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Ephesians 4: 7-16
April 26, 2009
Exordium: The book of Ephesians is study of the church. A technical name might be it is a lesson in ecclesiology. The church is the centerpiece of God’s plan for the world. For the church the world was made, and for the world the church was made.
The church is the heart of the Kingdom of God. It is not exactly the same as the Kingdom but it is at the heart of what God means when He speaks of His heavenly Kingdom.
How important the church is to God. In His last prayer, Jesus prayed for the Church, that God would keep and unify us. He did not pray in the same way for the world. What happens in God’s church is more significant than what happens in Washington, DC or at the United Nations or on Wall Street.
Ephesians 4:1-6
April 19, 2009
Exordium: I want to back up and get a running start on this fourth chapter of Ephesians, since we have been away from this important letter for three weeks. You will remember that Paul’s prayer for them included the petition that “Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” He is not there speaking about the initial entrance of Christ into the believing heart. The Ephesians were already believers. Rather he is pointing to that enlarged place which Christ takes in us when we invite Him to dwell as a permanent resident and not as a temporary visitor.
In the fourth chapter he is building on that great teaching. Christ dwelling within will surely have tangible, visible outward effects in the daily life of the Christian.
I think that is what the word “Therefore ” is there for. It is joining the doctrine to the duty, the faith to the practice, the words to the music.
Paul reinforces his emphasis by repeating his prisoner status. You will recall that we saw earlier that the prison perspective is that view of things that comes when we are focused on God alone and the rest of our thoughts are filtered out and the things of eternity- the things of real importance- come into focus for us.
Philippians 3:10-11
April 12, 2009
Exordium: This is a chapter about joy, not a “put- on- face” of smiles but the joy that rises out of true religion- truly held.
Paul describes his own discovery of joy for us here; how he gave up everything important to him: career, heritage, theology because he found Christ to be the “Pearl of great price” and it was easy to let go of everything for Him.
Then his life centered on Jesus Christ. His ambition became “to gain Christ”, the way a runner gains the trophy and all that goes with it. His desire was to be found in Him, the way a man wants to be found in his own house. Christ was such a wonderful dwelling place for him that he never wanted to leave Him, be found outside of Him.
He tells us how he struggled to understand and produce a righteousness of his own all his adult life. He wanted to know what it was and what kind was pleasing to God. God showed him that it is not his human striving for it, the way he thought it was. True righteousness is from God and is given on the basis of faith.
Tasting that new life – and the righteousness with which God had clothed him – so excited him that he could not get enough of his new-found joy.
He therefore made it his ambition “to know Christ”, not merely about him. He knew that already from his studies in the Hebrew university, sitting at the feet of the famed and illustrious Gamaliel. Rather, he wanted to know Jesus personally and up close, even intimately the way a man knows his best friend.
Our text for today, Easter Sunday, 2009, is Paul’s summary of the great driving force of his life – his aim in life - “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection being made conformable to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.” This he desired with all his heart.
Christ is never known until He is desired that way!
Luke 19: 11-27
April 5, 2009
Exordium: We usually start Palm Sunday celebration at the wrong place. We begin with Jesus and His glorious entry into Jerusalem. We marvel over His calling for a donkey to bear Him into the City, a humble and yet royal way.
We see the Palm branches waving in the breeze as they pay homage to Him, and same lay down their garments on the path to make a way of welcome for Him. We see Him look over the city from the brow of the hill and passing there, He weeps for her, for what might have been. Following Him to the Temple, He calls out with a loud voice, “My house shall be called a House of prayer for all people, but you have made it a den of thieves.” Then He sends the greedy merchants packing in front of Him. He returns for rest to the quietness of the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
I have followed this very pattern, but there has always been something missing as I took what seemed like isolated events and tried to unfold their signifigance.
