Ephesians 1:7-10 • The Son's Love, Greater Than...

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

Let me ask that you would look in your bibles today at the first chapter of Ephesians.
Again, good news today:  We're looking at just a single sentence.
Better news:  We're looking at just a third of a single sentence.
Bad news:  That's what I said last week when we were looking at the longest sentence in the Bible, 202 words.
Now, the fact that this long sentence has no periods does not mean that Paul has no emphases.
Last week, he was talking about the ministry of God the Father in the first third of this long sentence.
This week, we'll look at where he emphasizes the ministry of God the Son.
Now, if last week was the ministry of God the Father, this week is God the Son, what do you think next week's going to be?
That's right.
Next week, the last third of the sentence is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.
But what the apostle is doing in this particular section of his epistle is answering the question that Chris and Whitney just so wonderfully sang about:  I wonder if my life can be any different at all?
Can it be, really, any different at all?
And if so, what will make it different?
Let me ask that you would stand and we read Paul's answer as we read Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7-10, Ephesians 1:7-10.
There the apostle writes of Christ Jesus, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."
Let's pray together.
>>> Father, could it really be that You have a plan to unite earth to heaven, our hearts to Yours, mine to Jesus?
If that's the plan, teach me how to walk the path and how to find this Jesus.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
I love a mystery, particularly the mysteries where they give you the solution before you get to the end.
I mean, it's really not fair the mysteries where they save key facts until the final paragraph, like, you know, the butler was actually married to the victim.
Or there's an axe murderer living in the basement.
You know, kind of like, come on:  I should have known that ahead of time.
The mysteries that are actually the most fun are where the facts are in plain si--, plain view, in plain sight, and we're allowed to put them together so that when we finally put it together, we say, "Oh, it was there all along."
In this portion of scripture, the apostle Paul is talking about a mystery.
But it's a mystery whose facts have been hidden in plain sight, a mystery about rescue, a mystery you might think about a little bit in the context of one of the great mysteries of the Cold War, when our nation feared that huge portions of our population might be walk--, wiped out by a nuclear bomb and plans were made but kept secret for rescuing all of this nation's highest elected officials.
There was a bomb shelter secured away, supposedly where no one could see it, where all U.S. senators and congressman were to be taken in light of a nuclear attack.
It was in West Virginia at the Greenbriar Resort and Gold Course.
[Laughter]
Now, very few people knew that it was actually a bomb shelter intended for the nation's highest elected officials.
In fact, no one knew until the 1990s when a newspaper leaked the story.
But you should have been able to figure it out.
I mean, the clues were in plain view.
Like the multi-inch thick steel doors that were at every entrance.
Or the TV repairmen that were around all the time with microphones in their ears.
The answer was in plain view, but it was still a mystery.
Maybe like spiritual things are to a lot of us.
I mean, we know that here in plain view people go to church and they seem to have some sense of a spiritual reality, but the question we have, which was just sung to us, is:  Can my life really be different?
What would change me?
What can make different?
What do these people in this church that seem to know spiritual things know that I can't quite get my hands around it.
It's there to see, but I don't see it yet.
And what Paul wants to tell us is the mystery of our rescue and how it has been made known through the work of Jesus Christ.
In order to discern the mystery, maybe you have to see the steel doors, the ones hidden behind the potted plants that are, nonetheless, revelatory of the mystery that we are supposed to know.
The first set of steel doors is revealed in verse 7 just by the language of the apostle Paul.
There in verse 7, the apostle says, "In him," that is in Christ the Beloved, "in him we have redemption through his blood."
Now, the word redemption for any Jew would mean a payment to get someone out of slavery.
And when the Jews think about slavery, their minds automatically go back to Egypt where they were at one point slaves before the great exodus whereby God rescued them.
And when Paul says that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, he means not only that our guilt has been put away but that we have been taken out of slavery to sin.
It's why when we sang earlier this day "Rock of Ages," we were reminded in the song that we have been saved from the guilt and the power of sin.
And the notion that we are enslaved by sin is actually a very key aspect of the scriptures, because in this day and age, the evil of sin is not what we sometimes in the church want to talk:  about that people do bad things or immoral things or things they ought to be ashamed of.
New York pastor Tim Keller says, "That just doesn't make much sense in the culture that we're in today."
That where our culture like the Old Testament culture that the prophets describe has forgotten how to blush, that trying to turn people to Christ by saying, "You need to be forgiven of being bad," people say, "What are you talking about?
So what if there are things that you call immoral in my life?
That's just your opinion."
The great evil of our day is not what is immortal:  The great evil of our day is what enslaves.
That is where everybody says, "That's not where I want to go," so that people gather in this church as they did yesterday to hear about human trafficking, not so much because they object to the immorality of it:  because we recognize the great evil of controlling other people, to enslaving them according to the desires of another.
It's actually the enslavement that the apostle is talking about here when he says, "We have been redeemed by the blood of Christ."
From that which, as Jacob was sweetly and wonderfully talking about earlier, that which my heart goes after for a while and yet I find that whatever was the pleasure or the addiction ultimately begins to enslave me.
I thought it was for fun.
I thought it was for entertainment.
But over time, I began to recognize it has captured me.
And so in our culture, even the icons like Amy Winehouse, the great English rocker, who for a sowo--, so long was worshipped because she was willing to live outside social conventions.
She had escaped the slavery of the conventions of the age.
And she was so admired by her followers, until she became an alcoholic.
And enslaved to the bottle.
And then her fans began to abandon her as she would forget the words to the lyrics at the concerts or even forget the concerts.
Until at the end, her father said that the reason that she died was she tried to detoxify too fast, as though the alcohol was reaching up and pulling her down into the grave to enslave her.
We don't so much hate the lifestyle as we do the sense that we could be controlled by anything.
And so much of our lives in this culture now are seeking to escape control of others.
And so we have young women who are enslaved by a sense of body image, who then become enslaved to bulimia or anorexia.
And really it's all frowned upon by our society, because it's the evidence of a sort of enslavement in itself.
Or the young people so pained by the control of peers or parents that they begin to cut themselves just to have some control even over the pain in my life, because I am so enslaved by the expectations of others.
Even the drive in our culture now toward informality, so that we are not controlled by the obligations and the expectations of a company or an institution or a church:  that I will demonstrate I am not being controlled by you.
Because that is the great evil:  to be enslaved.
And, yet, what we find:  The more we try to find an escape from the slavery of convention in our culture, the more we are enslaved by every escape and medication and practice that we try.
So that as Jacob was saying so much earlier, "I pursued these things believing in them there would be entertainment."
And ultimately you say, "What is this giving me?"
It's but another trap.
It's but another net.
I'm enslaved even by the things I thought would release me.
And that's not a mystery to many of us in this congregation as we have family or friends or own habits that cause us to recognize how the things that we thought were escapes are actually another form of slavery.
Never stated more well than in the words of U2's song "Numb," where the one who is singing simply proclaims the need for release:  "Don't connect.
Don't conform."
But in a video release of that song, the one who is singing, "Don't connect and don't conform," is sitting in a chair barely able to say the words as the flicker of a TV screen is reflected in his face and the band is singing behind, "I feel numb; I feel numb; I feel numb," as we are enslaved by the very things we try to use for escape.
And here Paul the apostle is saying, "We have been set free by the work of Jesus Christ."
The entertainments, the things that we sought in life that we thought were going to give us release became steel doors instead to close us in, to entrap us, to enslave us.
But the apostle says we have been redeemed by the blood of the Beloved.
When you talk about blood redeeming, for a Jew, obviously, what's been thought about is the Passover, where the blood of innocent was put on the doorposts to the Jews' homes so that they would have the passing over of the consequence of the guilt of the land in which they lived.
The innocent blood would be saed--, would be shed in order to save many.
And now the apostle is saying, "We too had been redeemed by blood."
And he is reminding us that by the blood of Christ the penalty for our sin was put on Him.
And so the wrath of God has been put by us, and we are actually able to come close to Him.
The beauty of what it means to be redeemed is just in the first two words of verse 7:  "In Him we have been redeemed."
We are united to Him.
No longer does the guilt of our sin separate us.
And what that means, if we are united to Him:  It means the one who raised Christ from the dead is now working in our behalf, in our hearts, helping us that when we are enslaved to the habits or the addictions of this world, we are not helpless.
To the question, "Can my life really be any different?" the apostle's responding by saying, "You've not only been saved from the guilt of sin:  You have been rescued from its power.
You are united to Christ."
Satan says to you, "You have no power; you cannot be helped.
You cannot be fixed."
But the reality of the message of the resurrection is we are united to the King of the universe.
The resurrected God is ours.
We are united to Him.
And while Satan comes to us and says, "You cannot change; you cannot help it; you cannot be fixed," the gospel has us echoing the realities of our redemption to say, "I can be helped; I have power; Christ is mine; I am His; I'm united to Christ."
And that reality of our redemption is the reality of the power that is ours that should not be denied by conscience or by habit or Satan himself.
We have been redeemed, and sin no longer is a slave master to me or to you.
Those steel doors have been opened.
But they are not the only steel doors implied in this passage.
For while the steel doors of slavery have been opened, there are other steel doors that have been closed about us to protect us.
The apostle begins to describe this redemption in this way.
He says, it is, middle of verse 7, "the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and power."
Forgiveness of trespasses.
For many of us, we begin to think of the way we were taught to say the Lord's Prayer:  "Forgive us our trespasses."
Now, those of you who say that probably were raised in a Roman Catholic tradition.
Protestants, we typically say, "Forgive us our," what?
"Forgive us our debts."
Now, the other isn't wrong.
But protestants typically say the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and that is, "Forgive us our debts."
Roman Catholics around the world also say, "Forgive us our debts," except in the English speaking tradition.
And there the worship tradition in the Roman Catholic Church is to say, "Forgive us our trespasses."
Now, that's not wrong.
Actually, that's the language right here:  that by redemption we have been forgiven, we have forgiveness of our trespasses.
And it's actually a very precious truth.
In western culture when we think about trespassing, we typically think about going into another's property, into another's place.
But the language that's being used here is actually the opposite direction.
"Forgive us our trespass" is the notion of actually going outside a boundary, as though we have been inside a place of safe keeping near to the heart of God, united to Christ.
And we also have forgiveness of our wandering, of our going away from God, of our trespass in the outward direction.
That, we are told, is more than just forgiveness of our sin.
Do you recognize it is actually forgiveness of betrayal?
Once close to God and now trespassing going the other direction.
He redeemed me and this redemption is even from the closeness to Him that I have abandoned.
How much forgiveness is actually there?
The apostle uses these words:  "The forgiveness of our trespass, according to the riches of his grace."
Grace is free.
It's not earned.
It's not deserved.
This grace that covers our betrayal, that covers our sin and guilt, is not something that we arrange.
Instead, it's something that God is dispensing to His people.
Well, how much is there?
I mean, what if your sin is really, really big?
Well, the apostle says the forgiveness is according to the riches of His grace.
Others have said this does not mean that when God is dispensing grace He's taking pennies out of His penny purse.
This is the riches of His grace.
This is wheelbarrows of gold.
This is Caterpillar tractor houseful shovels of the riches of heaven that are being dispensed out upon God's people, so much so that we are now told this grace is, verse 8, "lavished upon us."
It's the language of grace of heaven that is so big and so wide that those who were once far away who've moved away from the presence of God are now given the blessing of a child of a King.
Lavished with this grace of God.
You know the words from 1 John:  "Behold what manner of love he has lavished upon us, that we should be called the children of God."
This grace is that big.
And it is "according to the riches of His grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight," meaning, and He knows what He's doing:  He's giving it even when He knows what we've done.
Each dimension of this grace is meant to say:  What if I can't make it up to Him?
Well, it was free in the first place.
It's grace.
What if it's something really big?
Well, His riches are meant to cover it.
What if it's totally awful?
He's lavish in His giving of it.
What if He really finds out?
He already knows.
He is dispensing the grace with wisdom and insight to those who desperately need it as they have left nearness to Him and gone to the far gone country.
When I was working at an institution training pastors, there was a young man who at one point went to the far country.
And as his immorality began to enslave him, he could not stop.
And when he was found out, we went through a process with him of discipline, of accountability to try to help him.
But at that point, his heart was so far away from his Savior he would not be helped and in fact got angry at every attempt to help him.
 He ended up leaving the institution.
I did not hear from him for years.
And one day got a phone call and said, "What do I have to do to come back?
Whatever you require, I will do it."
And I could not help but ask, "What is different now?
I mean, there was a time when we tried to help and you would not hear it.
But now you are saying whatever it takes."
And he simply confessed at that time:  "I continued on the path that I was on until I was so totally enslaved it was destroying me and my family and I had no choice but to repent of my sin before God.
And I now want to claim and proclaim the grace that is mine."
What is the grace that is yours?
He said, "When I was at my absolute low, when I had no one and nothing in life that would support me," he said, "I discovered the words of an old song which is simply this:  'This shall all my glory be, that Jesus is not ashamed of me.'"
Maybe my parents are ashamed.
Maybe my family, my school, my company, my church is ashamed.
Maybe I'm ashamed of me, but the reality of the gospel is by grace that is rich and free and lavish and given in full knowledge of God, that God is willing to say, "This shall all your glory be, Jesus is not ashamed of you or me."
That's the glory of the gospel that is ours.
It means that what God is saying is the steel doors of His heart are hooked around us in such a way that He will not let us go.
You are Mine.
My grace is sufficient.
You are trying to trespass.
I forgive you.
My love holds you.
My heart is big enough for you.
And this is so hard for not only us but others to understand that the apostle goes on to describe it as a mystery, so hard for us to comprehend.
Verse 9:  As God is lavishing this grace upon us with all wisdom and insight, we're also told, "He is making known," verse 9, "to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ."
Now, a biblical mystery, you have to understand, a biblical mystery is not a problem to be solved.
Mystery in the Bible is a truth that's been revealed, something that was there all along, something that could have been seen, but it's got to be revealed by an act of God.
As God is reminding us that the mystery that's been hidden for the ages has been that God had a plan to establish a people out of His own heart and love.
So that He would say to Abraham, "I will make you a father of many nations."
My plan is not just to save one or two little ones:  My plan is to open up the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ to the nations.
And that plan has been unfolding all along, but it's so hard for us to perceive.
And so, we are told, it has been made plain now by Christ.
As though there has been a lens put upon our eyes so that we could finally see what we need to see.
I have a friend who by consequence of age and some disease has had to have new lenses put into his eyes.
And the most dramatic result that he saw almost immediately, we said, when he now leaned over the golf ball to hit it, he said, "Hey, there are dimples in the golf ball."
[Laughter]
Now, he knew there were dimples in the golf ball, but he didn't have the eyes to see it until he had new lenses put on.
And the lens, which is making plain to us now the purpose of God He set forth in Christ, we are told, as though Christ has been set before our eyes to say to all of us, "Your sin is not too big.
The powers cannot overwhelm you.
You are united to God by His grace, and that means the work of Jesus Christ, the power that He has, is in you now to accomplish His good purposes."
But not for you alone.
Look what the apostle says in verse 10.
That this which was set forth in Christ, "as a plan was for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."
What are we seeing with the lens now that we have been given of Christ?
It is the doors of heaven flown wide open.
You remember when Dorothy finally gets to Oz and she knocks on the door for a while trying to get attention?
And doesn't really see the wonder until at some point the doors are thrown open.
And then there is a kingdom of beauty and color and ultimate release.
And what we are being told here is that the doors of God's heart have been thrown wide open.
That's what we see in Christ Jesus:  that God who has provided by His Son this grace by which Jesus' blood would pay the sacrifice penalty for your sin and mine and that it would be lavish enough to cover big sin and big enough for awful sin and done even when God knows the worst of it.
That God is making this known to us so that we would be united to Christ.
Look at verse 10:  "The plan, the plan for the fullness of time," that is when things got ripe in God's plan, would be "to unite all things in him."
Now, all things is a pretty gig--, pretty big term.
It first means that God's plan was to unite us to Him despite our sin and our weakness and our frailties and our enslavements.
But all things does not just include us.
It includes many others.
So what Paul is doing in this portion of Ephesians is he is getting people ready for what he has to say:  I did not just proclaim to you a gospel for the Jews but for all people, for it has been God's plan since the beginning of time to bring many into the kingdom so that He would unite all people despite our bitternesses and differences and antitheses, and prejudices that we would be together.
And so as this wonderful church is beginning to talk about a strategic plan of unlimited grace and hire a pastor of a nondominant ethnicity and begin to have a mission focus upon people around us in neighborhoods who are of different ethnicities and backgrounds and nations that what you must see is that you're actually participating in the plan of God.
This was the plan:  that in the fullness of time, when it was ripe, when Christ had done His work, when we actually began to see the world through Him, that He would unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth; not just uniting us to Christ; not just uniting us to each other but ultimately uniting earth to heaven, so that that prayer we do pray in the Lord's Prayer, that things would be done on earth as they are in heaven, would be the actual purpose of the church; that earth and heaven would be coming together in the people of God, because they have the lens of Christ, understanding who they are and what they are to do.
It's what you've committed to do, which is so hard to do in our culture, in our time.
And, yet, God is calling us to do, to say, what I have experienced, the beautiful message of the grace of God is not just my rejoicing:  It is my calling to let others know this message.
That becomes my mission now.
And so when Jacob stands up in front of you and he says just so wonderfully and with such, how do I say this, innocence now of what we could think about him, he simply says, "I was enslaved, but I've been set free.
But that's not something I rejoice in alone:  I want you to know it.
And I want more to know it.
I know there are other slaves about me.
I know there are others who are suffering.
I know there are families who are broken apart, but God's purpose is to reconcile all things to Christ and in Him to bring, not only us to Him but us to each other and ultimately to create heaven's dynamics here on earth as earth is united to heaven through Him."
One of the great, great works of western art was done by Lorenzo Ghiberti.
Some of you have been there in Florence and seen the great bronze doors on the baptistery that's connected to the great cathedral in Florence, Italy.
Ghiberti worked for fifty years to complete the doors.
They show scenes first in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament, as the plan that God was working which came to fulfillment in Christ is being revealed.
First God working in small numbers, then working through families, then tribes, then nations, and then finally spreading the message across the world.
And what Ghiberti was doing as he put those doors in front of the baptistery is he was first celebrating in the joy that was his:  I am part of the plan.
God has done something tremendous; He has opened the doors of heaven to me.
I am able to go into my Father's house by the work of His Son, and He now calls me His own.
It's the privilege you and I have.
It's as though we have been invited to an elite dinner party, and we show up at the door of the house and we're not dressed right and we don't look right and our hearts aren't right.
And somebody's, you know, about to stop us.
And we just have to say, "I'm with Him."
And the Him is the Beloved of the house.
"I'm with Him."
And we get into the family room, and then we begin to see there are many others who have come into the house and they have all gotten in the same way.
They are united to Him.
And as Ghiberti was saying, not only do I with this wonderful demonstration of art celebrating the salvation of myself, I'm inviting the world to see it and to be part of it.
That here is the great demonstration of the grace of God through the ages.
But now they are doors into the house of God.
It's our privilege as well.
It's why I so celebrate being the pastor of this place:  that you are a people who have said not only do I take joy in the knowledge that I've been made right with God by the work of His Son; it's now my lens to see the world.
I see the world through Jesus.
I see people who need Him as much as I do.
I see people who are enslaved as much as I was.
I see people who need to be united in home and family and church as much as I once did.
And as much as I celebrate what's been done for me, I want other people to be a part of this too.
All barriers down.
All parts open.
It's the beauty of the gospel to which we have been called by the work of Jesus Christ.
And I call you now, a church I love and am proud to pastor:  Let us live out the message by making this our mission.
Even this same Jesus calls us now to make our message, our mission, until earth and heaven are one and all are united in Christ Jesus.

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