Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 04 August 2024, by Rev. Judy Chan. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 138 and Ephesians 1:1-14.

A Crash Course in Blessings

Good morning. Today, as you have heard, we begin our month-long sermon series from the New Testament book of Ephesians. You may remember during Lent, we did something similar with a series on the Beatitudes. The Worship Advisory Group thought it might be worth trying this again during Ordinary Time with a short series on one book of the Bible. As it turned out, the lectionary readings during this period are from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. So, for the next four weeks, you’ll be hearing sermons on four different passages from four different preachers. And hopefully we will all gain new insight and inspiration for our life in Christ as a church and as a people. 

Some theologians and preachers claim Ephesians as their favorite book in the Bible. The famous sixteenth century Reformer, John Calvin, loved Ephesians – to the point that he wrote a 700-page commentary and preached 48 sermons on it. Well, I’m no John Calvin, so you and me both wouldn’t likely make it through a year of messages from a book that’s only six chapters long. 

Yet, Ephesians is unique among the epistles. Why? For one thing, Ephesians is the only letter that doesn’t address a particular problem that’s arisen in a specific church. Now, there was a church established in Ephesus as we know from the book of Acts. And Paul visited this small congregation on his second missionary journey, later spending three years as a pastor among them. He’s writing this letter a few years later from a prison cell, one of his four so-called ‘prison letters’, the others being Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. 

But, as I said, in the other epistles, Paul’s usually responding to a crisis. A crisis that forces him to call out either false teaching or wrong behavior. In Ephesians, however, we have something more general, something bigger and broader that could be read not just by the Christians in Ephesus but by other churches in the region. In fact, some early manuscripts omit the phrase “in Ephesus” in the first verse. So, this may well have been used as a circular letter among first-century churches in Asia Minor.

What is Ephesians about then? The author of the Message Bible, Eugene Peterson, believes Ephesians is essentially about the Church. But not the Church we see, but the Church as God intended it to be. Or as he puts it, what truly makes the church church. Paul does this by providing an inside look at the spiritual foundations and hidden structures that are beneath and behind and within every church, whether we know it or not. These are what give the church its unique mission and identity, and we ignore them at our own peril. 

So, Paul in a way is like an architect. He’s showing us how the church by design is part of God’s master plan for the universe. And just what is God’s master plan? To set all things right by bringing everything and everyone together in Jesus Christ. 

Peterson says we should be grateful then we have Ephesians. Because without it, we’d have to make up ‘church’ as we go along, caught up in whatever seems right at the moment. But because we have these precious words from Ephesians, we have no excuse to be anything other than what God intended us to be – namely, a witness, a united and holy witness to the Kingdom of God in our midst, on earth as it is in heaven.

I have to confess that I’ve probably not given the writings of Paul enough attention in my own study and preaching. My eyes were opened when I joined the Bible Study on Galatians taught by John Mok-Lamme last year. He said we tend to give the Gospels more weight than the Epistles. I know I certainly have. But he believes we’d have a mighty hard time fleshing out our Christian faith without the writings of Paul. So much of our understanding of basic doctrines like sin, grace, redemption, reconciliation and yes, Church, we owe to Paul. So, let’s give him credit where credit is due!

Where then shall we start? Why not where Paul starts in Ephesians 1? This opening passage has been called a ‘crash course in blessings’. And indeed it’s just packed, overflowing as Paul names one spiritual blessing after the other that God has already given us in Christ. Note: Already given us! That’s the point Paul’s making here. Because we usually think of blessings as something we have to ask for and hope we’re lucky enough to get. 

It’s like the story told of the late American publisher, William Randolph Hearst. One day he heard about a certain painting and decided he really would like to have it. So, he sent his people all over to try to locate this painting but they couldn’t find it anywhere. A year later, out of the blue, one of his employees came to him. He said, “We’ve found the painting at last!” Hearst was so excited. “Where has it been all this time?” he asked. His employee said, “It was in your basement. You’ve owned it all the time.” You see, Mr. Hearst had never read the inventory of everything he owned. He didn’t understand the wealth he already possessed.

St Paul tells us the same. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Every spiritual blessing. So, how exactly has God blessed us before we even asked for a single thing? Let me count the ways:

 

God chose us in Christ

Destined us for adoption through Christ

Redeemed us and forgave our sins by the blood of Christ

Made known the mystery of God’s will set forth in Christ

Gathered up all things in Christ

Gave us an inheritance through Christ

Set our hope on Christ

And through Christ marked us with the promised seal of the Holy Spirit.

Wow, that’s a lot of blessings, isn’t it? In fact, it’s the story of our salvation and we need to hear it again and again, so we never forget God’s goodness and mercy to us in Jesus Christ, so we never forget we really do have 10,000 reasons to bless the Lord and worship His holy name.

Yet I wonder…

I wonder why we feel somewhat less ecstatic than Paul does about all this. Maybe because this isn’t exactly the picture we were looking for. You know, when I think of blessings nowadays, they are usually more concrete things…things that answer our needs right now, like a better job, money to pay the bills, relief from pain, a happy family – things like that. Sure, we should be grateful for all those ‘spiritual’ blessings of Christ, but couldn’t we have a few more ‘material’ blessings on this side of eternity? 

I don’t think we’re necessarily being selfish to want good things for ourselves. But in terms of God’s blessings, we need to be careful that we don’t value the gift more than the giver. We’ve all seen children at Christmas or a birthday so excited to get a present. They can’t wait to go try it out. And Mom has to remind them, “And what do we say?” “Oh yeah, thanks Grandma, thanks Grandpa.” A hug and away they go. 

But what’s really the most important thing here? It’s not the gift, is it? It’s the relationship. And it’s the same with divine gifts. God has always desired to bless us materially and spiritually, vertically and horizontally. But the ultimate purpose of all divine gifts is to draw us closer to the One who gives them to us. As they say, we don’t go through God to get blessings; we go through blessings to get to God. You see, that’s the plan… from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, from the eternal past to the eternal future, that’s always been the plan. As it says in the Westminster Catechism, what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. 

In Jesus Christ, God has made a way for everyone and everything to do exactly that: to glorify God and enjoy God forever. Because that’s what we are made for. That’s what the Church is here for. That’s our inheritance, our destiny in Christ. That doesn’t mean we get everything we want in this life. Or there won’t be suffering and trials in this life. After all, we live in a fallen world. But we do so in the assurance that this fallen world isn’t the end of the story. That Sin, Satan and Death are not the end of the story! 

In Christ, God has promised us “blessing for curse, fullness for emptiness, Eden for wilderness”.[1] Do you believe that? Do you believe in Christ there is no blessing for the people of God that will not one day be given? Do you believe in Christ there is no promise of God that will not one day be fulfilled? If you believe this, Baptist preacher J.D. Greear says:

There’s nothing more you could hope for from God right now than you already have in Christ. God could not love you more than God does right now; God could not be more for you than God is right now. God could not be working more on your behalf than God is right now. Every member of the Trinity is at work for you and in you, always has, always will be…[2]

Thanks be to God!

Let me close with a prayer, actually Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 1. It’s found in vv. 15-19, following our Scripture reading for today. As I said earlier, Ephesians was likely a circular letter meant for many churches. And I believe Paul’s words are meant for us today in Kowloon Union Church, as we celebrate 100 years of God’s blessings for us, in us and through us. Hear what he says: 

15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe… 

Amen.

 

Resources:

William R. Osborne, Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God, Crossway, 2020.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection, Eerdmans, 2010.