"Paul prays that we will be given a heart and mind that can understand and appropriate what christ has already done, what we've already been given. That the lights will go on in our brains, so we can know God and understand the reality of what he's doing and what it means to join him." In the second episode of the series PLAN: God's Purpose for a Fractured World, Bob Hyatt teaches about the definition of God's people in Ephesians, centering around the truth that God's people are diverse, global, and offensively inclusive.

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Well, good morning everybody. Uh if I haven't gotten a chance to meet you yet, I'm bob, I'm one of the elders of our community, part of the teaching team last week, Pastor robert, who is away this weekend, took us through the first part of the first chapter of the new Testament Book of Ephesians, which we're going to be spending some time in over the next few weeks and this morning we're going to be finishing up chapter one. So if you have a bible or a bible app or whatever it is that you use find Ephesians chapter one about halfway through the new testament and while you do that, I want to ask a non rhetorical question, I really, I actually want to hear your answers. The question is this, what's the best advice that you ever received? I don't, I don't, we don't need to hear the whole story or even what you did with it? Just Shout it out, you know, buy low sell high. Okay. There's one what's the best advice you ever received? Good. Yes. A job worth doing is worth doing. Well, I bet you heard that when you were a kid. Yeah. Yeah. What else? Oh yes, yes. Yeah. The way that I heard that is happiness is expectations divided by reality. And the only part of that that you can control is that expectations. So yeah, what else? Lower everybody else's? Yes, Yes. I had uh I had to do this teaching thing this week and uh, my friend who was introducing me was like, oh yeah, here's bob and he's got all this great with wisdom and everything and I'm like, dude, lower the bar. Lower. Yes, I'm sorry. Somebody else over here had something. Life isn't fair. Yes. Just recognize that right away. Dr eric let go. Let God we had that on a little magnet I think on our, on our refrigerator when I was growing up. Any other ones? Good advice. What you heard? Just keep showing up. Yeah, that's woody. Allen. Life is 90% just showing up. Yeah. Any others. All right. A little bit different question then, what's the best news that you ever received? Yeah, ha ha ha. He seems nonplussed, but yes. Yes. All right. Best news you ever got paid in full. Nice. What else? Really? There's a distinct you are worthy. That's good. I was going to say there's a distinct lack of good news in the crowd. The cancer is gone. Yes. What else? Snow Day? Does anyone else still have this as an adult? Even if you're working from home, if like the snow starts falling and you look out the way and you think you just have this moment of like, I guess I don't have to work today. I still have that. Snow day is good news. What else? Anything? Alright, well, last question then. And this one is kind of weird. What's, what's the difference between good advice and good news? Good advice is something you've got to do something. Yeah. What else does that capture? Yeah, Yeah. It's up to you. Yeah, it's what is? Yes, maybe it will, maybe it won't. Good news is like, no, it is. Yeah. Can I tell you guys, one of my biggest pet peeves, I mean, can I, am I allowed to be transparent and vulnerable up here. Yeah. I used to love getting fortune cookies with, you know, with the chinese food or with the Panda Express or whatever. And now they just make me angry. And the reason is that over the years somewhere they changed when I was a kid, they really were fortune cookies. Like you'd open it up and it will say you will soon go on an exciting adventure or great riches. Lie ahead. Romance will blossom where least expected, you know, see those were fortunes right now. Uh you know, they told you what was gonna happen and now the cookies no longer tell you the future. They just give you advice. Or worse just tired. Aphorisms like today, it's up to you to create the Peacefulness you long for thanks, cookie, stop wishing start doing. Oh jeez, come on, cookie, give me a break. Or even worse, you are very talented in many ways because listen, I do not need the cookie to compliment me. Right, I want the cookie and I don't want the cookie to give me advice. I don't want it to say nice things to me. I want the cookie to tell me the future. Is that too much to ask. So what does all this have to do with Ephesians? Look at Ephesians chapter one, verses 12 and 13. God's purpose was that. And paul is writing as a, as a jewish person who has come to believe in jesus. He's saying God's purpose was that we jews who were the first to trust in christ would being praise and glory to God and now you gentiles. He's writing to a church that's largely made up of non jewish folks. He says Now you gentiles have also heard the truth the good news that God saves you. And when you believed in christ, he identified you as a zone by giving you the holy spirit whom he promised long ago last week, we walked through the beginning part of this chapter and saw that God has had a plan from the beginning and that plan was that through jesus, all of creation would be rescued from the ravages of sin and death and be renewed. God is about creating a redeemed community, living in a renewed creation in relationship with himself. And even though that plan was always meant to fold in anyone who wanted it, It started with one family when God told Abraham that through his family through his line, the whole world would be blessed. And it carried on to Abraham's larger family, the nation of Israel whom God blessed to be a blessing to the world. And eventually it came down to that promised descendant of Abraham of David, jesus. And here's the good news, God is rescuing and renewing all of creation through the work of jesus on our behalf. The good news is you are invited to that party to the Kingdom of love and peace and restoration that God is building. So where do the fortune cookies come in? Well, for many people, whether it's because how they were raised or um forget you guys gotta, I picked the wrong cup today. This is, it's, it's, it's not a very humble look uh for preaching. But anyway, um for many people, whether it's because of just how you were raised or what you were taught or even just what makes sense to them, Christianity is good advice. You know, it's it's accept jesus so that when you die done, sign on with jesus and live your best life now, right? Or maybe the most obnoxious summation of Christianity as advice. Get right or get left. And here's the thing. I mean, that that would be all of it. Pretty good advice if it's related in any way, shape or form to what God is doing in the But it doesn't, jesus does not come to us with good advice. It comes to us with good news and the differences about advices about what I need to do, what I need to do to get the desired results that I'm looking for or the reward that I want. Good news is about what has already been done and what that means for me now and into the future. Do you see the difference, paul says, it is God who has this amazing plan to rescue and renew all of creation, that saves you. He's going to unpack that thought later in Ephesians, but he's saying it's not you, it's him and please, I mean, I don't want to be reductionist IQ. It's not when when we say saves you, everybody has a and we have these built in ideas of what that might mean, It's not saves you from hell. But let me finish that thought it is that we are saved from a future without God, but it's also that we are saved from so much more from death. There's a resurrection. We're saved from a pointless existence. We're saved from the weight of having to justify ourselves and somehow earn our place in this world or earn God's love his favor, his approval. We're saved from having to earn anything. Paul says that for those who say yes to God, yes to jesus, yes to what God is doing in the world, God saves you, identifies you as his own. In christ gives you the gift of his holy spirit to guide and empower you, to grow you to reshape you to make you who he designed you to be someone who reflects his character, someone who looks like jesus and how much better is that? Then ask jesus into your heart. So that when you die, how much fuller and richer is that vision then pray this prayer so that someday Look at verse 14 paul says, the spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so that we would praise and glorify him decision. It's not a self improvement plan. I mean, Christianity is not about taking reasonably good people and making them into slightly better people. That's that's not it. It's not do these things and you should get these results. There's a guarantee here you are adopted into the family, included in the community. Written into the will and there's a down payment. God says, it's my spirit that I give to you to fill you two in dwell. You and some people stumble over a sentiment like he did this so that we would praise and glorify him to some ears. Um how can I put this? It sounds like God might be a little thirsty, a little needy. Like he's out there fishing for compliments, looking for somebody to say something nice about him. But no, that is not it at all. And without going into this too deeply. I mean, we could spend the whole morning just on this, but God wants our worship not for his sake, but for ours. He doesn't need us to worship and praise him, but he knows that we need, he knows that we become what we worship whatever we set our hearts on is what begins to shape us, our character, our choices, even our desires. And sometimes it's an abstract thing like success. Alright. Set your heart on success. And soon all of life begins to be filtered through that lens. What will bring me more success? What will show that I have success? How do I become even more successful? All your decisions, your choices. Everything gets filtered through that lens. Sometimes what we set our hearts on becomes personified, right? We pick a hero. We even have a phrase for it. We idolize someone. We try to become like them. We want what they have. So we strive to emulate God wants us to worship him, not because he needs our worship, but because he knows that we will worship something and whatever we worship will form and shape us and because he knows that he is the only thing in the universe that we can worship, that we can set our hearts on that will form us in the right way. That will make us who we were meant to be. Now, we could say amen and end right there. But paul draws this amazing picture for the church in Ephesus and by extension for us and then he makes it more personal. I mean, we could spend weeks just in the rest of this chapter, but we won't do that. I just want to highlight a few things. Let's read the rest of chapter of the chapter, verses 15 through 23 paul says ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord jesus and your love for God's people everywhere. I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly asking God, the glorious father of our Lord jesus christ to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him, this is the same mighty power that raised christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now, he jesus is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world, but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church and the church is his body. It is made full and complete by christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself. What's the gist of what paul is asking of God? He says, this is my prayer for you. And I think if I had to sum it up, it's that we would grow up in regard to our understanding and our application of all that has of all that God has given to us by growing in our knowledge of who God is and what he's doing. That we would grow up in our understanding and our application of what God has given to us by growing in our knowledge of who God is and what he's doing, that we'd be able to find and and understand our place within the great narrative of love and redemption in the story, the plot of this drama, of what God is doing in this world, Paul doesn't pray that we would all have these amazing spiritual experiences right? He doesn't pray that God would give us new revelation. He prays that we will be given a heart and mind that can understand and appropriate what christ has already done, what we've already been given. That the lights will go on in our brains, so we can know God and understand the reality of what he's doing and what it means to join him In what he's doing. And it gives us an idea of what growing or growing up in this way looks like look at verse 18, he says, I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance growing up in christ means being routed in hope. Why do our hearts need to be flooded with light? I mean that it's kind of a rhetorical question, but let me just say this if ever there was a time when life felt dark and it seems like there's little to no hope on the horizon at least in recent generations, this is it right. And sometimes it's just the the sameness of it day in and day out. If all you do is watch the news for signs of of light, signs of hope. I have a feeling you're going to be pretty disappointed because unfortunately hope is not what they're selling. Instead paul says, we already have a confident hope and his prayer is that the light would break through the darkness around us and we finally understand the hope that we already have when my beautiful wife Amy back there and I were dating to to win and woo each other um I pretended to like hiking and she pretended to like movies and over the years we've kind of dropped those pretenses and so now she goes on hikes with with friends and our youngest daughter josie is has become my movie buddy, right? She goes with me to see the superhero movies to watch the marvel shows on Disney Plus, so that Amy doesn't have to right not too long ago, I had to explain the concept of plot immunity to josie so that she wouldn't get too anxious when the hero got into a tough spot, I had to tell her, listen, I said don't worry, the main character is in a tough spot, it looks pretty dark right now, but there are still six episodes of this series left, so I'm pretty sure that they're going to get out of this, I mean you know when you first realized that plot immunity exists, it takes a little bit of the anxious nus out of out of watching stuff like that and believe it or not, the same thing holds true for life if all we do is focus on the headlines are current problems, the seemingly insurmountable challenges that I have in my life right now, of course I will be anxious and afraid. How could I not be? But here's the thing, jesus defeated death in the resurrection and the good news is that that victory also belongs to anyone who follows him, who is in him, that same resurrection, a resurrected life in a renewed creation. That's the promise, that's the sure and certain end of the story. For everyone in Jesus, the media's headlines will always be saturated with messages of death online. Every day, you will read about bombings, stabbings, shootings, pandemics, accidents, death to a world that does not have a resurrection, hope, death is king, but the message of the good news, the hope of those in christ is always life is the final word because Jesus is king now, that doesn't take away from the reality of the pain that we experience now. I'm not saying that pain is not real, that challenges the difficulties are not real. They are, but the confident hope we have is that whatever we are facing, it is not the end of the story. Covid is not the end of the story. Old age is not the end, cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, depression, lost grief. Those will never be the end the last word of our story because of what Jesus has done and now invites us into, we can go through all of those things with a confident hope, as paul says elsewhere in the new testament, we still grieve, but not like those without hope. Our grief is different. It's transformed our experience of disease, of death of setbacks. It is different. It is transformed because we know it does not get the last word and there is power in living in that way. Look at verses 19 and 20, he says, I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him, this is the same mighty power that raised christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms, the greatest display of power the world has ever seen took place when God raised jesus from the dead and at the heart of this pastoral prayer for the church and for you is a longing that we will come to know that same power, the power that resurrected jesus and will someday restore all of creation, that will set all things right and through the spirit of God be energized in how we live our lives that we would be transformed and I know that some of us here today need God's power in our life right now, we need a sense of that hope. There are in this community, there are mothers who are exhausted. There are parents who can't face another season of school at home. There are those who have addictions that need strength just to make it through the day, marriages that are struggling or falling apart, Some who are unsure of what the future holds, some dealing with loss and grief and the good news is that the power that raised jesus from the dead is somehow in some way able to transform how we walk through all of them. This is the power that will bring about the redemption and restoration of our broken world in time and it's the power that can bring restoration and redemption into our lives. It's the power that has put marriages in this room back together. It's the power that is healing broken people that's giving value to lives that didn't know that they were valued. God's plan is to fill the world with the goodness of his love in christ and how he will do that is to fill communities like this with the goodness of his love in christ and how he will do that is to fill individuals like you and me in communities like this with the goodness of his love in christ. If you are here and this is new to you, you are searching, you are skeptical, you have questions the invitation this morning is to keep searching to keep asking to explore who jesus is and what he is offering in the context of a community like this, where we are not blind to the challenges of life, but choose to look at those challenges through the lens of hope and if you are here and you do consider yourself a follower of jesus. The challenge is to grow to grow up in your knowledge of God, of jesus, of who he is and what he is doing in this world and what he wants to do in your life, how he wants to remake and re shape you into person, you were meant to be paul never imagines that all christians will automatically be able to see this And live in it. It will take as he says in verse 17, uh huh. A fresh gift of wisdom of really thinking, working it out, leaning on God, listening to what he says, coming to see things that people don't normally see, it's the work of God's spirit in our lives as we continue to say yes to him day after day after day and I want to invite you during these next couple of minutes as we sing to come to this table, it is not set as grandly as I wish it could be because of Covid, I missed the bread, I missed the cup, but we have here the symbols of what christ has done for us this meal that we call communion, where we take this, this bread, this juice or this wine symbols of christ's body and blood and we take them as a way of saying what God is offering me and jesus, I want I need so if you're here today and you want the hope, the resurrection life that we've talked about then this is for you. Come and receive and as you do, here's my challenge to you pray God. I need your resurrection power in my life in this area. I need it as I deal with teenagers, I needed to love my spouse as he or she deserves to be loved, I need it just to get out of bed in the morning God, I need the power that brought jesus back from the dead to bring something alive in me. Would you pray with father God? Would you grow us up in our understanding of the hope that we have? Would you help us to recognize our incredible value to you? Would you quiet the voices that tell us we are not worth much that we need to earn your love and acceptance. God. We ask that you would fill our lives and fill this community with the same power that raised jesus from the dead and that you will give us strength to faithfully follow you out into our world and be voices and instruments of hope in a world and to people that desperately need it. Amen. 

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