Text: Eph 1:3-14
Introduction
If I mention diagramming sentences – the subject of the sentence goes on this side…with a big
bar and the main predicate on that side of it…and all the adjectives, adverbs and clauses dangling
or connected in odd ways off of that core sentence – I’m sure I’ve just created a flash-back.
Either of pure drudgery – “can’t we just read the story”. “You are killing the beauty and sucking
the magic out.” Or if you had a scientific or a craftsman’s bent, a delight at being given access to
the tool bench of language. “So that is how that works.” “Now if I add this word here it makes a
whole additional line which is like adding some gingerbread to the porch”.
Before the early 1900’s , sentences in English could be complex. Jane Austen’s nuanced prose
with the real social situation spelled out between the relative clauses, or the playful
“Pickwickiness” of Pip and Charles Dickens. Hemmingway came along and cut off all those
connected lines to the core sentence. Subject, verb, object. That is all you need. A good anglosaxon Beowulf slashing at any gingerbread, playfulness or nuance.
Textual – Verse/Group by Group
Our epistle lesson today would drive earnest Earnest to get the gun sooner. In the Greek – verses
3 through 14 is one long sentence. The simple sentence is: God be praised. And like Spanish
and the languages that come from Latin – the verb to be isn’t even present, it’s assumed.
Everything else is nested relative clauses, theological excursions put in elaborate purpose clauses
and prepositional phrases.
Why would I regale you with something that most might rather forget? Well – I could be a good
legalist and just say – It’s good for you. The law is good and wise, it is good for you, but it
doesn’t save. As with diagramming sentences, there are few that come to find the goodness in
the law. So there must be some gospel reason. The Holy Spirit likes Words. That is all He talks
about and uses. It starts with The Word – Jesus Christ. And proceeds from the The Word to the
word we read, and the word we proclaim. And that Spirit brooded over this word for 2000 years.
He only brooded over the waters for day and we had light. How much light can He pack into
2000 years?
It all starts with that simple sentence, a simple act of Worship. God be praised. As much as
some might deny it – we all worship. The only question comes up really is what and how. Do
we worship success – the winged Goddess Nike? Sacrificing 100 hour weeks on her altars. Do
we worship frivolity and major in minors – like the old goat Pan? Traipsing around the malls
and dining halls to the musak flutes. Are we sincere and dour in our worship – there is no more
dour place than a sincere group of atheists worshipping reason and fate which today would go by
the name genetics. Or are we farcical – following the spirit of the age, instead of the Spirit –
like, oh say, a certain episcopal body, that seems to be fiddling while Canterbury burns. A line
from the WSJ reporter in attendance at their triennial convention – “General Convention is also
notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish
cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to
order bottles of the finest wines.” Enough said.
God be praised. But Paul adds modifiers. The God – not just any God. The God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ…be praised. Instead of that marketplace of morphing and shifting gods.
Paul says it starts with a concrete revelation. Father perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ – crucifed
and living and most importantly Lord. You can be sure of this God because you know Him. He
has revealed his very nature. Instead of eating you alive like all those other gods. This one gives
– his body, blood, forgiveness. Even when we are nailing Him to a tree in unbelief. God be
praised.
But I might be getting a little ahead of myself. Why is this God praised? Again a good legalist
could say – because he’s God. And that would be true. But God has done more. He has
revealed himself. He has brought the good news. When we were frolicking with other gods –
this one blesses us with every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And he does this in
Christ. Not the god within. Not the god that looks like we want him to look. Or any of the other
places we try to get gods on out terms. He blesses us with every spiritual blessing in
Christ…alone.
Ok, so tell me what these spiritual blessing are. Follow the sentence diagram.
First, out of love God chose you to be holy and unblemished. It is not that we are holy and
unblemished. We are a pack of sinners. But this God chose us in Him – in Christ – before the
foundation of the world. Christ was not plan B. This was always the plan. The mystery sown in
the field. The leaven in the dough. The Kingdom has always been at work…before the
foundation of the world…you were made holy and unblemished in Him. And it was done for
love.
Second, you were not just declared holy and unblemished, you were predestined for adoption
into the family of God according to his good pleasure. You are part of the royal ruling family.
Not because you connived your way in. Not because of any leverage we had over the king or
even a useful political marriage. Predestined…according to His good pleasure. Before even
farsighted George Washington could talk about our distant progeny…The Father brought you
into the royal family.
How and why was this done?
He did this through Jesus Christ. He did this for the praise of the glory of his grace. A royal
grant. The Lord of Lords, the one rightly due worship, worship that for most of our lives we
steal from him, in Jesus Christ he shows his royal grace. And Paul, spilling out theological
clauses gives us the means of this grace. In an important metaphor for life and grace in
Ephesians, we have the forgiveness of false steps…of trespasses. That slightly archaic word that
we memorize in the Lord’s prayer. In our lives we have walked onto the Devil’s ground. We
have misstepped, trespassed, onto the lands of the lord of this dark realm. And he exacts a price.
What was due for our false steps…according to the riches of his grace, from the royal vaults,
from the royal veins... we have been redeemed by his blood. Life is a walk – a walk with and
toward God…or a walk in the valley of the shadow. But that shadow of death is nothing but a
sham, a show, a false boast of Satan. That land is no longer his. The blood of Christ has
redeemed it all.
But this is the crux of the matter. That blood, that cross, is a mystery. The Father calls that the
victory. To us he has made it known, lavished it in all wisdom and intelligence. “…His grace,
which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his
will…which he set forth in Christ…” To the world following the bright and shiny gods, that
looks like an embarrassment, but to us it is the power of God…it is the plan of the fullness of the
times…it is the thing that was predestined and planned and woven into all creation. All things in
heaven and earth are to be united in Christ. There is one Lord. One resurrected Lord. And we
believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the World to come. His cross, His
resurrection, His ascension…is the power that unites and that saves. All creation is walking its
way to that end and will be united in that resurrection body. But right now it is a mystery…it is
hidden in plain sight.
We who have been sealed by the Spirit – the promise to the saints, the downpayment of our
inheritance – have this mystery in jars of clay. We have this cross and the resurrection and the
Lordship. Right now. It has been made known. They have been lavished upon us in all wisdom
and intelligence. The blood comes to us and cover us and works in us. Making us holy and
unblemished. The water effecting in us the adoption. We have it today. But according to His
good pleasure it works through weakness. It works thought the cross. It works through a
revelation and witness. The mystery that we hold, we reveal…in our lives and confessions…and
our worship.
This God won’t force you to take every spiritual blessing. The law never worked. You shall
have no other Gods before me never brought one person to the knowledge and wisdom of God.
But this God – revealed in Jesus Christ has put down that warrior bow and promised not to take
it up again like he did at the flood. He turned down the temptation of Satan with all those
straight line power kingdoms, and he ran from the 5000 strong crowd he had fed bread because
the wanted to make him king. The law never worked. It is still true and good. But every
spiritual blessing comes only by grace, through faith in the proclamation of the mystery – the
cross, the resurrection and the already eternal Lordship of Jesus Christ.
And all that so that we – those who hope first in Christ, not in every earthly prop, but in Christ
alone - we might be that praise of his glory. Our walk, our lives…in Christ, might be that
praise. Sing praise to God the highest good…the God of love who understood our need for His
salvation…To God all praise and glory. Amen.