Ephesians 1:18-23 • Better Than Heroes 09/05/2006
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Thank you Christine. Helps us a lot. Let's look in our Bibles this morning at Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians 1 verses 18 through 23. There's an old preacher's tale about a young minister called to his first church, preached a wonderful sermon that first time out of the chute, got lots of commendation, and the next week preached from the same text and preached the same sermon. The elders thought, "Uh oh, he doesn't quite understand what's expected. He's new. Next week surely he'll push on, but the next week same text, same sermon. They knew they had to meet with him. Why are you staying on the same text?" said the young preacher.
"When the people do what this text says, then I'll move to the next one." Now for those of you who are at the new student reception and I preached from this text, that's not why I'm going over it again. There's a portion of this passage in which Paul prays that the eyes of the hearts of the Ephesians would be opened to their hope. He talks about the hope that it is to be the inheritance of God. That's what we focused on at the new student reception, but there's an and. Not only the hope of their inheritance, but also the hope that send the power of God, and that's what we'll focus today. Read again with me Ephesians 1 verses 18 through 23. Paul says, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. For Christ's sake, stop." One voice among 50,000 who were screaming for blood. It was the Colosseum. The gladiators were mauling and murdering one another. And a young monk who had come from Turkey to see the sights of Rome was appalled by what he was saying. And despite the bloodlust of the crowd, he called out, "For Christ's sake, stop." No one paid attention. It was meaningless. And so he went to the floor of the arena where the combatants were fighting one another and stood among the weapons and cried out three times, "For Christ's sake, stop." For Christ's sake, stop. For Christ's sake, stop. And they did. For a moment, just a moment, incredulous that one would be here urging them to stop, that he would stand amidst the weapons and say, "Stop." It seemed impossible, incredible, and intolerable.
Again, the crowd raised its voice in bloodlust, not now for the gladiators, but for Telemachus. A stone was thrown. It stung him. Another stone stunned him. He fell to the ground, and a hail of stones followed that killed him. The gladiators resumed their fight. His blood mingled with theirs, and it seemed all for nothing, for nothing. Except a few days later, the Roman Emperor Honorius, plagued in conscience by what he had seen,
called off the gladiator fights in the Colosseum once and for all time. Somehow one voice was stronger than 50,000. Somehow one man standing for Christ turned back generations of evil and started a course of events that resulted in the change of an empire, and dare we even say the reason that many of us would even sit here today.
The historian Will Durant, who was an agnostic, no great friend of Christians, but nonetheless an astute observer of human events, said what really happened that day when Telemachus went into the arena. He said, "Christ and Caesar met in the arena, and Christ won." Seems impossible that there could be such power from something so small and insignificant as one little monk in the Roman Empire, but what that monk realized, what Paul is saying to us even yet again today, is this. The church is the world's greatest hope,
and you are the church's greatest hope. How can the church be such a great hope? It is by the power of Christ, her advocate. Remember, Paul is praying in verse 18, that the eyes of the hearts of the Ephesians would be open, that somehow from their innermost being they could see reality, what really is in existence, that they would see what Christine was just talking about, the treasure that God's people are to him, his own inheritance. But then also these words beginning verse 19, in the NIV it says, "His incomparably great power for us who believe." That power of Christ is first described in its nature. It is incomparably great. The ESV says what? Immeasurably great. The NASB says, "Surpassing greatness." There is this power beyond the norm. It is supernatural, and the apostle begins to describe it. It's not only incomparably great, it is death-defying power. That power, he says, middle way through 19, that power is like the working of God's mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. We're so accustomed to the word of the resurrection that we don't see what the apostle is saying. He's saying there has been a change in the cosmic order of things.
Death has reigned from Adam till this point, but now Christ has overcome. And because he has overcome,
sin itself has been conquered. Its effects are no longer permanent for those who believe. God's power is not just working on a spiritual plane, but even the physical is being changed. The world of its spiritual and physical spheres as imploding, changing, the king of the cosmos has come. He has taken over, and his rule is changing the order of everything. And the evidence of that is the power of God exhibited when Jesus was raised from the dead.
And that is not the end of the power. It is not only power that works for Christ, it is supreme over all other things. Verse 21 says that when Christ was seated at the right hand of the heavenly realms, it was far above all rule and authority, power and dominion.
Most of the commentators agree that this was a Jewish categorization of the armies of Satan in their various ranks. If Paul were sitting with us and we were watching Lord of the Rings, he would be saying, "Jesus is far above the Southrons and the Easterlings and the Orcs."
If it was the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, he would look at the the armies of the white witch and he would say, "Asland is greater than the ghouls and the specters and the hags and the people of the toadstools, he's greater than all of them." But Paul isn't pointing to imaginary hosts of Satan, he's pointing to the real demons of our lives, fear and anger and lust and pride. And he says, "Jesus is greater than them all." You don't fear them anymore, his power is greater than they. How much greater? He's above them. How much above them? Far above them. As if the apostle is saying, "It's no contest, he is the victor, he is the king, he has brought his power and that power is now in behalf of God's people." So it is not only placing him far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, but the end of verse 21, "And above every title that can be given." Here not only thinking of the ranks of the demons, but now scanning the horizon of political and earthly power and thinking of Caesars and Kings saying, "Jesus is greater." And presidents and premiers and saying, "Jesus is greater." Everything that has a title that you think by its position has authority and influence over you that you cannot control. Maybe it's professor, maybe it's father or boss or molester. Whatever has title in your life, the apostle says, "Christ is greater." His power of more influence. He has more control. You did not fear that they will overcome you because he is greater. Not just for now, but for all time. Because we are told in verse 21 that not only is he above every title that can be given, but it's not only in the present age, but also in the age to come. Here is Christ transcending time, his power working beyond the immediate. Telemachus surely thought he had failed when the stones stung him. But God was working beyond Telemachus' time. He works beyond our time. Surely Paul, who is languishing in prison, now in his fourth year, having first been arrested in Rome and then two years in Caesarea and now two years in Rome, wondering, "What is the use of this? I just sit here and rot." And yet here is the proclamation of the truth of God. He's not bound by our time. This power over everything is in the present age and it exists even in the age to come. This power is not only great, it is focused.
And begin to see as that power comes why the church has such hope. First in verse 19, he's already said the incomparably great power is for us who believe. But when you get to verse 21 and 22, we understand it's even more focused. This power that is in the present age and the one to come is because God placed all things under Christ's feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church. The language some of you have it there in the ESV is God gave him to be head over all things for the church. That this headship, this rule by which Christ has all things under his feet and his head over all things is God's gift to the church. That this incomparably great power is going to be exercised for the good of the church.
Anybody who's ever been picked on in junior high knows the 1980s movie My Bodyguard.
The story of Clifford Peach. See you're already nodding, you see people know this story. Clifford Peach, remember the nerd who's being picked on by a bunch of thugs who are extorting lunch money from other kids and the reason they are giving is that they are going to protect the kids from Lenderman. Lenderman is this huge kid who looks 30 years old, who supposedly is still in junior high because he killed his brother in cold blood and has been in prison for so many years and now has come back to be in junior high. Everybody exists in terror before Lenderman. But Clifford Peach has had too much of the extortion of his lunch money to stand for it anymore so he actually goes to Lenderman and says, "I'll give you 50 cents every day and do your homework. If you'll protect me." Well Lenderman doesn't need the money but he is bemused by the desperation and so he agrees to be Peach's bodyguard and suddenly Peach has peace.
No more fears, anything because he's got Lenderman. Well Paul is just saying
Jesus is better than Lenderman. More powerful, greater, expressing his power for the church.
It's not just meant to be a parable of the past or even something that brings a smile to our face but what inspires Christians, enables them to fight for the cause of Christ in the greatest difficulties the humankind can face. I mentioned to you at the new student reception that trip I took with Dr. Jones some years ago where we went to Huguenot territory first and saw where the Huguenots had been massacred and slaughtered and driven out of France and then how I had gone from there to Hungary to minister to other pastors who had also been under great oppression. I told you how I sat across the dinner table one time for a man who as he lifted his bowl of soups his sleeves fell back and I could see the scars where the shackles had been on him as he had been imprisoned by the communists for preaching the gospel.
And I talked to another man who told me how his father had pastored a prestigious church in Budapest but because he would preach the gospel not just the government but even the church authorities had exiled him in a small rural village that didn't even have a road to it only a walking path and because he would not stop preaching the gospel there they had taken his children away from him. The children had been raised in orphanages and one of those children was the pastor I was now talking to telling me about his father and the reason that he was here is that his son-in-law one of our graduates had convened this pastors conference of pastors from across Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria and brought them together to hear about the gospel of grace so they could proclaim it again and I recognize again what was happening that for any given moment surely these people had wondered where is this incomparably great power for us who believe when people were in prison when their children were taken away when they watch pastors and friends die and yet even as the ministry of the Huguenots had spread the gospel into Europe so that these pastors were present in proclaiming the gospel were there because of the ministry of the Huguenots and even though the communist empire had years later tried to wipe them out again nonetheless they had existed beyond emperors and beyond empires and the gospel was still being proclaimed and multiplied through another generation Christ and Caesar had met in the arena again and Christ had won again and it was because the people of God recognized this power is beyond us this power which the eyes of our heart alone can see by faith is that power that not only is going to call us to faithfulness but it will ignite in generations beyond us faith in Jesus Christ that his power will vanquish the rulers of this earth who do not call him lord because he is the lord that power is for the church as you begin to see how it works you begin to see why Paul is so encouraging these Ephesians and their little house churches in the great metropolis of Ephesus and the surrounding territories where there's surely no hope that they would make any difference among the decadence and the materialism and the eroticism and the paganism and the pluralism thinking we can't do anything here
Paul is saying remember Christ who is for you he is greater than all how does how does Christ actually bring hope into the world Paul is saying it here by the church verse 22 God placed all things under Christ's feet appointed to be head over everything for the church
which is his body the fullness of him who fills everything in every way the words are hard for us the fullness of him who fills everything in every way here here is virtually the eschatological vision of the apostle he's saying like the prophets of old did the righteousness of God will cover the earth as righteousness covers as waters cover the sea that there will be this permeating fullness of Christ that's going to fill everything in every way Paul uses similar language in colossians remember the second chapter in the ninth verse when he says in Christ is the fullness of deity bodily all that is God is in him and now Paul is saying that all that is of God all that is of Christ is going to permeate the world he is going to fill up everything not just the spiritual things the physical things the physical order itself is going to change because Christ is going to be all in all says the ESV I can remember when I was a child listening to a south american missionary talk about what happens in villages when the gospel comes and the church begins to take hold didn't quite make sense to me at the time he said he said you can tell when you're going into a Christian village in a primitive culture said the children are clothed
garbage is out of the streets gates are repaired the water smells different I don't think I understood it much I think I'd had enough of kind of western education to think well it must mean that the people are adopting western customs but now I've traveled some myself I've I've been in places in Africa where you go from a rural village to to another rural village and at times it's almost as though you're going into a different nation in a into a different century even though these villages may be only a few miles apart because where the gospel comes people start caring for and disciplining their children they start watching out for neighbor they start respecting themselves and their wives and things change not just at the spiritual level there is a physical order of things that begins to change where the gospel comes and the apostles at least hinting at that here when he says that this power of Christ's coming is going to be the fullness of him who fills everything in every way but but how does it actually work I mean what's the plan for this permeating presence of Christ we just have to read the words carefully God appointed him to be head over everything for the church
for the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills everything and how is the fullness of Christ reaching to the ends of the earth reaching to the households reaching to the streets reaching to the how is that fullness happening it's by his body it's spreading over but what is his body
it is the church
Christ is transforming all things for the church but he is doing it by the church the church is the instrument of his power by which the gospel will spread it is it is unstoppable I didn't say it's not going to be challenged but it is that great progress of the gospel it works that way over and over again yes there are the heroes like Telemachus but that's not ever the full story again Will Durant the agnostic historian spoke more of the story when he wrote this abortion and infanticide which were decimating pagan society were forbidden by Christians as the equivalent to murder in many instances Christians rescued exposed infants that in Roman tradition were simply left on the trash heap the Christians baptized them in the church brought them up with the aid of a community fund that people collected from one another
there is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors bearing all trials with fiery tenacity multiplying quietly building order while their enemies generated chaos fighting the sword with the word fighting brutality with hope and at last defeating the strongest state the world has ever known Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won it was by the work of the church you just don't have to look at Will Durant look at other historians who tell us that Christianity spread through the early Roman empire not so much because people bought the theology but because they looked at the gospel alive in Christian families where a man could really give himself for his wife and a woman desired to please her husband that that there was a greater beauty in in chastity than there were than there was in the Roman orgies that there was this sense of order and love and compassion that became impossible to resist and the plan was simply that the church be the church it's it's what Paul is laying out in the book of Ephesians which we can't unpack all today but most of you know how this will unfold what the apostle has just done he says open the eyes of your heart so you can see the incomparably great power of Christ through his church and then what's he doing in the verse to the book but telling the church how to be the church respecting different gifts gathering together beyond racial and class antipathies husbands and wives loving one another children being honored by their parents and parents being honored by their children even slaves honoring slave owners because slave owners would treat them as brothers a whole new world order that the world could not understand apart from the church all this was going to move the world forward and it's it's not just the ancient of days to which this applies you must understand that when the apostle says this Christ is going to dominate through his church not only in the present age but the age to come he's not trying to limit the Ephesian truth to the Roman Empire
Leslie Newbigian says it so well when he talks to us who sometimes believe the church can make no different difference in this pluralistic society with its decadence and eroticism and idolatry of things but he writes how the church makes a difference Newbigian says I confess that I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation how is it possible that the gospel should be credible that people should come to believe the power that has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross I am suggesting that the only answer
is a congregation of men and women believing the gospel and living it
I am not denying the importance of activities that we seek to use to change public life evangelistic campaigns distribution of Bibles Christian literature conferences even books like this one but I am saying all these things are secondary and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community
the power of Christ is being used for the church and being exercised by the church it is his transforming agent in society it is the greatest hope for the world
but I didn't I didn't just say this message was to be about the greatest hope for the world which is the church but to remind you you are the greatest hope for the church
why is Paul writing these words of power for the church it is so that the Ephesians will change themselves that they will themselves recognize there is something better than heroes
it is us living together as a community forgiving one another loving one another loving those outside of us for the sake of Christ that that will be more powerful than anything
what is your role in this struggle in the present arena between Christ and Caesar?
First it is simply to believe the big story that there is a battle engaged and that Christ will have the victory so that you don't give up you don't walk away you look at the church with all her warts and difficulties and you say and yet and yet she is something worth fighting for she is the bride of Christ and the future victor of the world I think probably no one has inspired a generation more than Tim Keller the pastor who keeps reminding the church of what it means to be the church for the present generation some of you read his recent words in Christianity today he simply said this Christians must be a dynamic counter culture they are called to be a particular kind of community Christ holds the disciples you are a city on a hill Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city an alternate culture within every human culture to show how sex and money and power can be used in non-destructive ways if you would say Tim is known for anything it's because he takes the gospel and he shows people here's what it would mean in your family here's what it would mean in your sexual relations here's what it would mean in your business relations here's what would be in the arts and he just over and over again is saying here's where the gospel would make a difference in the world you live and suddenly you know what's happening there's a generation that's got new hope people are saying there really can be a difference made in the world but but he's not primarily sending people out to be Telemachus he is saying we've got to be the church the bible he says makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of the world is not to escape the material world but to renew it and god's purpose is not just saving individuals but inaugurating a new world order based upon justice love not power not strife not selfishness which is discerned in the life of the church young professors here the commentators on culture say that this is a generation that almost has lost its ability to have hope feeling we won't make a difference we're cogs in the wheel of a culture that's turning without us we can't really make a difference in the church must lessen the world but the apostle is just reminding us all you are the hope of the church if you actually believe what it can be and not only believe the big story but live the little story
to know what paul is meaning when he tells you to walk in purity and holiness and humbleness and for one another to gather as a community not because it serves you but because it serves others to actually believe that as i as i personally have the gospel and the spirit alive in my life that that is the most powerful thing that can happen for the world because the church needs leaders who are holy and humble and believe in her that's why you're the hope of the church this church that is the hope of the world because she so much needs leaders who want to be the needs leaders who will walk with the lord and believe that his grace will enable them to be the kinds of leaders the church needs to be the kind of hope the world needs
i think of just a simple story of a of a young woman her name heidi newmark she took a year off college to go on a internship for missions and went to john's island off the carolina coast to work with the descendants of slaves who went to john's island for sanctuary scores of decades ago
and still live in great desperation
the favorite person that heidi discovered was an older woman named miss ellie who lived in a one-room house miles down a dirt road heidi would go and sit with her and they would drink sweet tea heidi began to recognize that one of miss ellie somewhere between 90 and 100 years old struggled with was seeing her friends her closest friends was just right across a field but there was a wide creek between miss ellie's house and netta's house across the creek you had to walk literally a mile or two down the road to get to where the creek narrowed enough that you could just step over it so heidi hatched a plan she gathered some men in the community and they built a bridge across the creek so that miss ellie could get to her friend netta the day that the bridge was constructed heidi just was filled with joy practically dragged miss ellie out of her rocking chairs come look we built you a shortcut
but instead miss ellie being happy and ebulliad she was not pleased at all I can't take a shortcut
mr john down the road lost his wife a few months ago when i walked down to cross the creek i check in on him see if he's okay and miss nelly further down she needs the scraps of cloth that i bring her so that she can make the clothes for her children and i have lots of old folks i need to check on in case they're sick when you're doing the work of the church you can't take shortcuts somehow miss ellie understood that she was the yarn knitting together that community that existed and prospered and thrived because people took care of one another and she was integral to that process
listen i have such hope for you such love for what i think god will do in and through you as you are the generation that is the hope of the church for influencing a whole culture that seems to be ripening every day for the gospel but there are no shortcuts you cannot influence transform the society if you are not a transformed person christ and caesar will meet in the arena of your life today and every day and it's when you stand for him walk with him plead grace so that you may show grace for him that christ wins and you become the hope for the church that is the hope of the world pray with me father i thank you for these men and women who gather together to make a difference in this world who give of their lives in these months and years to learn more of you for the sake of others teach them well train them well may each day that christ and caesar meet in the arena of their lives be a victory for christ as they seek his grace and live out the gospel for themselves for one another for the church and for the world that will be transformed by her grant us this work of your grace we pray in Jesus name amen