Sermon manuscript:
Let me begin with a story that some of you will get and some
of you will not get. A person went to a mechanic one day because their car
wasn’t working right. They went into the waiting room while the mechanic looked
over their car, high and low, left and right. The mechanic walked into the
waiting room, wiping his hands on a rag, and said, “It’s the muffler belt. It’s
shot. You need a new muffler belt.”
Some of you are going to understand that this is a joke.
Others won’t quite get it. Whether you get it or not has to do with how well
you understand how cars work. You’ve probably heard of cars having mufflers.
You’ve probably heard of them having belts. But if you know how mufflers work
and how belts work, then you will know that there can’t be any such thing as a
muffler belt.
Mufflers are the pipes that carry the exhaust from the
engine to the back of the car. Besides carrying the gasses, they also muffle
the sound of the engine that would otherwise be much louder. That is why they
are called mufflers. But basically a muffler is a fancy pipe.
Belts run on pulleys or wheels. They transfer energy from
one part of the machine to another part of the machine. Belts do tend to break
or need to be replaced, so a mechanic telling you that you need a new belt
isn’t that surprising. But there’s no way that there could be any belts on a
muffler. That’s like saying you could get into your car and drive across the
ocean. It’s not going to happen. It can’t happen. But you can’t know that
without already having a good bit of knowledge going into it.
Jokes are a pretty sophisticated way of talking. If you
don’t know what is being talked about, then you probably won’t get the joke.
Praising, giving praise, is another sophisticated way of talking. Let’s say
that someone starts singing the praises of the Ford 5.0 liter engine. They
start listing off thinks like torque and horsepower. Some of you are going to
get that praise. A lot of us, including myself, might start to get a little
glassy eyed. The praise is meaningful to some. To others is just a bunch of
blah, blah, blah. You might need to learn some stuff in order to understand why
someone might be excited.
Our epistle reading this morning is a hymn of praise. That
makes it one of these higher levels of talking. If you don’t know what Paul is
referring to, then it is going to sound like a bunch of blah, blah, blah. Just as
a car enthusiast won’t take the time to explain horsepower or torque while he
is singing his praises, so also Paul is not explaining the different things that
he is referring to in this hymn to God the Father, about his Son Jesus Christ.
So we will have to do some work before we can begin to
understand what Paul is saying. Even then, I think you should take this
bulletin home and carefully read through it again later today.
Let’s begin by talking about the main theme of Paul’s hymn before
getting into the details. The main theme is that Paul is praising God the
Father. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Three times in these verses he refers to God’s glory. God’s glory is to be
praised. Praise and glory go together. It is the glories of the 5.0 liter
engine that lead some to sing its praises. God’s glory provokes praise.
Let me give you a couple examples of God’s glory, before going
into the glories of God are specifically talked about in this hymn. God’s
creation itself is an example of God’s glory. All the things that God has
made—its strength, its beauty, the joy it gives us—these are God’s
accomplishments that provoke praise. Another example of God’s glory is the way
that God liberated Israel who was enslaved under Pharaoh. God twisted Pharaoh’s
arm to let them go. Then he destroyed Pharaoh and his chariots, throwing them
into the sea. This was God’s accomplishment that calls forth praise. So it is
with all of God’s accomplishments in the Old Testament.
Paul, however, is focused on one multifaceted thing: our
Lord Jesus Christ. In these twelve verses Paul uses the phrase “in Christ”
at least eleven times. When you read through it again, pay attention to how
often he says either “in Christ,” or “in him.” When it says, “in him,” it is referring
to Christ. So, overall, Paul says, “In Christ,” God accomplished this. And “in
Christ,” God accomplished that. These accomplishments are God’s glory that call
for our praise.
But here we run into another difficulty when it comes to our
praise. God’s accomplishments in Christ are of a far higher order than earthly
things. We can somewhat understand the glory of God by looking at his creation.
We can somewhat understand the glory of God in him defeating the Egyptians. It
is harder for us to see how the redemption of his blood forgives our sins or
makes us blameless before God. It is harder for us to see how we are adopted as
sons through Jesus Christ.
One part of this problem is that we haven’t yet experienced
even the tenth part of what God accomplished for us in Christ. This is kind of
like talking about torque or horsepower to someone who isn’t a car person. There’s
probably no better way to understand torque than to experience the feeling of
being pushed back in your seat when the gas pedal is punched to the floor.
There’s probably no better way to learn what horsepower is than to see a truck
pull something really heavy.
But, as Paul says in our reading, we, for whom God has done
all these thing in Christ, haven’t gotten our inheritance yet. We have the Holy
Spirit, sure, but we have not yet had our bodies finally redeemed from death
and decay. How can we know what it is like to rise from the dead when we
haven’t yet experienced it?
So this is one part of the problem: we haven’t experienced
anything that is even similar to the accomplishments of God that Paul is
praising him for. The other problem is much more serious. It is our active
hostility towards heavenly things, and our insatiable craving for earthly
things. Characteristic of this mentality is how we get carried along by the
spirit of this age. We get deceived into thinking that reality is only the
things that are seen. We think that what is permanent and important are the
nuts and bolts of this world. We
over-estimate the importance of things that we see and can buy and can consume.
When it comes to a person’s relationship with God, on the
other hand, this is taken as something very light and unimportant. Either
people take it for granted—something that no one needs to worry about, or God
is seen as premodern and mythological—again, something that no one needs to
worry about. What do we need to worry about? Getting ahead in life.
And so we have a very hard time appreciating the things that
Paul is talking about because our flesh is hostile to such thoughts. In fact,
just after where our reading ends, Paul has what seems like a strange prayer.
He prays that God would bless the Christians in Ephesus with the Holy Spirit so
that they may know Jesus. They are already Christians, and yet Paul prays that
God would intervene so that they may know Jesus. This shows us that knowledge
of Jesus is different than gaining a knowledge of torque or horsepower. There
is a deadness and a hostility that needs to be overcome.
Understanding the difficulty of knowing Jesus, and asking
God to give us his Holy Spirit, let’s return
to the main theme again. Paul is praising God the Father for his glory.
The glory that is being praised is “in Christ” this, and “in Christ” that.
Let’s briefly go through the accomplishments that God has worked in Christ:
He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places. He has chosen us before God created the world. He makes us
holy and blameless. He chose us to be adopted as God’s children by being united
with Christ.
Paul speaks about the way that we have come to be saved. We
have not been saved by the use of Ten Plagues or by the opening up of the Red
Sea, like it was with the Israelites. Instead we have been saved by a sacrifice
that Jesus has done. In Christ is redemption, the forgiveness of sins, through
his blood. He gives us wisdom and insight, not of earthly things, but of
heavenly things. Christ came in the fullness of time, as the heart of God’s
will toward us. At the end of time all things are going to be brought together
in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth.
Here, again, we see how mistaken our thoughts about reality
can be. Right now it seems of little consequence if a person believes in Christ
or not. It can seem much more important how much money, prestige, or fun a
person might have. But all things are going to be brought together in Christ. He
will be the only thing that matters. Paul says in another place that all things
will be put under Jesus’s feet, then he will hand everything over to God the
Father, so that God will be all in all.
But let’s finish what Paul says in our reading about the
things that God accomplishes in Christ. In Christ we have an inheritance.
Abraham’s descendants inherited the land of Canaan. We have a greater
inheritance in heaven. Finally, in Christ we heard the word of truth, which is
the good news of our salvation. And in Christ, when you believed, you were sealed
with the Holy Spirit. This is the down payment of the inheritance, the
redemption of our bodies.
With all of the things that we have talked about God
accomplishing in Christ, perhaps you have understood certain things more and
other things less. Maybe some of the things sound like torque or horsepower. It
is important that we are not satisfied with Paul’s hymn of praise sounding like
a bunch of blah, blah, blah.
There is literally nothing more important that Paul could
possibly be talking about. All things are going to come together in Christ.
Plus he is not talking about something that is unrelated to you and to your
future. The things that he is talking about are going to affect you directly
and personally. This is not a hobby. This is God and you. It is God’s
relationship with you. And what are the terms of that relationship? It is the
thing that Paul keeps saying over and over in this hymn. The terms of this
relationship is: “In Christ, in Christ, in Christ.”
So do well to take in hand that strange prayer that Paul has
for the Ephesians—that God would give us the Holy Spirit so that we may know
Christ. When was the last time that you prayed for God to give you a knowledge
of Jesus? Just as a lack of knowledge of the 5.0 liter engine might prevent us
from singing its praises, so also it is our lack of knowledge of Jesus that
prevents us from joining in with Paul in praising the glory of God in Christ.
It is because we do not understand the greatness of what has happened in
Christ, that our praise falters. Instead our thoughts and our subsequent
praises may well be directed towards other things—ourselves, or our family, or
something else of ours, for example.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning, you probably have to do
a little work to understand the glories of God that Paul is praising him for in
our reading. Read through this reading again, later today. Join in with Paul,
praising God for the glories he has accomplished in Christ. Those glories of
God have been done for you out of love for you.
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