Ephesians 5. 1-20

Paul continues to give practical teaching about living the Christian life… he is still reinforcing the teaching he made in chapter 4 (where he has been talking about honest word, honest financial dealings, and finishes by saying become kind to one another) He begins this chapter by using that same word, become… summing up the previous one, (therefore, become imitators of God, v. 1)

1.      Become like the Father. 

We are dearly beloved sons.  That both requires and enables change – becoming like Father  – to take place.  It isn’t enough to say to someone “Remember you are a child of God, and make sure you behave like one!”  It is experiencing the love of our Heavenly father, which results in our treating other people differently – whether by forgiving instead of holding a grudge, or by respecting instead of cheapening and sexualising. If you have problems being like your Father in Heaven, I call you not to “try harder” but to spend more time with father, soaking in his love and becoming more assured that you are really precious to him.

2.      Love like the Son. 

The motive here is Jesus’ love: he loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice.  We celebrate Jesus’ amazing sacrificial love for us as we break bread together later in the service. The love of Jesus for us, is meant to release us to love each other, sacrificially.  In Phil 4. 18, Paul uses exactly the same words about the gift the Church in Phillippi sent to support him: it was a “fragrant offering and sacrifice.”  

Paul again uses that word “walk”  (v2 cf vv. 8, 15)  I like The Message, which catches the ideas of true and false love… there is a contrast between the self sacrificing love of Jesus, and the self-indulgent sexuality Paul describes in the rest of the chapter.

The key to the problems our society has over sexuality, is summed up simply in this one concept: self-sacrifice instead of self-indulgence.  As we said thing morning, Paul warns about three areas…

a)      Our mouths.  There are things that he says we are not even to talk about… sexual immorality (whoring) impurity and covetousness (in context, it’s coveting your neighbour’s hunky husband or dishy wife.)  Avoid suggestive talk; foolish talk (again in context it’s foolish talk about sex) and crude jokes. (in a foretaste of our world, the ability to invent double intenders and innuendo was considered something really clever in ancient Greece). Such things are not even to be talked about Paul says.  That doesn’t mean we are to be afraid to talk about sex. For too long Christians have been too coy about human sexuality. Like the clergyman writing in the papers who referred to toilet rolls thrown at football matches as “Excessively wide streamers” That’s just Victorian and silly and not what Paul means.  What eh does mean is that we must not allow sexual matters – jokes or gossip – to become something that is talked about for the pleasure of it.  We are, interestingly, to replace all this kind of talk, with thanksgiving.

b)      Our bodies.  We are told not to be partners with people who are walking in disobedience to God or take part in what they do.  Paul is not telling people they are not to mix, just that they are not to join in the wrong things people do. We are in the kingdom of light. We are to live as children of light. We are not to indulge in the deeds of darkness but to expose them, to show them up for what they are.  We do this, not by our words; not by standing up and tut-tutting about how bad people are; we are to expose the wrong by living the right, and by demonstrating that right is right. 

c)      Our minds. See verse 6.  In all these discussions and thoughts about sexuality, we are to guard our minds.  We can allow ourselves to be too smug about all this stuff, so we end up wagging the finger at that rest of the world.  There once was an old preacher, in a simple uneducated church, who said in a sermon “Sin is like a pack of big dogs. My big dogs were tobacco, alcohol and sex.  I have killed the big dog of tobacco. I have killed the big dog of alcohol; and I have killed the big dog of sex.”  At that point someone interrupted: “Pastor, are you sure that last dog didn’t just go and die a natural death?”  It’s a bit too easy to be self-righteous and smug as we criticise others for their lifestyle, if you’ve never been tempted I that area; or when on the outside we look respectable but inside our minds is what C S Lewis called a zoo of lusts and other wrong thoughts. .

i)  So in every area of life, sexual and everything else, right behaviour starts in the mind.  Look how you live: not as unwise but wise.” (v15) 

ii) In the use of our time, to trade with it wisely, because we have a limited quantity. (v16)

iii)     Not mindless (literally) but with joined-up thinking about what God wants for you.  (v17)

iv)     Not under the influence of substances…(v 18a)  There is a connection between substance abuse and all of the abuses and evils we see around us.

And this is the final “don’t do this but do that” sentence…

3.      Drink of the Spirit

But be filled with the Spirit. Being controlled by a substance is foolish; begin controlled by the Spirit is wisdom.  In Acts 2 the disciples were filled with the Spirit of God and some people thought they were drunk. The Jewish scholar Philo said “When grace fills the soul, that soul thereby rejoices and smiles and dances, for it is possessed and inspired, so that to many of the unenlightened it may seem to be drunken, crazy, and beside itself. For with the God-possessed not only is the soul wont to be stirred and goaded into ecstasy but the body also is flushed and fiery” Finally, keep on being filled with the Spirit. 

a)      It’s present tense. That means it’s something that is supposed to be happening, over and over again. 

b)      And it is passive. That means it isn’t just something you do nut something that is done to you. You allow the spirit to have control…

c)      It is primary to the Christian experience.  Paul has built up a theology of the Spirit in the life of the believer in Ephesians. See 1:16f  I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit …;  2:18  For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.   2:22  In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.   3:4f  the mystery of Christ … revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 3:16  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  3:19  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 4:3  maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4:4  There is one body and one Spirit. 4:30  do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God

d)      It produces results… speaking to yourselves with psalms, hymn and spiritual songs. We don’t get filled by doing these things; we are released by being filled.


© Gilmour Lilly June 2011

John 14. 16 "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter..."

John 14. 16 "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter..."

Jesus is going away, but promises to come back and take them to be with him. They are facing a major change. They won't have Jesus with them; whatever happens to the Kingdom they signed up for, will be their responsibility.  They were human. Like us, they were uncomfortable with change and with responsibility.

Jesus goes on to say he is going to get these rooms ready for them to occupy. "You know the way there", he says. The lads are upset about this.  They are arguing with Jesus...

 "No, we don't know, Lord," Thomas said. "We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?"  (v5 NLT, which translates Thomas' words brilliantly!)

Jesus answers, "I am the way, the truth and the life... If you know me, you know the Father.  From now on you have seen him..." and Philip again begs to differ.  "Show us the Father and we'll be happy with that.  That's all we want..."  (He doesn't agree that they have seen the Father.)

Jesus says, "Have I been around so long yet you guys don't know me. If you've seen me you have seen the Father. What about the powerful things I have done? Don't they show you something of the Father's character?"

It seems like these guys were really slow.  But so are we. And we argue with Jesus too.  We sometimes think, "What's he on about?"  or, "That can't be done."  We want to do the safe thing - arrange a meeting like we know we can do because we've done before; get a good speaker, show a film, buy into a programme, hand out leaflets. Or else we want to tell ourselves witness if difficult because nobody's listening; ... Jesus says, "heal the sick; find the person of peace; tell them the good news; the fields are white for harvest; you'll do greater works than me (not more spectacular miracles but a more widespread mission)"

Three years intensive training and mentoring with the best teacher the world has even known, the most effective mentor - because he could do the stuff as well as teach it; and because he understood exactly what was going on inside his students all the time.  Yet they still didn't get it.  Facing this big change from having Jesus walking with them from day to day, to knowing Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father, it was not just knowledge they needed... they needed power. They needed presence. They needed someone to keep walking with them, and not only with them but in them: "Another Comforter, The Holy Spirit."

Unlike English, Greek has two words for "other".  "Heteros" means another, different.  Don't you get annoyed when people say "England" when the really mean "Britain"?  We want to tell people, "Scotland" is another country. It's different to England.  That's "heteros". The second word is "allos"; it means another of the same.  Remember the song about the red yo-yo?  It finishes off when "Wee Annie announced that her Granny had bought her another yo-yo."  It was another of the same: "a red yo-yo wi' a wee yellow string!"  That's "allos".  Jesus says the Spirit is another comforter, an "allos" comforter, another the same as Jesus.

The "Comforter".  That word is one attempt to translate a Greek word "parakletos" that means "one called alongside" - like a lawyer who stands beside you in court and speaks on your behalf.  Like a comforter or an encourager who is with you in difficult times. Like a helper who does the things you cannot do for yourself. Jesus says "another comforter."

The Holy Spirit... The breath, the wind of God blowing in and through them.  The Spirit who was hovering over the deep at the beginning of creation; the Spirit of truth who has been already working with them through Jesus; and who was going to come to work inside them.  That is who the Holy Spirit is.  He is God; like Jesus is.  He is God who is always there, with us and around us all the time; he is God come to live inside us, and to equip us from the inside.

Now let me say I believe in teaching and I believe in training and mentoring.  I believe that in Church leadership we need to do what we can do to develop skills, knowledge and character, so all Christians can become Confident, competent and credible.  But teaching and mentoring on their own are not enough. We need something else... We need the Holy Spirit...

How can we have the Spirit?

He is given...to people who love Jesus and have fundamentally brought their lives into line with his Kingdom. The synoptic word for that is repentance... Jesus doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is only given to people who are perfect.  We are not going to be perfect and sinless until we see Jesus in Heaven.  We sin; we repent; we are forgiven; we are slowly transformed.  That's the mystery and the process of grace in our lives.  But grace, forgiveness, the Kingdom of God, are all about repentance, a decision that says that as far as we are able, we will live our lives under god's rule and authority.  "If you love me you will obey my commands" Jesus says.

He is given...Because of Jesus.  It is Jesus who asks. He promises to do this asking.  He does this asking from the right hand of the father.    He hints at that when he says, "If I go away I will come to you".  In John 7. 37-39 we are told the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.  It's the glorified Jesus, the Jesus who has paid for all our sins, who has brought us back to the Father, restored us into a relationship with our Heavenly Father, who promises to ask the Father to give us the spirit.  And in John 7.37 Jesus says we need to thirst and to drink.  Drinking is a matter of putting yourself and the water together. Holding the glass to your lips, tipping it towards you and swallowing.  To drink is the simplest way in which animals take things into their bodies.  We need to ask the Father. When we pray for the spirit we join with the Prayers of Jesus.

He is given...By the Father. "Jesus says, "I will ask the Father and he will give you the Spirit".   Jesus also tells us that the father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him...  We have a loving Heavenly Father who delights to give good gifts to his Children.  You don't have to impress your heavenly Father to receive the Spirit.  You don't even have to twist his arm.  He is a loving Heavenly Father who delights to give.  Jesus knows.  He walked and walks intimately with the Father and he knows, "I will ask the Father and he will give you the Holy Spirit."  This is a Father/son issue here.  We need to get to the place where we know our Heavenly father's love and care over us, and where we trust our Heavenly Father enough to know, just to know that throe will be no prevarication, no criticisms, no arguments. Just generosity. He will give you the Spirit.  The Spirit comes from both the Father and from Jesus. Like two people clubbing together to get a really special Birthday present for a friend: but whose idea was it; and who put the most money into it, and who went to the shops and bought it? That doesn't really matter; the present comes from both of them.


You can't follow Jesus simply on the basis of Bible teaching, mentoring, and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. You need to Holy Spirit to come and to fill your life.  The Holy Spirit is Father's gift and Jesus' prayer to you.  If you are walking in obedience to Jesus, Jesus has asked the Father to give you the Spirit. Expect the Spirit to come: expect him to bring a focus on jesus; to help you to understand God's truth from his word; to give you gifts that equip you to serve; to help you share God's love with other people.  Will you add your prayer to those of Jesus today and put yourself in the place where the Spirit can fill your life?

© Gilmour Lilly June 2011

Eph 4:17 -32 - Discipleship: Mind the Gap

Closing one Gap - opening another
In 1968, London Transport wanted to do something to ensure passenger safety on the underground: they decided to use a digitally recorded message that would play automatically wherever it was needed; the engineers who were putting the system together came up with the phrase, "mind the gap!"  The phrase has been used as the title for at least one film, a couple of books, and several songs.  Paul is interested in two gaps: one between theory and practise; the other between discipleship culture and the culture of the world about us.

When he says "So" (v17, NIV) or "Now" (ESV) it's really "therefore" and takes us back to verse 1, where Paul begins to look at "Walking worthy of our call."  Remember the theory?  The amazing idea that Christians are chosen by God, forgiven, related to each other, that we have been given the Holy Spirit - God living inside us; we were dead, now we are alive; we - the Church - are the amazing New Humanity, part of God's Cosmic Plan to show his wisdom to the Principalities and powers.   Now in Chapter 4 he homes in on the practise: he has already spoken about unity, ministry and maturity, and he gets more practical as he goes on. Mind the gap.

He wants his readers to close the gap between theory and practise; and that means to open up the gap between what they once were and what they are now, being different to how the people around them are.  Christians are going to be different.  If we are not different, if we are not distinctive, if people cannot tell us apart from the people around us - or if they can only tell us apart because we are "odd" - then there is something wrong.

Paul paints quite a negative picture of the world the Ephesians lived in.  It's a world whose thinking is wrong. Interesting that Paul deals with the thinking first... it's
o Futile, (not just finite or transitory but empty and pointless)
o Darkened (the light has gone out in the seat of understanding so that people cannot grasp truth.)
o Alienated from God - separated from his life.
People have become ugly on the inside.
o Ignorant In Jewish thinking, Gentiles were not just "unlucky"; they were culpable.  Their ignorance is inside them
o Hard hearted Cf Ps 95. 8.
o Callous no longer feeling the (inner) pain they should over moral evil.
Their behaviour is
o Sensuous
o Greedy
o Impure
Three words that are used together in catalogues of vices.  The society Paul saw in Ephesus lives in excess but is never satisfied.

That could be a picture of our world. It's very easy for us to see it that way, and we should see it that way. Paul paints this picture, though, not to make the disciples feel superior but to motivate them to be really different. (Verse 20 literally starts "but not you...")  There's got to be a gap. On the underground, the gap has to happen. When straight carriages stand alongside a curved platform, there has to be a gap. If our lives are a different shape from the people around us, there will be a gap. If there's no gap, our carriages have become bent out of shape. A curved rail carriage is only fit for going round in circles: mind you that is what the Church seems to do a lot of the time!!   It is vital that Christians somehow manage to be different from our society, while at the same time understanding, loving and being generous to our society.

Learning Christ...
Eph 4:20  But that is not the way you learned Christ!--  "Learning Christ" is a unique phrase: maybe it stands for learning about Christ. But the word is related to the word for disciple.  Acts 19 describes how Paul found some "Disciples" in Ephesus: they were filled with the Holy Spirit, knew the Spirit's gifts; they were taught about Jesus; they saw many people healed, set free from demons, brought to faith in Jesus; they saw the Gospel being ridiculed and opposed; they had burned their books about the occult... Discipleship is about learning by practice not just theory.  I have learned about the piano. Sandra has learned the piano.  Paul is talking about the process of becoming a disciple.

It starts with the mind, not the actions... It starts with accepting that Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus central! Everything else follows on from that.
It includes a radical turn-around.  The Biblical word is "repentance". Here, Paul talks about putting off the old life (like taking off dirty old clothes).  When someone becomes a follower of Jesus, we mark that with an act called Baptism. About a hundred or so years after Jesus' time, baptism involved literally coming to the river, taking off one set of clothes, getting baptized in the water and putting on a new set of clothes. I appreciate the symbolism but I understand why the practice never really caught on.  It was easily misunderstood and almost as easily abused.  But baptism, with your clothes on, is a wonderful sign of being done with your old life and starting a new life.
It is an encounter with God.  Paul says, in verse 23, not "be made new in the attitude of your minds" (NIV); but literally "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." (ESV) That's another difficult phrase but the NT doesn't use the word Spirit impersonally. "The Spirit of your mind" suggests the Holy Spirit in partnership with your spirit, operating through your thinking.   I think the CEV has got abeter grasp of it : "Let the Spirit change your way of thinking." This business of being different thing is not first and foremost something we do but something that has happened to us.    Conversion is a charismatic event.  It is a dramatic, life-changing process. It is not merely a decision but only happens if "God is at work" within us.
It is the beginning of a process. It is something with which we have to co-operate: we put off the old and put on the new mindset like a new suit of clothes, day after day.

Living the life
Conversion has consequences.  Paul sets up a series of triangles: each one has a negative to avoid, a positive to do, and motive for changing...
Firstly in our words...
v25  Avoiding lies, speaking truth because we are already related to each other (a lie is a stab into the very vitals of the body of Christ - J A Mackay).
v26f  Not indulging in anger (cf v31) but sorting out quick (before sunset) because we are in a battle. Indulging in anger gives free scope to the devil.  Unity attracts the Spirit of God; disunity repels the Spirit of God and attracts the enemy.
Then our actions...
V 28  Not stealing,  but doing honest work, because we have neighbours in need.  Paul values hard work; God worked and he blessed our work as well as our rest; the reason for earning a good income is so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Then more on words...
Eph 4:29f  No corrupting talk but words that build up and give grace to those who hear, because the Spirit is Holy.  
Eph 4:31f  An end to bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice, and a new attitude of kindness and forgiveness, because we are forgiven people.

These are some of the gaps that should exist between us and our culture; some of the ways we need to close the gap between what we believe and how we live. Mind the gap!

© Gilmour Lilly June 2011

Walking Worthy - Ephesians 4. 1-16. Sunday 8th May

Paul urges the Ephesians to "Walk worthy of the calling" to which they have been called.  How do you define Walking Worthy?  There are three things in this section that define walking worthy of what we are in Jesus...

Unity
There are two unities in this section:
1. Unity of the spirit in the bond (ligament: it's a body word!) of peace - maintain it!
a) If it is to be maintained, it is there already...  If I say to Sandra, or Val, or Len, "make sure you maintain your car properly, they would say "Don't be daft, I haven't got a car!"   We don't have to go looking for the unity of the Spirit. It is something that already exists.  Because we follow Jesus, because we have the Spirit of God living in us, we have the unity of the Spirit.
b) Unity in the body isn't a pragmatic thing, where we sort of ignore our differences to make something happen (a bit like the coalition government!) It is a theologically derived thing.  "One" seems to be God's favourite number.  There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father.  Consequently, you've got no choice in the matter. Will we be one with other Christians? Well, there is one body. Will we be one with the people sitting around us this morning? Well, there is one Body.
c) How do we maintain the unity of the Spirit? How do we keep it in good working order?  By walking the walk as we act and speak with humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance.
2. Unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.  Our unity isn't perfect.  We will sometimes struggle. There is a unity still, to be attained. It is something we grow into as our level of understanding develops, our character is shaped and our ministry develops, until we all attain to it, when we are all the same in the perfect Kingdom. Until then we are all growing towards that and we can help each other.

Ministry
1. Grace was given to each of us
a) It's grace, given through Christ.  Not just an undeserved favour (that's mercy) but God's Redemptive Activity Continually Expressed in our lives. Ministry like unity is first and foremost God at work; it isn't something we have to do but something that comes down.  The problem with earthly ministry is that it is so much hard work.
b) Grace is given to each of us.  You have a share in ministry... God's redemptive activity is at work in your life.

2. Like unity, ministry is rooted in theology. It isn't just something that we have to do (because the Church will go down the pan if we don't!)  Sharing ministry isn't something Pastors do because they are too idle to do it al themselves. It's rooted in the two big journeys Jesus made: he descended to earth and showed us what ministry is all about, serving other people, healing and teaching in the power of the Spirit, and he ascended to the highest place: and led a whole crowd of captives, giving gifts to men and women (?????p??).   Ministry is about Jesus.

3. It's shaped through the five-fold leadership of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and teachers. Not the five-fold ministry; the ministry is for everyone.  Paul is talking about a five-fold leadership.
a) Apostles - those who maintain the sense of being sent out in the Church
b) Prophets  - those whose call is to hear from God and speak for him
c) Evangelists - those with a particular task of speaking the good news
d) Pastors - "Shepherds" who keep people safe and care for them
e) Teachers - who help people develop, understand and apply their faith.
Spiritual Leadership is about these things: mission, hearing God, good news, spiritual security and growth. Management, finance, etc., though important are not leadership!
4. Leadership equips the Saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. We sometimes think that is a list of things that leaders are to do: equipping the saints, the work of ministry, building up the body of Christ.  But it's not a list it's a chain reaction.  Leaders equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. It's what the saints do in the Church and the world.
5. Ministry - the ministry we all have -  builds up the body of Christ, so we can grow more like Jesus, and be making a difference in the world.

Maturity
What does Christian maturity consist of? What does it taste like and smell like and look like?
1. Christ-likeness.  The ultimate "Mature man" is Jesus himself. If we are mature, we are like Jesus.  People will see the character of Jesus in our character; people will see us responding as Jesus would respond. People will see the works of Jesus being done in our lives.
2. Conviction. Part of maturity is knowing what you believe and why you believe it.  But we are not to be blown around by every wind of doctrine.
a) It isn't mature just to accept "The official teaching" of the Church without thinking it through.
b) It isn't mature to think you have nothing more to learn.  We should always be ready to develop our understanding; we should always be humble enough to admit that the way we understand God's word is incomplete. (1 Corinthians 13. 12 says "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.")
c) But it isn't mature, either, to be ruled by what is trendy.  It's a characteristic of the world we live in, to reject the idea of absolute truth.  In the postmodern world, you can mix up your beliefs from different faiths; you can decide what God is like then reject anything in the Bible that doesn't fit; in the postmodern world , what matters is looking cool and feeling good.  We need to understand that world, and to begin where people are as we share the good news with them. But we need to know and as best we can understand what we believe.
3. Compassion.   Love. Conviction without compassion is not maturity it is bigotry.  "Speaking the truth in love" is one of the most abused verses in the whole Bible.  It is used to excuse all sorts of unkind and ill-thought-out outbursts.  You are only speaking the truth in love is you are speaking the truth (theological truth not just how you see things) and you are only speaking the truth in love if you have submitted what you saying and the way you say it, to the test of 1 Corinthians 13. 4-8. You're speaking the truth in love if you are not being arrogant, or boastful (maybe about you superior knowledge); if you are not insisting on your own way, not in the least irritable or resentful; not gloating over the other person' error, but still believing in them and prepared to stick with your relationship with them.
4. Community   v. 15-16.  "Speaking the truth we grow un into Christ.  from whom the whole body, joined (harmonized) and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working (energizing) properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love". We get closer to, deeper in love with and more like Jesus.  And we experience the reality of Jesus through the reality of his Body, the Church.  You can't claim to be a mature Christian if you are living outside of the Community of the Church. To be in Jesus is to be in the Church.   And in the Church - in the challenging and stretching experience of finding your place within the body, joined together, being a kneecap or a big toe that is working properly - we grow as individuals, we contribute to others' growth and to the growth of the Church - which is the Body of Christ in the world.
a) In a fragmented world, a united Church, a real community.
b) In a harsh and selfish world, a loving Compassionate Church;
c) In a confused and relativistic world, a Church with Conviction.
d) In a self-indulgent world, a church of growing, mature, unselfish people.

© Gilmour Lilly May 2011

Paul's ministry: People, Perspective, Power Eph 3.

New people
 I have learned to ask, "What's the story" when I am teaching the Bible. And there is a "big story", the God-story... of a cosmic plan to bring these two groups, Jews and gentiles, together in a new humanity, a new community, united like one body with Jesus as its head....  This big story, this "God story" is the background to what Paul writes in this chapter...  He says "for this reason" - looking back to the previous chapter all about the Church being the new humanity in Christ.

So Paul goes on to talk a wee bit about his own ministry... For the first time, in this chapter, Paul hints at the fact that he is in fact a prisoner, "For the Gentiles."    Paul really believed in preaching the Good News of Jesus; and in particular, he believed in preaching that Good news to all people, not just his fellow-Jews.  Maybe, it's just possible, that if he had contented himself with preaching only to Jews, he could have remained a free man.  Going to the Gentiles meant going out into strange territory; and it meant upsetting the traditional Jews who thought he was a threat to the purity of their faith.... It was often the Jews, not the gentiles, who caused trouble for Paul... so he was in prison for the sake of "you gentiles."


Paul knows his ministry is a huge privilege; he has special insight and a clear job to do; he is willing to pay the price of doing that job.  That's how he sees and understands his ministry...  God is at work, revealing things that have been kept hidden for years and years. And he has been doing that through apostles and prophets.  Paul's work is all about building up this new humanity church he was speaking of in Chapter 2.  And - here's the mind-blowing bit - the "New Humanity Church" exists to make known to the principalities and powers the multi-coloured wisdom of God.  We often think of the Church existing to make the Gospel known to our neighbours.  It's vital that we do spread the Good News of our faith. But the real purpose of the Church is to make God's wisdom known to the principalities and powers.  That's what Paul has been given an amazing share in.  God calls every one of us to be involved in this cosmic plan and in this glorious community called the Church!

New perspective 
And all of that, he is putting in brackets, as he jumps back in verse 14 to repeat "For this reason"...   Isn't that amazing?  We need to learn, as Paul did, to put ourselves, our ministry, our interests, our comfort, our reputation, our struggles, in brackets; to get a Jesus-centred perspective on all of our lives...  God can do it without us.  We suffer, along with the rest of the human race, from an inflated sense of our own importance.  Our Heavenly father loves us so much. He gives us the dignity of being part of this new humanity; he pours out love into our lives. None of us are rubbish; none of us are losers, however weak we are, and whatever mistakes we make.  God welcomes us with big, wide, open arms; but he invites us to a place of repentance; to a place where we say "Jesus, be the centre".

Because God has made a new rainbow humanity, built together as a place for God to live, in order to show his multi-coloured wisdom to the principalities and powers, Verses:14-19.

Paul's prayer is worshipful - or his worship is prayerful.  It was much more normal for a Jew - or an early Christian - to pray standing up; kneeling was homage; it was worship as is appropriate for the God who is over and above very human tribe and every rank of angels... it's the cosmic God of the cosmic new humanity in the cosmic Church that Paul is praying to.  Maybe worship like that - getting a grasp on the splendour of the King - will help us pray.

New power! 
And what is Paul praying for?  He is praying - again, see Eph 1. 17-21 - that his friends would be strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being.  Paul wants the Spirit - who raised Jesus from the dead, who is at work in Paul, to be at work in the Ephesian Christians.  An encounter with the Holy Spirit is not just for leaders or particularly spiritual people.  Paul prays the same work of the Spirit that is seen in his life, into the lives of the Ephesians...

What does it mean to ask the Spirit to touch us? What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?   The language Paul uses here tells us...

1. It's about strength and power in our inner being. (v 16)

2. It's about fellowship.  ("Rooted and grounded in love" v 17; "with all the saints" v 18)  The work of the Spirit is personal within each of us, but is never given just for us as individuals, but so we can play our part in the "Body".

3. It's about understanding the full immensity (length, breadth, height, depth v 18)) of God's love.

4. It's about experience Christ's love ("knowing" v 19)  We all need to know we are special; part of that is about believing what god says in his word: it's "cognitive". You can help yourself by believing the truth.  The truth will set you free.  But part of it also is about feeling the love of God; it's "affective". God heals the broken hearted.

5. And lastly, you can't separate the Spirit from the Trinity
o It's about Jesus.  Paul prays for the Spirit to come so that "Christ may set up home in your hearts (the seat of personality) through faith."  The Holy Spirit comes to show us Jesus, to help us grasp truth about Jesus, to form in us the character of Jesus and enable us to continue the ministry of Jesus.  There is no difference between the work of Jesus and the work of the Spirit.  We don't experience Jesus except as the Spirit, and we don't experience the Spirit except as Jesus.
o It's about God the Father. "That you may be filled towards all the fulness of God". IF in the New Testament we experience Jesus by the Spirit, in the Old Testament we experience the Father by the Spirit.  And in Paul's teaching the Spirit is the Spirit of sonship.  To pray for the Spirit to come is to pray that God himself will come: the God of the Big bang, the God who spoke worlds into existence, the God of the Red Sea, the God who raised Jesus from the dead.  There's always more, of God, to be poured out into our lives.

Maybe that's why Paul finishes with that wonderful Blessing: "Now to him who is able to do more than you can imagine, to him be glory in the Church..."  If every believer were filled toward the fullness of God, there would be glory in the Church!

© Gilmour Lilly May 2011

Can a nation be changed? Matthew 21. 1-16 (Palm Sunday 17 April)

Can a nation be changed?

Protest in Sanaa, Yemen (February 3, 2011) by Sallam from Yemen from Wikipedia commons

Hot, Middle Eastern sunshine, busy streets, crowds of people shouting for freedom.  It all sounds familiar. We have seen it in Cairo, Tunis, Benghazi, and in other parts of the Arab world.  Men and women who want to see their nations changed, who want rid of greedy and cruel unelected governments.  Can a nation be changed?

The same question was on the minds of this little group of men - and yes, at the start it had to be men - who had signed up to "Follow" the Rabbi called Yeshua, to learn from him and be part of this "kingdom. As they journey together to Jerusalem, they don't look like much of a force for change: a few Galilean fishermen, rough homespun clothes and rough, calloused hands.  Can a nation be changed?

The question was on the minds of the crowds, people from all over the nation who had come up to Jerusalem for Passover. They were a real mixture. There were people from the farms and villages, rich and poor, some with only the clothes they stood up in.  There were the city poor, too: the labourers, the ordinary people, those who were poor and those who were pushed around. There were the disturbed and disabled with their ragged clothes and begging bowls. Some didn't know anything about Jesus; others had probably heard him; some had come to him desperate for his healing. There were the children: those who were too young to understand.  There were those who knew the ancient faith-words and those who didn't, because though they were God-fearers, they were outsiders. A whole crowd of people. A rabble. A rag tag bunch of ordinary people.  And they are asking, "Can a nation be changed?"

Can a nation be changed? Jesus apparently thought the answer was "yes!"  A nation could be changed.  So he sent two of his friends into the city to borrow a donkey and her colt. He could read the questions in their eyes: "We could end up getting arrested as Donkey thieves!"  So he tells them, "If anyone asks what you're doing tell them the master needs them."  They might have wanted to say, "But, Jesus, if you're going to enter Jerusalem as King, wouldn't a big white horse be better?"  And if they did, Jesus  Jesus would answer, "No, I know what I am doing. It's all set up.  Go and get me the donkey..." Jesus was setting up this march, this demonstration.  The disciples threw their cloaks over the donkey and Jesus rode on it, down into the city.  It was like he was saying, "Yes, I am the coming King. I am fulfilling the ancient words. I am here to change the nation!"  


And people caught the atmosphere of the moment, they read the code (Zechariah 9. 9: you king is coming, riding a donkey)... they joined in the demonstration... some spread their cloaks in the road, others cut palm fronds to spread on the road... "He's here, the King, the one who comes in the name of the Lord..." so they began quoting Psalm 118:25f   Save us, LORD, save us! Hosanna! Give us success, O LORD!   May God bless the one who comes in the name of the LORD!  Save our nation, change our nation, Jesus!"    The whole city was in an uproar!  Can a nation be changed? It looked like the time had come.

But what would that change be like?  In Jerusalem, Jesus headed for the Temple, the "God" place, the spiritual heart of the nation... and there, in the outer courts of the place where people made sacrifices God, in the place where people worshipped Him, the bit of the temple where all nations could come, there people were selling lambs and pigeons (for sacrifices) and changing Roman Denarii for Judean Shekels for the offering.  Jesus cleared them all out. What a scene! Sheep and birds everywhere; neat piles of coins scattered on the floor; men yelling - probably using words you wouldn't want to use in church!   This Kingdom wants to change hearts.  It demands that people turn from greed, oppression, apathy, self-interest, and prejudice, to God. It calls people to be generous, honest, inclusive...  There in the temple, Jesus demonstrated that he was about changing not just the nation but also the world, by changing the heart...

And there in the temple, loads of broken people came to him, and he healed them. He changed what is fallen, broken, damaged, in the created world, into something whole.  It's a demonstration of the change in the very fabric of the created universe, which the Kingdom brings: every healing is a foretaste of the new heaven and the new earth.

Then the respectable old men, the ones in charge of the Temple, were asking, "Do you hear those kids?" They were angry at the things Jesus was doing, the things people were saying about him and who these people were.   Jesus has an answer: Psalm 8. 2: "out of the mouths of bairns" you Lord have brought perfect praise.  It's the Lord who is at work here.

Can a nation be changed?  Can a world be changed? Yes, when God is at work.  2Cor  5:19 says "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself." In Jesus, God is at work.  The rubbish in the world is dealt with because the rubbish inside us is dealt with.  And like the rag-tag band of disciples, like the rag-tag crowd with their palm branches, we are invited to be part of it.

We need to stop looking for the big, white horse and take hold of the donkey: to embrace the fact that Jesus and his world-changing Kingdom are really for the last, the lost and the least. I was challenged this week, about how middle-class some of my values, assumptions and attitudes are.   Jesus is "the humble king". Unless we embrace the humility, where do we leave the poor, the broken, and the addicted?

But if we can take hold of the donkey, embrace the humility, if we can be changed, then a nation and a world can be changed...

This Kingdom belongs, as it has always belonged, to the little people who are prepared just simply be what they were, singing their praises. Respectable, powerful people have to swallow pride to enter in. We have to say, "We will have this man to reign over us."

© Gilmour Lilly April 2011

Ephesians 2. 11-22 - Joined together

Whoops!
The way Paul refers to his Ephesian friends doesn't look very complementary.  (v.11)  "Paul, you're slipping up here... making a big thing of the difference between Jew and non Jew.   We need to understand how huge was the separation that existed.  Think of the divisions that exist today: race, language, customs and habits, behaviour, cultural identity, sexuality, food, religion.   The sense of division couldn't be much worse than that Paul refers to between Jew and Gentile.  It was racial, national; it was about the identity of a group of people; it was about language, customs, habits.  It was about religion, expressed particularly in ideas of religious purity.  It was about conviction: the certain belief for Jews that everyone else was separated from God.  Born in the wrong place, to the wrong family, and the Jewish outlook was "We cannot accept you, because God doesn't accept you."And Paul knows he's on difficult territory. He is distinctly unhappy with that divided way of looking at things - and people.  He admits it when he says "you were called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcised" and when he says that circumcision is just something done to a man's body.  It doesn't mean anything of spiritual significance.


But he still goes on...(v. 12) 
Whatever you want to say about circumcision just being a bit of surgery done to the body, Paul still goes on to force the point. See verse 12.  The gentiles were genuinely lost and genuinely far away from Christ. For special place of Jews see Rom 9. 4f.  They had covenants, law, and promises from God. He spoke to their patriarchs. Humanly speaking, Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the Christ.  So the Gentiles, people like the Ephesians, were really and truly lost.  The Jews at least had some hope, because they had the promise of the Messiah coming.  That gave them the responsibility for how they would respond to the Messiah.   But without that promise, the Gentiles were completely hopeless and Godless.  This division, then was a very real thing.

But now...(v. 13) 

... and After

Before...

Paul makes a contrast between then and now.  He contrasts "Once" (v. 1) and "at that time" (v. 2) with "Now" (v. 3) It's like one of these "before-and-after adverts.  He is still, in fact, unwrapping what God has done for us through Jesus. Because of the Grace of God previously described, there is a "Now" in contrast to the past in the Ephesians' lives.   You've been made alive and saved (v5) seated in heaven (v. 6); created for good works (v10). And now Paul goes on... You guys have been brought from that "outsider" status to being "near" right in the very heart of things, right into God's presence... by the blood of Christ.  Hallelujah.  .


Jesus is our peace!
Jesus is our peace.  He shows us what peace is like.  He gives us it. He embodies it.  Jesus the "Prince of Peace" (Isa 9. 6) is peace in person. To know Jesus is to know peace itself. The Old Testament word, "Shalom" means every kind of peace.  It means the end of fighting.  It means relationships are sorted out. It means harmony and wholeness and healing. Paul is particularly interested in reconciliation.  Great news for the Ephesians who were once on the wrong side of the fence. But they have not just been brought inside the fence, through Jesus' blood.  The fence no longer exists. The fence means the law, the rulebook.  Paul is thinking about the fence between us and God. And he is thinking about the fence between Jew and non-Jew.  He isn't just talking about their salvation. He is talking about the miracle of reconciliation.  Humanity was divided, by this wall, this fence, between the race who were God's people and everyone  else.  But now that divide has been broken down.  Jesus has made two things into one thing.  He has made one new person, a new humanity.  That's the direct, unmistakable outcome of being a new person in Christ, of being raised to new life and seated in the heavenly places in Christ.  Each person who knows Jesus, is part of God's new humanity, a new, fresh, united, redeemed version of the human race where all the old dividing walls, of race, language, culture, food, customs, gender, are all done away with.  We are a new rainbow humanity that is black, brown and white, male and female, old and young, able-bodied and disabled. We are one new humanity.  When Jesus died, the hostility, the divisions, the disunity died too, on the cross.  Isn't that amazing?  That peace is something for those who were near, like the Jews. It is something for those who were far away, like the Gentiles.  We all have access in one Spirit to the Father.


No longer strangers... 
Paul summarises his big point.  The Ephesians are no longer foreigners, people who are not at home.  They are fully integrated, fully counted in to the new humanity, into the Church of God.  Paul is getting excited about the kind of life that should be seen in this new humanity, the Church.


We the Church - all together - are 
* Fellow citizens in a new kingdom.  Every believer belongs.  No Christian is an outsider, a foreigner, a person away from home.  No Christian is a partial citizen, a second-class citizen in the new community. Every Christian is a full member of the new nation.
* Members of a household.  Every believer is a full member of the family.  Nobody stands and watches while the family has a meal together. Nobody's sleeping on the couch.  Everyone is a member of the household.
* Built into a house/temple.  Every believer is part of the structure of the church.  (v. 20a). Every time someone comes to Jesus, the temple grows, a new brick or plank is put in place.  We are "fitted together", (v 21: the word can apply either to a building or a body!) Every Christian is part of it.
* Founded on the same heritage. We are all built onto the same foundations of truth revealed through
o Apostles: those sent out by Jesus himself, and given responsibility for making sure that the Good News continued to travel outwards in mission.
o Prophets: those inspired by the Spirit to speak from god.
o Jesus: the "highest-corner", the most important stone.
The Church must always be founded on truth; it must always be moving outwards with the Good News; it must always be inspired by the Spirit and fully focussed on Jesus.
* A dwelling place for God.  Just as God really inhabited the temple, in Christ God really inhabits the Church by the Spirit.



What is the Church?
It consists of people who "once were lost but now are found" all of us.  It holds together despite differences through the reconciliation that Jesus has achieved. It is the New Humanity. It is this body/household/house, where God dwells.  Amen?

© Gilmour Lilly April 2011