7/23/23 Ephesians 1:3-14 “Jesus Will Give You Everything!”

21 Jul 7/23/23 Ephesians 1:3-14 “Jesus Will Give You Everything!”

7/23/23   Ephesians 1:3-14         “Jesus Will Give You Everything!”

Summertime is usually vacation time and I think that it is always good to be back after a little vacation.  I realize something every time we spent some time vacationing.  I realized that I am not be very good at vacations or being retired.  The last couple of days when we are gone, I actually have to do some things because I am getting bored with relaxing and having fun.  Besides, how can I be retired and go on a vacation?  What would I be vacationing from?  Anyway, it is always good to be home.  It is good to be among friends and neighbors.  This past week as I was preparing this sermon, I noticed that these good sentiments are found in our reading.  I love to come back home because I’m loved by you people and I love you people in return.  It is that simple.  Jesus did all the things He did for us because He loves us so much.  All He wants in return is for us to love Him.  I read an interesting article once where the author said that we shouldn’t place God at the top of our priority lists.  You have heard me say that we need to love God 1^st and then He will help us love everything else.  Instead, he said to make God the hub of your life and let all activities radiate out from this hub.  In this way God will be a part of everything you do.  I thought this was an interesting concept that said basically what I try to say.  Let’s look at today’s reading and see if we can see why Jesus should be the hub of our lives or our number one priority.

David Swensen tells the story of a surgeon who was awoken by the phone ringing at 1 AM.  There had been a terrible accident and he was needed for surgery right away.  He decided to take short cut to the hospital even though it went right through a very tough part of the city.  At one of the stoplights and man in a gray hat and dirty flannel shirt yanked open his car door.  “I got to have your car!” the man screamed, pulling the doctor from the car.  The doctor tried to explain the seriousness of the situation but the man wouldn’t listen.  The doctor waited for more than an hour for a taxi to pick him up and go to the hospital and by the time he got there he was a half hour too late as the patient had died.  A nurse told him that the father of the victim was in the chapel wondering why the doctor never came.  The doctor hurried to the chapel and when he entered, he saw the father.  He was wearing a gray hat and a dirty flannel shirt.  Isn’t it unfortunate that he had pushed away the very person who could have saved his son’s life?

How many people do we know that do this same thing with Jesus Christ?  We are very good at pushing Jesus aside.  We have a God who loves us so much that He has given us all that we have and more.  Everything we see and have around us comes from God.  All He asks is that we love Him in return and that we help others see Him.  Remember that as you go about your life.  Remember this as you are talking to people every day.  We are all gifted so use your gift to let Jesus shine through you to save others.

I want you to notice one of the first things that Paul tells his audience.  He says that they were chosen by God at the very beginning of time.  We have talked about this a little in the past.  The people of Ephesus had a lot going on around them.  There were many religions around that believed in just about anything we can imagine.  They were all very pagan.  This is like the society we live in today.  This is where these early Christians of the area had their roots.  The good thing is that they have remained faithful and devout to Jesus.  Paul is writing them to reassure them that they are definitely on the right track.

If you know that you are chosen by God before you were even born, this has to make you feel good.  Paul wants the people of Jesus to move ahead.  If we wanted, we could get ourselves really bogged down here.  This statement tells us that we were predestined by Christ.  In the Methodist tradition we like to say that we have free will but Paul is telling us that we were chosen.  How can we be both?

I’m not going to try to explain our way out of it because that would be an excuse.  That would mean that I would be trying to make the Bible say what I want it to say.  We read it right here in black and white.  We were chosen by God ahead of time.  At the same time, we know that we have the free will to accept or reject God.  How in the world can it be both ways?  Personally, I don’t see a dilemma here.  This really doesn’t bother me at all.  You see, I know that God talks about many things in the Bible that I just don’t understand.  I don’t understand the Trinity but I know it is there.  This is just another one of those things that I will know all about when the time is right.  Sometimes I think that scholars and theologians argue about some of these things so that they can justify their existence.  It is kind of like our Congress passing all these bills so they can point and say, “Look what I did!” when they haven’t actually done anything!  Anyway, this type of thing will not make or break my faith.  Someday I will know.

I would like us to think of our own community.  We have people all around us who are poor.  We have people who are hurt.  We have people who suffer such depression that they don’t know how to get through the day.  Why don’t you go up to one of these people and help them understand that God has chosen them to be part of His people.  And He chose them before the beginning of time.  If you do just that one little thing, you will have planted a huge seed.  You have to feel good just knowing that God has chosen you, personally.  God chose you to be a part of God’s people before you were even born! (repeat)

I can almost see that there might be some who think that I am wrong here and you may be right.  However, I feel that every human being on earth is chosen by God.  There is not an exception.  It is called prevenient grace.  Prevenient grace is grace that is everywhere all the time.  What we are doing when we tell people this great news is we are helping them take a step closer to accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior.  That is our job and it really doesn’t take very much to plant a seed.

And while you are telling someone just how special they are in Jesus Christ, tell them that God loves them so much that they can now be adopted into the family of God.  So, you are not only chosen individually by God, but you can also be accepted into the family of God.  In other words, you can all be sons and daughters of Christ.  This is the part where you have to choose God or not.

I think that this is really exciting.  As sons and daughters of Christ, you inherit all that He has.  This is pure love on the part of God.  This is one reason why I want you to notice God moments every week.  This is why I want you to go and help people in the name of Jesus.  All of the good works that you do are because you belong to the family of God.  I cannot praise God enough for this.

So, you have no choice in being chosen but you do have a choice to enter into the family of God.  One of the big things that God will do for you if you accept Him is that He will forgive your sins.  These people in the days of Paul were no different than we are today.  We all have one thing in common and that is that we all sin.  These people were new to the faith and they lived in a culture where just about anything was ok to do and most of these sinful acts had some sort of cult religion telling them that all was ok.  These people were bombarded by sin every day.  Boy, does that sound familiar!  It is no wonder that Paul is writing them to reassure them of the love that God has for them.  They are feeling a bit ashamed and this is normal.

Then Jesus comes along to say that it is not ok to sin but when you do sin, come to me.  Talk to me!  They are forgiven in the riches of God’s grace.  He wants them to remember that God’s grace has no limits.  It is everywhere for every person in the world.  All they had to do is come to Jesus and confess their sin and Jesus would forgive them.

We are in the same boat today.  How many people do you know who hold onto their sin?  We all know people like this.  They get very comfortable with their sin.  It becomes part of their lives.  We know many Christians like this.  They don’t want to take their sin to Jesus because; well there are many, many reasons.  Maybe some people are embarrassed by their sin. Well, here’s a news flash for people like this.  Jesus knows all about it anyway.  He knows everything about you.  And He still wants you to come to Him and confess.  This is a sign for all of you that you cannot carry your own sin burden.  You need to call on Jesus to help us through His forgiveness.  And if you find that you go back to sinning, then confess again and confess often.  Jesus will help us out of sinful lives like He helps us in everything we do.

In other words, Jesus wants you to be obedient by coming to Him and confessing.  That is part of the problem here.  We don’t want to be obedient.  You don’t want to be obedient!  You want to have everything your own way.  You want to define God by your standards and not His.  For instance, if you read your Bible, you will find lots of good ways to raise your children.  But you have a tendency to thumb our nose at these things and follow the ways of some TV talk show host.  Jesus has provided you with ways to have a happier, fuller life.  The Bible is full of these ways.  I get laughed at when I bring some of them up.  As a society we just don’t want anything to do with Jesus because we cannot be obedient.

This brings us right back to what we were talking about.  If you cannot bring yourself to be obedient to Jesus Christ, then take that disobedient information and go to Jesus in confession.  Then keep going to Him in confession.  You will soon find that some of your old ways will fall to the wayside as you become more obedient to Jesus.  And this will work for just about anything that you do.  It isn’t limited to obedience.

So He has chosen us and He wants us to come to Him so we can be forgiven.  Why does He want this to happen?  The reason is that God has a plan for you.  These people of Ephesus needed to know that God still loved them and He had a plan for them.  They needed to know that they were useful.  There is no worse feeling in the world if you think that you aren’t useful.  Therefore, it is so important for all of us to know that you are useful by the very maker of the universe.  And if you are to be working for Jesus, then He wants you to be cleansed by His forgiveness.  He wants you as clean as possible.  If you break down all of the things of the Bible, they make sense.  Sometimes it takes a little more digging to find the sense but it is there.  Trust me on that one!

Today, we have many people going around that have no purpose in life.  They pretty much just go through the motions.  These people are everywhere you look.  Satan wants you to go around and do things that have absolutely no meaning.  I’m not even going to give any examples of this because there are just so many of them.  If you are stuck like this or know of someone who is, and we all do, then go visit them.  The best way to get yourself going is to do something for someone else.  Take the word ‘me’ out of your vocabulary.  I read somewhere a great definition of our purpose in life.  It is to glorify God and edify others.  As you can see, it really isn’t that hard.

And one more thing on this topic, if you don’t know your purpose in life, don’t worry about it.  I most definitely don’t know my purpose.  I was sent out to preach and I will obey.  I don’t worry about purpose as long as I glorify God in all that I do and I help and teach others around me to do the same.  What I’m trying to say is don’t worry about the whys or the what ifs.  Just obey Jesus because He does have a wonderful plan for you.  It is a plan that is too great to describe.

When all these things start to happen and they won’t happen perfectly, then God puts His seal on you.  You are His.  You will have all the wonderful riches that God will provide for you.  And best of all, you will have a place with Him for all eternity.  Once again I don’t know what eternity will be like but I do know that its splendor is beyond anything I can imagine.  This passage is such a great comfort and hope.  Jesus wants us to have everything He has.

Here is a great story by John Stevenson that shows this.  It is about the great Dr. Stanley Livingston who was a missionary in Africa decades ago.   Unfortunately, Dr. Livingston was required to drink goat’s milk because of a medical condition.  Anyway, one day he was visited by a tribal king and the king was eyeing the goat he had.  Well, Dr. Livingston felt that God was leading him go give the goat as a gift and in return the king gave Dr. Livingston the staff the chief was carrying.

Later on, Dr. Livingston told a friend, “I don’t know what I was thinking.  How could I have been so foolish as to give my goat away?  I don’t know what I shall do with this stick.”  The friend replied, “You don’t understand.  That isn’t just a stick or walking stick.  It is a scepter.  You don’t just own one goat.  Now you own all the goats of the tribe.”

Jesus has done the same thing for you.  Jesus doesn’t do things in small ways.  He doesn’t just give you this or give you that.  He gives you everything.  There is nothing that He has that He doesn’t want to give to you.  You have been chosen by the very maker of the universe.  Go to him and obey.  He has so much waiting for you if you just obey.  This is the love that never stops.  This is the love that Jesus Christ has for you.  Thank you, Jesus, for first choosing us.  Let’s pray.