Everything
Notes
Transcript
This passage this morning has to be one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. Paul is this grand passage of scripture describes all that is ours through Jesus.
The key for me of this passage is there in the last sentence of verse 3
Common English Bible Chapter 1
He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. 4
God has blessed us with “everything.” There is not one thing that we are missing.
Think back over your lifetime for a minute. What was the greatest gift you ever received on Christmas? Is there one thing that stands out in your mind above all the other gifts you've ever gotten?
As I think back over my life, I have received a lot of gifts. The greatest gifts that I have received is my children and grandchildren. It was so exciting to wait the nine months for their births and then to welcome them in to the family.
We have been blessed to add 3 children through adoption. That has been tremendously exciting as we waited for the judge to say they are yours just as if they had been born into your family.
The greatest gift that we've ever received is the one that we just celebrated, Christmas, the coming of the Messiah, of God putting on human flesh and blood and becoming like us.
I think that sometimes there is a misconception even within the church that when Jesus was born that first Christmas that it really was the beginning of Jesus. It's almost the idea that prior to the Angel announcing that Mary is going to be pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus didn't exist. John, are gospel lesson this morning seems to be wanting to make the point that Jesus has always existed.
1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2 The Word was with God in the beginning. 3 Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being 4 through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.
John says "in the beginning" which reminds us of the very first verse in the Bible; "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". As we look at what John wrote, he uses the word "Word" to speak about Jesus. Words can have tremendous meaning to us. We can use words to encourage someone or we can use words to tear someone down. John simply yet profoundly says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Jesus, God Himself came to us. Throughout all of scripture when ever God spoke there was action. Going clear back to the beginning in Genesis 1:3 where we first read about God speaking it says: " And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." When God spoke something happened all down through history.
God speaking to His creation culminated in that moment of the Incarnation when God put on flesh and was born in that manager. John wrote one of the greatest truths when he penned these words:
14 The Word became flesh and made his home among us. We have seen his glory, glory like that of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
That's the greatest gift that we celebrate not only at Christmas but all through the year. The Word, Jesus, God Himself came to us because we couldn't go to him.
The Apostle Paul launches into an almost song of Praise in our Scripture text this morning. I don't know if he had read John's Gospel or not, but it almost seems that he builds off of the theme that John laid down. Paul's words are really a prayer. As we celebrate the gift of Jesus, let's look at Paul's words to see how we can be encouraged this morning.
When you read this passage you see a lot of action words:
blessed us
chose us
destined us
have been ransomed
have forgiveness
poured over us
revealed
planned for
bring all things together
received
destined
called to be
heard
sealed
believed
applied
I read those words and am excited to know what God has done for us. I don’t have time to dig into all those action words, but I do want to spend some time on a few of them this morning.
One of the most compelling things that I see in Paul's prayer is found there in verse 4
4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world.
We have been chosen.
Do you remember what it was like to be chosen for something? I wasn't the most athletic kid in the world growing up. I was the runt of the family and in school no one wanted to pick the runt to be on their team for any sports so I was always one of the last kids chosen. Now if the sports activity involved any amount of running I was usually one of the kids picked first because one thing that I did excel at was running. Most of my running was running away from bullies in school but that's another story.
You remember what it was like, all the kids would be lined up and the team captains would begin picking the kids to be on their team. On those days when the activity required fast runners or runts it was always exciting to be chosen before those who were more athletic.
Ladies how about when your husband finally worked up the nerve to propose to you? Do you remember what it was like to be chosen, that someone loved you so much that they wanted to spend the rest of their life with you. Guys, same goes for us that she actually said yes to us!
There is nothing like being chosen, but Paul takes it one step further and he says that we were chosen by God. As Christians, we were chosen by God in Jesus. Isn't that an awesome thought that God has chosen us?
God confirmed His call on my life when I was in Bible College. I wasn't excited about that and actually ran away from God. It was over a year before I went back to church with any type of regularity because I was fighting against God.
I can't describe the joy and relief when several years after that event that I finally surrendered to God's will and His calling on my life. On that very hot and humid July Sunday afternoon in 2002 when I knelt at an alter in the Tabernacle at the District Center and the hands of our General Superintendent where laid on me and I was ordained an Elder in the Church was an amazing day. I didn't chose to be a pastor, but God chose me.
If you're a Christian this morning, know this, you have been chosen by God through Jesus. We don't chose God. It seems that so many people think of themselves as a Christian because they've adopted that label. We don't chose God like we were picking up some fresh vegetables at the grocery store. God chose us.
Jesus spoke about this when he said to his disciples in John 15 these words:
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last. As a result, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.
What has God done for us since we've become a Christian? Paul said God "He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. 4
Way to many Christians go through life as if they've been sucking on lemons or that they were baptized in dill pickle juice.
If the Christian life was like the Winnie the Pooh cartoons it seems that a majority of Christians act like they are Eyore the donkey! My favorite line of his is "Thanks for noticing me". There is not much attractive about an Eyore type of Christian.
We should be more like Tigger who sang: "The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things!" To rephrase that "The wonderful thing about Christians, is Christians are wonderful things!"
Why? Because God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ shouldn't our life demonstrate it?
Shouldn't there be some excitement about the fact the God who created the universe loves us and He chose us, that God came in the person of Jesus so that we might receive forgiveness and be restored into a right relationship with Him?
What joy and freedom there is in experiencing the love and blessings of God. There are way too many Christians that struggle with depression and I'm not referring to those with an actual chemical imbalance which is a medical problem.
You know the kind that I'm talking about, they are the pessimists, always seeing the glass half empty, always seeing the worst in everything. Many Christians struggle with insecurities or fears. Many struggle with results of wrong choices that they have made in the past or the consequences of the choices of others.
One commentator wrote: "To accept at the depth of our being that we are chosen by God is the antidote for our insecurity, our neurotic fears, our striving to be accepted, our self-depreciation. [1]
That is a powerful and liberating statement! In Christ we've been set free from all those chains that have bound us. Jesus said: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Chris Tomlin in a re-write of the Hymn, Amazing Grace added these words:
My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace
Why did God chose us?
4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world.
In the book, "Moby Dick, there is a gripping scene where Captain Ahab tightens a carpenter’s vise on his hand. With what appears to be masochistic self-punishment, he screws the jaws tighter and tighter. With grimacing sternness he says to the sky and sea, but also to himself, man has to feel something that holds in this slippery world.” [2]
I have met a number of individuals in my work as a drug and alcohol counselor who have resorted to hurting themselves by cutting or branding themselves.
Why would they do that? They do that to feel pain in order to cover the pain they are experiencing in life.
Ours is a slippery world. We do need something to hold on in it. Our western culture is a wide open and permissive culture that has been compared to the debauchery of first-century Rome which Paul lived in. Let me read you the definition of the word debauchery:
Indulgence in sensual pleasures; scandalous activities involving sex, alcohol, or drugs without inhibition.
We do not use words like “debauchery” today; we don’t take sin that seriously. If the church doesn't take sin seriously how can we expect our society to take it seriously? Our society, though, seems bent on gratifying, titillating, and catering to our wants and whims - all for pleasure.
The permissive society does not provide purpose. “If it feels good, do it” is not adequate direction to find meaning. But God offers a way. He chooses us for a purpose—”holy and blameless”
We're chosen to be holy, sanctified, set apart. The word Holy in the Greek language has the idea of different and separation. We Christians are to be different than the world around us. The separation is not a separation from the world but a difference that is expressed in the world.
The world blameless means something that is “unblemished", it comes from the sacrificial system that Paul's readers would have been very familiar with. Our whole lives are to be an offering to God. Isn't that what Paul admonished his readers when he wrote:
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. "
There is no settling for second-best; no “Well, I’m only human you know,” as if to be human forces us to being something weak, or incomplete, or incapable of Christian morality; no cop-out: “You can’t change human nature.” “Chosen for a purpose” means precisely that to be human and Christian is to be holy, and to make our entire lives an offering to God.
Paul moves on and he says:
5 God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ because of his love. This was according to his goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves.
That word "predestined" can cause a lot of confusion and get us in trouble if we are not careful in our understanding of it.
Our Christian friends in the Calvinist leaning churches such as the Baptist or Reformed churches would look at this verse and say that God has created a list of those who are bound for heaven and a list of those who are bound for hell.
In the Wesleyan/Armenian tradition that the Church of the Nazarene is in would say that they are wrong. The word predestined means to determine beforehand. We get ourselves into trouble when we try to determine who's in and who's out.
Is it not enough to know that the destiny of the Christian believer is in the hands of a God who loved us so much that He gave Himself for us in Christ? The salvation of Christ is universal in the sense that it is available to all. This verse is the triumphant expression of the glory of the redeemed—those who have responded to their chosenness, to God’s grace.[3]
Paul says that this predestination is to adoption to sonship.
The idea of adoption in our culture is the idea of parents choosing a child to bring into their family. What an awesome moment when the judged signed the papers and said that these boys were ours.
It is a great picture of what God does for us, He chooses us. However, Paul is using the word in a religious sense, and it's in his use that it means much the same as the word reconciliation.
McLeod Campbell stated the meaning of this great term adoption beautifully and succinctly when he wrote. “Let us think of Christ as the Son who reveals the Father, that we may know the Father’s heart against which we have sinned, that we may see how sin, in making us godless, has made us orphans, and understand that the grace of God, which is at once the remission of past sin and the gift of eternal life, restores to our orphan spirits their Father and to the Father of spirits his lost children.”2 [4]
He's pointing out that through what Jesus has done for us we've been adopted or reconciled and restored to the Father. What a gift the Father has given us.
There is nothing like receiving gifts. The joy in knowing that someone thought of you and gave you something to express their love to you.
Even as great as it is to receive gifts, I think some of the greatest times that Darlene and I have had is when we were able to give gifts to others, particularly those that had nothing. To be able to pick out a toy and give it to a child who wouldn't be receiving one at Christmas or to give a couple bags of groceries and gift cards to a family who would be going without is just an awesome thing. There is always so much joy in being able to do that.
Why has God done for us what He has? Look again at what Paul wrote:
4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. 5 God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ because of his love. This was according to his goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves.
Did you catch what Paul said?
according to his goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves
God has given us this gift of Jesus in accordance with his pleasure to the praise of his glorious grace. There is joy in what God has done for us. God's grace, that receiving from God what we don't deserve but He has freely given it to us in Jesus.
God has given us everything. There is nothing that we as Christians lack.
The Apostle James said:
2 You long for something you don’t have, so you commit murder. You are jealous for something you can’t get, so you struggle and fight. You don’t have because you don’t ask. 3 You ask and don’t have because you ask with evil intentions, to waste it on your own cravings.
What are you lacking today?
It is all there just for the asking because God has already blessed us.
My prayer is that you have truly received this gift of Jesus. Don't just claim the label Christian but live it out every day. May this year be the year for you when the joy and blessing of being adopted as a child of God is so real that your family and friends and people you come into contact with in your everyday life will want to know about the joy that you are experiencing.
[1]Dunnam, M. D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Vol. 31: The Preacher's Commentary Series, Volume 31 : Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc.
[2]Ibid
[3]Ibid
2 1.John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of Atonement and Its Relation to Remission of Sins and Eternal Life (New York: Macmillan, 1869; reprint 1978), p. 147.
[4]Ibid