Sermon Transcript January 10, 2016

Transcription

1 Sermon Transcript January 10, 2016 Invest! Ephesians 3:14-21 This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on January 10, 2016 at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at 1

2 Sermon Text Ephesians 3: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that 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, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and 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. 2

3 Introduction The Bible reading program I am using this year is the reading program designed by Robert Murray McCheynne. Each day there are four chapters of the Bible to read and they are taken from four different sections of the Bible. For example, this past Monday I read Genesis 4, Matthew 4, Ezra 4 and Acts 4. As I read these four chapters from different sections of the Bible, I like to look for common themes that pull the readings together. Occasionally, there are days where all four chapters speak to a common theme. This past Monday was one of those days. Genesis 4 is the story of Cain and Abel. Abel does what is right and is accepted by God, but Cain does not. It is here where God offers Cain the stern warning, Sin is crouching at the door. It s desire is for you but you must rule over it. But he doesn t heed God s warning, and in a jealous rage, rises up against his brother and kills him. In Matthew 4 we find Jesus being tempted by Satan. Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights but unlike Cain, Jesus resisted Satan s temptations. Jesus could be heard saying, among other things, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. After this encounter with Satan, angels came and ministered to Jesus, suggesting that this cosmic encounter was no small matter. In Ezra 4 we read about the exiles of Israel who return to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the temple and the city after lying in ruins for 70 years. As they began to rebuild the temple, their neighbors came and began to resist them and these neighbors wrote a letter to the king of Persia, suggesting that the people of Israel were up to no good and if this building project was allowed to be completed they would rebel against the king. As a result of this opposition, the people of Israel stopped their rebuilding efforts and for fourteen years they did not add to the foundation of the temple. Finally, in Acts 4 we find Peter and John standing before the religious leaders who were questioning them because of the lame man who had been healed in Acts 3. Furthermore, these religious leaders were troubled by this preaching of Jesus risen from the dead. And so they ordered the apostles to stop spreading this news and threatened to harm them if they failed to comply. Instead, the apostles returned to their friends and together they turned to God for strength and they continued preaching the good news of Jesus in spite of the threats that came their way from the religious leaders. Can you see the common themes that emerge from each of these passages? We can start 3

4 by identifying the people of God in each passage. Abel, Jesus, the exiles who return to the city of Jerusalem and the apostles all represent the people of God. And what did God s people in these passages all share in common? There was some kind of opposition that came against them as they sought to live out their faith. We see the ultimate conflict played out between Jesus and Satan, but this conflict is also mirrored in each of the other stories. You have Cain against Abel, the neighbors against the exiles of Israel, and the religious leaders against the apostles. And it appears, in each of the stories, that the opposition is winning the day. Cain kills Abel. Yes, Jesus resisted temptation but we know the rest of the story, he ended up on the cross. The exiles cowered to the threat of their neighbors and stopped rebuilding the temple. And the apostles turned to God and to each other for boldness to share their faith, but a few chapters later we see the heat is turned up and Stephen becomes the first casualty, the first one to lose his life for Jesus. The other common thread that ties these four chapters together is that the expectation for the people of God is that they continue to faithfully live out their faith even in the face of all these challenges. Obviously, Jesus was obedient all the way to the cross. Abel was commended for his faithfulness. His name even shows up in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith. The prophets eventually come to the exiles and they exhort the exiles to get back to rebuilding the temple. And they do, even though their neighbors show up again with similar threats. And of course, the apostles, on this side of the resurrection of Jesus, were not deterred and they faithfully proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So it is with us, the people of God in this generation. There is much that challenges our faith as we seek to follow Jesus in this culture. Someone passed an article on to me this week from the magazine First Things. The title of the article was The New Intolerance. 1 It really defines the challenge we face as we try to live out our faith in this culture. It is a pervasive attitude in our culture that has marginalized and penalized people of faith. Do you know what the issue is that causes this new intolerance towards people of faith? The issue is sex. Mary Eberstadt writes, Christianity present, like Christianity past and Christianity to come, contends with many foes and many countervailing forces. But its single most deadly enemy in our time, the one with which it is locked in mortal combat, is not the stuff of the philosophy common room. It is instead the sexual revolution. 2 Your standing in the mainstream of culture is in jeopardy if you have a biblical view of sexuality. Scripture teaches us that sex has purpose and meaning and it is to be confined to the marital relationship of a man and woman. If you hold this view today, not only are you considered to be a bit out of touch with the times, but it can hurt you. 4

5 In 2014, Brendan Eich resigned as CEO of Mozilla after only being in this position for two weeks. Mozilla is a computer software community and they developed the web browser Firefox, which no doubt many of you have used frequently. Brendan Eich was a major contributor to their success. He invented JavaScript. But because six years prior he contributed $1,000 to Prop 8, which was California s battle over the definition of marriage he supported a traditional view of marriage there was such an uproar within Silicon Valley, that he had to step down from his position. In other words, his personal view on sexuality became a litmus test on what kind of job he could hold. It didn t matter if he treated people with respect who disagreed with him. Rather, the new intolerance has no room for opposing thought and it comes with consequences. I think of Dr. Paul Church, who this past June was dismissed from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston after a prestigious 30 year career as a urologist at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country. He did not want to participate in LGBT events endorsed and held by the hospital. Instead, he raised concerns about the health risks posed to this community and identified by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest statistics from the CDC indicate that men in this community account for two-thirds of new infections of HIV and they are the only group where syphilis is on the rise. 3 His concerns were always expressed internally within the medical community. He never discriminated against the patients he treated. He only raised concerns about the high rate of disease within this community and felt that the hospital should not be pushing an ideology that is potentially dangerous to your health. For this he lost his job. Church went on to say that it is obvious that anyone who criticizes that viewpoint is viewed as a troublemaker, a bigot and a person who cannot be tolerated. 4 So what does this have to do with our vision? What does this have to do with building expansion? I invited you last week to imagine with me what God might have next for us as a church. What does this New Intolerance have to do with us thinking about our next steps as a church? We are a church that exists in the context of a culture. Just like the people of God in the past Abel, Jesus, the exiles, the apostles we have challenges to living out our faith. But our response to the world around us is not to capitulate and adjust who we are as people of God. Nor is our response to what is going on around us to be militant and ugly, without compassion for people who don t know Christ. We have seen way too much of that. Rather, we must invest. We must invest in each other. We must invest in the next generation. We must invest in those in need of mercy. Listen, the sexual revolution has victims that have been hurt and used and abused all throughout our land. 5

6 This world needs examples of people who live by God s design, where the broken and the hurting can find healing and hope. A Prayer for Strength It is with this in mind that we come to Paul s prayer in Ephesians 3: He begins by saying For this reason. In other words, what he has just written prior to these verses is the reason why he is prompted to pray this prayer. Now you need to understand something about Paul in order to find the reason for his prayer here in Ephesians 3: You would think that the reason would be stated in the verses that come right before this passage. But Paul has tendency to write long sentences and sometimes he gets off on rabbit trails and finds himself needing to get back to what he was originally going to say. If you go to Ephesians 3:1, you see it begins just like verse 14, For this reason. But then he gets off onto a different subject and now in verse 14, he is coming back to where he was in verse 1. Therefore, the reason for this prayer is found at the end of Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 is the passage we looked at last week and here we were reminded that the church is one body and we are the temple of God. In fact, we saw last week that the church is the presence of Jesus in this world. This causes us to have a high view of the church. I suggested last week that we may be guilty of having too low of a view of the church. Here is how Ephesians 2 ends, In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. If this broken world wants to find God, God is found in his church. It is based on this teaching that Paul is prompted to pray. He says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father. Commentators tell us that the customary posture for prayer among the Jews was to stand while they prayed. And so this posture of kneeling suggests an urgency to Paul s prayer. 5 And look what he prays for. He prays in verse 16, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. As with the people of God in all generations, I think Paul knew the temptation there was to lose heart. There is the temptation to wonder if the church even has the capacity to influence lives for the sake of the gospel. There is the temptation to think that the prevailing winds of the culture are winning the day and that the church has lost her ability to offer grace and hope. And so Paul prays. Do you know what is at the heart of Paul s prayer? Do you know what Paul is praying for when he prays that the church would be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being? What is the power Paul speaks of here? D. A, Carson summarizes the essence of this prayer by concluding, This plea for power is a power to be holy, power to 6

7 think and act and talk in ways utterly pleasing to Christ, power to strengthen moral resolve, power to walk in transparent gratitude to God, power to be humble, power to be discerning, power to be obedient and trusting, power to grow in conformity to Jesus Christ... God s purpose for the men and women he redeems is not simply to have them believe certain truths but to transform them in a lifelong process that stretches toward heaven. 6 In other words, because we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, we have the power to live as the people of God in this world. We can be like Abel. We can walk in the steps of Jesus. We can respond to the word of God like the exiles. We can boldly proclaim Jesus to our world like the apostles. I am not suggesting that we are perfect. But I am suggesting that we are resolved to follow Jesus in grace and truth. In the article titled the New Intolerance I love what Mary Eberstadt said about believers and the church. She said, we are people who are believers not because we want to jettison the Christian moral code, but because we want to do something more radical: we want to live by it. 7 We recognize that the way of God is not a noose around the neck that robs us of joy. Rather the way of God is the way of life and blessing. And so Paul prays that we would be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being. It is through our faithful obedience to Christ, that Christ is alive and real through us. That is what Paul means when he concludes this thought by saying, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. A couple years ago I did a series on holy sexuality. In this series I quoted Sarah Coakley who said, What our world needs now are sexual saints. She was reacting to an article written in the New York Times in This article was bemoaning what the author considered the scourge of celibacy within the Catholic priesthood because it was considered by him impossible for anyone to remain celibate. Responding to this issue, she referenced a bishop from the fourth century by the name of Gregory of Nyssa. Here is what she wrote, But as Gregory himself warns, we cannot believe it unless we see it lived. He writes, Any theory divorced from living examples is like an unbreathing statue. And there, perhaps, lies the true challenge for us today: the counter-cultural production not of film-stars, sports heroes or faithless royal families but of sexual saints to inspire us. 8 What this culture needs from the church are living examples of singles who wait for marriage and embrace their virginity and for married couples who honor their marital vows. We need men who make a covenant with their eyes and turn away from pornography. We need living examples of those who choose God and who choose to be counter-cultural. This is at the heart of Paul s prayer for the church. It is a prayer for the church to walk in holiness so there are real living examples for this world to turn to when life comes crashing down... and it will. 7

8 A Prayer for Love The second request Paul prays for the church has to do with love. Look what he prays in verses 17-19, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Paul prays that we would know, not just in our minds, but in our experience, the incredible love of God. This knowledge not only empowers us to trust God and follow Jesus, but it fills us with love for those who may make it difficult for us as we seek to live our faith. Jesus calls us to love our enemies. By using the dimensions of breadth and length and height and depth Paul is expressing the limitless nature of God s love for us. But I think what is key in this prayer is that our comprehension of this love is with all the saints. By that, I think Paul is saying that we experience the love of God in the context of the body of Christ. As we come to know the love of God, we are able to love. But we experience that love in the context of the body of Christ. We say it all the time when we say that our mantra is Belong Believe Become. We want you to know that no matter where you have been in life, you belong here. And we think if you hang around long enough that you will believe. Why? Because you will hear about the love of God through the proclamation of the good news of Jesus and you will also experience God s love through his people. Then, we will let God begin to change your life. You don t have to first clean up your act before you come. Besides, we are all people in process. We are all people under construction! The glue that holds us together is the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. A Prayer for Generations The last thing I want to say about this prayer comes from the doxology at the end of the prayer. We looked at this doxology last week. 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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. One thing that gives me confidence as we live out our faith in this age of the new intolerance is the phrase at the end of this doxology, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. That phrase all generations is a comfort to me because it reminds me that God will always have his people. The church is dynamic and active. No matter how difficult the times may seem to be, Christ will build his church. In fact the interesting thing about 8

9 the article on the New Intolerance is that at the end of the article there was example after example of people who would be considered victims of the sexual revolution who now find their comfort and hope in Jesus. This ought to encourage us to be faithful. In the article it says that Christianity is being built more and more by people who have come to embrace the difficult and longstanding Christian rulebook because they know full well the fallout of the sexual revolution. 9 And so when life crumbled and came up empty, they found hope in Jesus and the church. And so I have every confidence, even though the road is rough and the challenge is real, God is at work. Just as the church has been the presence of God in this world in the past, so it continues. Jesus will be glorified in his church in this generation and the generations to come. This breeds confidence in us. We are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that because of the resurrection of Jesus that our labor is not in vain. So don t let the cultural landscape lead you to despair. Don t even consider the culture your enemy. The culture is the victim of the enemy. Sure there are challenges, but it has always been that way. It was that way for Abel. It was that way for Jesus. It was that way for the exiles. It was that way for the apostles. But the church is still here, a light in the darkness. So here is the challenge. Here is the vision. Here is why I think we should expand our facility. It is because we have been called to invest in people through discipleship. I think God wants to use us in an even greater ways as we remain strong in our faith and anchored in God s love and confident that Jesus will continue to be glorified in his church. Imagine! - Invest I invited you last week to imagine with me what God might have for us as a church. I anticipate that God will continue to do what he has been doing and so I anticipate even more impact for the kingdom of God. And so this week I invite you to imagine with me what it would like if we all invest ourselves into people. We need to invest in each other. We need to invest in next generation leaders. We need to invest in the extension of mercy to those in need. Invest in each other: The first thing I want to encourage you to do is to invest in each other. Paul prays here that we would be strengthened with power through his Spirit and that we would comprehend with all the saints the love of God. We experience these things by making investment in relationship with each other. We talk a lot about Community Groups. This is not just about a program of the church. Rather, this is an intentional way to make time for relationship with each other 9

10 so that we can build each other up and encourage each other to remain strong. It is not easy to live the Christian life in our jobs and our neighborhoods. There are all kinds of challenges to our faith and we all struggle with it and we all have our shortcomings. But when we come together and invest in each other, we are able to speak God s word to each other. We are able to pray for one another. We are able to share our struggles with each other. We are also able to learn from each other. As a result, we are able to be stronger in our witness for Christ in this challenging culture. I am convinced that the more we invest in each other, the more we will comprehend with the all the saints the love of God, and the more we will see others find hope and healing for their broken lives. Invest in next generation leaders: We are in this church building because of the investment of the generation that has gone before us. And I am not just talking about the financial commitment they made for our benefit. But I am talking about the investment they made in people and the next generation. It is now our time. And I am not just talking about financial investment. I am talking about investing your life into the next generation. We have 100 children in our church and about 75 middle school and high school students. Do you want to make an investment for the future kingdom of God? Invest yourself in the next generation. It is a challenge to grow up in this culture. We owe it to our children and our teens and our young adults and the young parents of this church to show them living examples of what it means to walk by faith. I pray that God would give us many people from the next generation so that we can raise up leaders who will live out their faith on the shoulders of those who have gone before them. I want to dedicate the next ten years of my life to raising up next generation of leaders. I don t know what all of that looks like, but I am passionate about investing my life in those who will be leaders in the church in the next generation. I pray that God would give us more children and more middle school and high school students and a church infused with young adults and young parents. Why? So we can invest in the generation that comes after us. Invest in those in need of mercy: Finally, I see an increased opportunity to invest in those who are in need of mercy. David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times. He is not a Christian, but his book The Road to Character was filled with Christian principles. He actually applauded the Supreme Court Decision to legalize same-sex marriage. But he did have something interesting to say to the Christian community that I found insightful as we respond to the changing culture in which we live. 10

11 Conclusion He suggested that as people of faith, we have the structures of family and we have the sense of right and wrong that is so needed in so many of the corners of our culture that have become fragmented because of the breakdown of the family. He writs, Millions of kids live in stressed and fluid living arrangements. Many communities have suffered a loss of social capital. Many young people grow up in a sexual and social environment rendered barbaric because there are no common norms. Many adults hunger for meaning and goodness, but lack a spiritual vocabulary to think things through. 10 He calls for the church to do what it does well, to extend mercy to the ones in need. It is a call to invest in broken lives with the mercy of Christ. This is what he calls the new culture war and it is not too different that what the early church did in the pagan Roman world. Over three centuries, it changed the culture. So here we are, in this time and in this place. God has increased this ministry and has put us in a position to invest even more into people. I invite you to imagine with me by moving towards people and investing yourself for the sake of the church and so that we can be hope to a broken people. Invest in each other and get connected in a community group. Invest in the next generation. Invest with mercy in those who are in need. I believe God has great opportunity for us in this. I too pray that we would be strengthened with power through the Spirit of God. I pray that we would comprehend and experience the love of God. I pray that Jesus would be glorified in the church for generation after generation. 1 Mary Eberstadt The New Intolerance in First Things March Ibid 3 Pete Batlinski Leading US hospital Fires Doctor for raising concerns of health risk with gay sex June 25, Ibid 5 Francis Foulkes The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians Tyndale Commentary Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) D. A. Carson A Call To Spiritual Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992) Eberstadt 8 Sarah Coakley Taming Desire: Celibacy, Sexuality and the Church ABC Religion and Ethics, May 20, 2011, 9 Eberstadt 10 David Brooks The Next Culture War June 20, by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved 11

12 Sermon Title: Invest! Sermon Text: Ephesians 3:14-21 Sermon Date: January 10, 2016 Getting To Know Me Questions 1. What s something your parents used to say to you as a child that you promised yourself you d never say but now you catch yourself saying all the time? 2. As you get started with a new ten week community group, what are some things you would like to see come from your time together? Is there something you would like to see the group work on to make for a better experience? What commitments do you want to make towards each other as you get started? 3. Share with each other something you took from the sermon this past Sunday. Diving Into The Word 4. Share the lessons you learn or the encouragement you take from the examples found in Genesis 4, Matthew 4, Ezra 4 and Acts 4. (You don t need to read these passages, a summary of them can be found on page 3 of the transcript.) Discuss how the combination of these passages help us live as the people of God in light of the New Intolerance we deal with in our culture. 5. Ephesians 3:14-19 is a prayer. How did you learn to pray? What are the dominant influences on your prayer life? As a group, identify the two main prayer requests of this prayer. Why do you think Paul would pray these two prayers? How would you put these requests into your own words? How could you envision using these prayers in your own prayer life this week? 6. Read Ephesians 3:20-21 and discuss how Christ receiving glory and honor throughout all generations forever and ever gives us confidence that God is at work in the church today. How does the knowledge that God is at work encourage you to invest yourself in the lives of others? 7. Share where and how you are investing in people as a follower of Jesus. How would you like to invest in each other over the weeks to come? Taking It Home 8. As you pray together and as you pray during the course of the week, incorporate the two requests from Ephesians 3:14-21 into your prayer time. 9. Pray also for the future plans of WEFC. Pray together that God would guide the church as we make decisions regarding building: for future impact and for investing in others. 12