing we see Jesus doing in the Bible is walking around and saying he Kingdom of God is here. It is not some far off land we need to u down and wait to arrive. It is here.

W I am not saying that there won’t be struggles, or hardships, or pain. I know we will all screw up again, and if you are like me, again, and again, and again. But we can live redeemed lives now. You no longer need to bow down to sin in your life. This Gospel, this Good News, is for today. This salvation that God is offering is right now. This Redemption is as much for the present as for the future.

I don’t know what you are coveting, I don’t know what you have stolen or what your idols are, but I do know that God is offering you freedom and new life right now. He will never abandon nor forsake you. He knows that by yourself you can not keep these rules, but he also offers you himself that you may live a new life, that you may truly be holy.

In front of me is a symbol of that new life. On the night he was betrayed he took bread and broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you, do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said, “This is the blood of the New Covenant. Do this in Remembrance of me.”

At this table is offered more than bread and juice. It is new life. It is freedom. Christ paid the price we could not pay, that we may live the life we were meant to live. If you are a flower of Christ, whether you have been one for years, or have just decided that you too want to follow this Jesus and have a life abundant, I invite you to this table. Bring before God all that you have coveted, all that you have worshipped, all your brokenness and sin. Come just as you are, broken and imperfect. Come to the table and worship the God who died for you. Come and believe this Gospel that offers a life abundant.