Delivered November 20, 2011
Scottish minister Alexander Whyte was known for his uplifting prayers in the pulpit. He always found something for which to be grateful, and he nearly always mentioned the weather. One Sunday morning the weather was so bad that one church member thought to himself, "Certainly the preacher won't thank the Lord for a wretched day like this." Much to his surprise, however, Whyte began by praying, "We thank Thee, O God, that it is not always like this."
This is the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day and our thoughts turn naturally to giving thanks. The apostle Paul says in our epistle lesson for today: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” He is speaking to the Ephesian church, and he says that never ceases to thank God for these church people. I want to start off this sermon giving thanks for you. I do not thank people enough. I have gotten a little better at it over the years, but I still have to make a conscious effort to thank people. So I want to thank you this morning. I thank you for calling me to be your pastor here – once again. When I pastored here in the 1980’s and early nineties, they were the best years of our lives. We did not know it at the time, but they were. I have been blessed to return here to this town that I love and this church that I love. I am blessed to be your pastor at this point in my life and this church’s life.
Many of you put in countless hours doing ministry in this church. Thank you. I cannot start naming names or I will certainly get myself in trouble by leaving out someone who should be named. Many of you put in many many hours in service to God through this church. You don’t have to do it, but you do. And you do it out of love for God and love for this congregation. It is not only time, it is the love you put into it. You really care about this church. That is love of God in action. It is the best advertisement for the gospel and this church. This church really is a loving community of faith. It is not perfect, and we in this church are not perfect, but it is good. You are friendly, welcoming, loving, spiritually-minded, generous people - a genuine community of faith. You have blessed my life and my family’s life and I am deeply grateful.
I. Now let’s see first what the apostle Paul was thankful for concerning the Ephesians. Our passage starts: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” The apostle thanks them for two things – their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints. (By saints he is not talking about dead religious superstars canonized by the Catholic church. In the NT the term saints simply means Christians.) He thanks God for their faith and love. Those might not be the first things that normally come to our minds when we start going down the list of things that we are thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. Our lists tend to include life, family, health, and home the material necessities of life. But Paul does not mention any of these. He is most grateful for faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints.
Let us thank God for faith in the Lord Jesus. Faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God….” To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is a gift. We tend to think of it as a choice we have made. And it is that also, but it is also accurate biblically to say that it as a choice that God has made. This is the biblical doctrine called election. God has called us. God has received us. God has saved us – from ourselves and from a life apart from him. He has delivered us from the fear of death. He has delivered us from guilt and shame. Even our faith in Jesus is not mine. He has placed it in our souls. It is all God’s doing. Don’t ask me why everyone on earth therefore does not have faith. I don’t know. I don’t know lots of things. I don’t why the Jewish Holocaust happened and the Cambodian holocaust. I don’t know why babies die of starvation and AIDS in the Horn of Africa whereas my babies and grandbabies are well fed. I do not have answers to the hard questions of why there is evil and suffering and injustice in this world. All I know that everything I have is from God; even my faith in God is from God, and I am thankful.
Let’s thank God for the love of all the saints. Paul is talking about spiritual community. He is talking about church. And he is not talking about buildings, bylaws or budgets. He is talking about love. Love itself is a gift from God. Community is a gift from God. We would have it without buildings, budgets or bylaws. You know Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” He thought the holiday had to do with presents, ribbons and wrappings. He thought it had to do with feasting on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast beast. But it didn’t. Christmas came just the same. And his heart grew three sizes that day when he learned that it was something immaterial that caused all the Whos in Whoville to sing songs of joy. It’s not the stuff that is the most important. It is the spiritual. It is faith and love. It is not what you have or don’t have. It is your attitude toward it all.
There is a old Jewish tale of a man who goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "It is worse. I cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy and noisy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week." A man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there's no goat -- only the nine of us." We can grumble and complain about our circumstances or we can thank God in the midst of our circumstances.
II. Let’s move on to the next portion of our scripture text. After giving thanks in prayer for the Ephesians, the apostle Paul prays for the Ephesians. Verses 17-19 he prays “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.” Once again, we tend to pray for health and happiness for ourselves and others. But look at what Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians.
First, he prays that God gives them “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” He is praying that they may know Christ more deeply. That is my prayer for you and me as well. That is my prayer for this church. I also pray for the financial health of this church and that we might reach out to the community. But the numbers don’t matter if we do not know Him. If we do not have “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” One of our family’s favorite Christmas films is Elf starring Will Farrell. Farrell plays a human raised as an elf at the North Pole. At one point he is hired as an elf in a NYC department store at Christmastime when he hears that Santa is coming to town. He jumps up and down in joy shouting, “I know him! I know him! That is Christian joy. That is what the gospel is really all about. If we do not know him, then everything else is futile.
Second, Paul prays for “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” He doesn’t want blind faith nor ignorant faith. There is more than enough of that in the world. He prays that the Ephesian Christians may understand. He prays that they may see clearly. That they might be enlightened. That is a term that Christians don’t use too much. Buddhists use the term a lot. We tend to talk more about faith than enlightenment. But Paul prays that Christians have an enlightened faith. He prays that their eyes might be opened. This is intelligent faith. There is too much ignorant faith in Christianity these days. There is too much anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-common sense nonsense in Christianity. People feel like they have to check their brains at the door of the church. God created the natural world and nothing that is scientifically and historically true can possibly be a threat to the Christian faith.
Third, Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians have hope. He prays “that you may know what is the hope of His calling.” It is a calling from God that gives us hope. I think this is talking about our own personal calling from God. Theoretical Christianity is of no use to anyone. It is no good simply to accept a religion called Christianity. Religion cannot give us hope. God’s calling gives us hope. And hope is what is needed these days. I do not pretend to understand what is happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement in this country. It is very complex, but it seems to me that it is giving voice to the fact that portions of our society no longer have hope. They feel like they are stuck and going nowhere. When a society loses hope, then it is in real danger. Much more danger than we realize. God gives us hope. Christ gives us hope. When we feel that God has truly called us, then it gives us meaning and purpose.
Fourth, Paul prays for riches, but not the riches you may think. He prays that we might know “what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” This is a very different type of riches. Once again the national conversation seems to be focused on money – those who have it and those who don’t – the 1% and the 99% - and the shrinking of the middle class. There is a lot of talk about redistribution of wealth, restructuring the tax code, and resentment at the huge salaries and bonuses that corporate executives are getting. There is a lot of talk about the world economy and how the European economy affects our economy. I know that this is important, especially as it affects those who have the least – who struggle to have food and shelter. But there is another type of riches that Paul is concerned with – “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
This is a complex phrase, and it is translated in different ways. I think he is talking about the incredible riches that we have in Christ. We are rich beyond imagining. I am not saying that money isn’t important. It is. As I get closer to retirement I think of making sure I have enough money to live on. This stock market roller coaster makes me nervous. Healthcare is important and that costs money. Even when it comes to the work of this church and missions, money is important. But spiritual riches are more important. I wish I could inject a conversation about spiritual riches into the national political conversation. But the news media wouldn’t be able to handle it. It so misunderstands and distorts the role of religion, that you can’t have an intelligent spiritual conversation on a national scale. It gets co-opted by politics and economics.
Spiritual riches put material riches into perspective. The truly blessed in our society are not the billionaires. Jesus told lots of stories about rich people who were poor in the things that really mattered. Material wealth protects us from many of the physical dangers of life and can provide a certain measure of physical security and peace of mind. But it cannot give you the deep inner spiritual security or peace of mind. If that were true than the rich and famous people would be the happiest and most well-adjusted people in the world, and a glance at the tabloid headlines will disprove that theory.
Fifth, Paul prays for power. Once again, it is not worldly power. He prays that the Ephesian Christians might know “what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.” He doesn’t pray that we have power but that we acknowledge and know God’s power. He prays that we might know the power of God in our lives. This is not outer power demonstrated in how many people we can get to do our will through money or government or force. This is the inner strength of knowing and being in harmony with the will of God. Paul goes on in the rest of the passage to talk about how that power was demonstrated in Jesus Christ, specifically in his resurrection, ascension, and his present rule today. He says: “This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. 21 Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. 22 God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. 23 And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.” To put it simply Christ reigns. That is what real power is about.
To close this message I want to return to the theme of thanksgiving once again and do it with a story. Matthew Henry was an 18th century Presbyterian minister and Biblical scholar known for his commentaries on every book of the Bible. He was once robbed. The thieves took everything of value that he had. Later that evening he wrote in his diary these words, “I am thankful that during these years I have never been robbed before. Also, even though they took my money, they did not take my life. Although they took all I had, it was not much. Finally, I am grateful that it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.” On this Thanksgiving Sunday let us be thankful.
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