"Magnify Living" - Ephesians 5

Growing up in an atheist household doesn’t mean you don’t have brushes with Christianity. Indeed, it is very difficult to live in the U.S. and completely avoid it. So throughout my early life, I had many encounters with it.

As I rubbed elbows with the Christian church, most of the ideas that I developed about it were vague & ill-informed. That was until I met Christy, who is now my wife. Christy was a devoted, faithful, life-long Christian. She wasn’t perfect, but she was good. It was one of the qualities that I was attracted to (that and her blue eyes.) 

Anyway, we fell in love, and somehow I convinced her that we should get married, even

though I wasn’t a Christian. That set the stage for one of my first close encounters with the faith. We met with her parent’s pastor for pre-marital counseling, which consisted of a single, one-hour meeting.

In that meeting, the pastor said two things that really kind of shocked me, each for different reasons. The first thing he said was: “You’re engaged now, so if you are still dating anyone else - that has to end.”

DUH!

I wouldn’t have said it this way back then, but was the Christian way of dating like The Bachelor? It’s like we had reached the final rose ceremony? To be fair, I think he said it for my benefit, because he knew I wasn’t a Christian…and maybe he was just being safe.

The second thing he said involved making decisions and resolving conflict.  He told us: “You should always work together in making decisions.” So far, so good. But then he threw in this wrinkle: “But if you ever reach a point where that isn’t possible, then Art gets to decide…and Christy you have to abide.”

WHOA!!!! Now that DEFINITELY wasn’t the rule in my household growing up. I do remember thinking: “Maybe I’m starting to like this Christianity thing…” 

In any event, I took that statement and safely filed it away. I was young and naïve, but even I knew that was a trump card worth keeping. And sure enough, it wasn’t long after we were married before I eagerly used it.

I don’t even remember what Christy and I were disagreeing about. I probably wasn’t even trying to resolve it because I was already reaching into my pocket to pull that card out. And so I did: “Well…pastor said that I get to decide and you have to abide.” 

A look came over my wife’s face that I don’t recall ever seeing before, and was pretty sure I never wanted to see again. And then she said something I never, ever forgot: “Ok, we’ll do it that way this time…don’t get used to it.”

In that moment, I was struck with the thought: “What have I just done?” A voice inside of me (not my own) answered: “Trust me, you don’t want to do that again” 

Later, much later, I came to realize what I had done. It was a power play on my part. I didn’t want to talk it through. I didn’t want to engage. I didn’t want to try to understand her position.

I only wanted MY way.

And in that moment, I made my wife - my “other half” - my equal partner - the other mystical & necessary ingredient of “where the two shall become one.”

And I made her less than me.

And I knew that using that power was kind of like using a nuclear bomb. It causes a lot of damage with long lasting fallout. And in 32 years since that incident, I haven’t.

I tell that story because that is what we are going to encounter in our scripture passage this morning.  

We are in week 5 of a 6 week series called “Magnify the Lord,” a series in which we are using the word magnify in a biblical sense: To see God clearer and to experience him as closer.

This week we are really going to need the telescope, because chapter 5 of Ephesians is one of the most challenging. If we see this wrong…if we APPLY this wrong. It’s like a nuclear weapon: Lots of destruction and long lasting fallout.

In Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul writes about living the Christian life. In doing so, he sets out two expectations (of many) for those who call themselves "Christian." The first expectation involves personal conduct. The second expectation addresses marital relations. Both of these expectations can be interpreted as “rules.”

But here is what I’ve learned and experienced when we start talking about “rules” in scripture: We need to stop, step back and check ourselves. Because when we start to look for rules, instead of a savior, it can easily turn into seeking power instead of love.

As we look at both of these rules in a bit of detail, here is what I think we’ll discover: There is a subtle, but vital, difference between: 
- position and responsibility; 
- status and relationship; 
- power and love.

Let’s start reading, beginning first with personal conduct. We will read verses 3 to 7 of chapter 5. 

Ephesians 5:3-7 (NLT)
Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. 

Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t participate in the things these people do. 

_________

What typically gets magnified out of this passage is God’s anger.

For me growing up, as an outsider looking in on Christianity,  God’s Anger is what I brushed up against the most. If you asked me back then, I would’ve describe it this way:
- God’s got rules. 
- God enforces the rules. 
- God gets really angry when we break the rules.

But is that how it really works? 

So let’s ask the question: How do we go about engaging with God and his rules? Do we find ourselves saying things like: “These are the rules. Deal with it.” OR “I don’t make the rules…I just follow them.” If we do find ourselves saying these things, again, we need to stop, step back, and check ourselves. 

History tells us that some theologies and perspectives have “weaponized” these verses. They are used to beat people over the head with. The milder version is along the lines of: 

“God will turn his back on you. Yes, you are saved, but you won’t have any jewels in your crown.” The extreme version goes like a line on a stock market chart. Each day we are

either above or below the “line of salvation,” depending on how we’ve conducted ourselves that day. If we die when we’re below the line…well…that’s tough. You’ve lost your salvation.

The end result is predictable with this outlook. People are terrified that they haven’t lived a “good enough” life to enter into heaven.

But think about that for a moment. Is that what God is really inviting us into? A relationship that has one-sided rules that are applied without any thinking or exploring what they are getting at?

I guess we could.

I guess some 32 years ago I could have played my trump card with Christy and when she didn’t like it my response could have been: “I don’t make these rules. I just follow them.” But again, that would have done serious and long-lasting harm to our relationship.  

So when I started studying these words - these rules - I shifted my approach in unpacking them. I went into “lawyer mode” and approached them like a lawyer. After all, if we want to talk about God’s laws and rules, know that I have been trained and experienced in what laws and rules are seeking after. It also reaffirms the wisdom of God’s plan of sending me to law school before seminary.

I remember when, in seminary, we got to the part about the rules of biblical interpretation. To my surprise and delight, I found out they are nearly identical to what I had been taught in law school about statutory interpretation. There are four basic steps. Four things to seek:
1. Discover the original intent.
2. Apply the plain meaning of the language.
3. Interpret the specific meaning consistent with the bigger meaning. (In other words, make sure the smaller rule is consistent with the big picture.)
4. Identify the exceptions.

By now, you are undoubtedly asking: “Wait?! What are the EXCEPTIONS?” There are exceptions to laws?  Would you be surprised that every law has an exception? It’s true. The reason is simple, because without exceptions, there is no mercy; and without mercy, there is no justice. 

Let me repeat that: Without mercy there is no justice.

A fair question to ask is: Where is the exception to rule in our scripture? Where is the mercy? Our cue comes in the opening two sentences of chapter 5 that I intentionally didn’t include. I did that to highlight the point I am about to make.

Let’s back up and read them now. Verses 1 and 2. Know that these two sentences set the tone for everything that follows. 

Ephesians 5:1-2 (NLT)
Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
_______

What jumps out at us? For me, it is where it says right at the beginning: Imitate God. This is where original intent comes into play.

When I am after original intent in the New Testament, I go back to the original language it was written: Greek. I do this because in the English language, “imitation” doesn’t always have positive connotations with it. It implies something fraudulent or a cheap knock-off. Imitation is not the “real” thing.

The original Greek uses the word mimetes (Me-May-Tase.) It is where we derive the English word: Mimic. It is means to admire the character and values of someone, and then try to emulate it. To pattern our lives after theirs.

Ephesians 5 is telling us to pattern our lives after God himself. So the words that follow in verses 3 through 7 seem rather plain and harsh, the original intent is that they are an appeal; an encouragement; an exhortation. The original intent is to get us to pay attention;  to see the seriousness of it. 

But HOW it is said also matters greatly.

Example: We read this in the NLT translation:

Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.

But literal translation is closer this:

But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be named once among you, as you become saints;

The closing words are so important: Let it not be named once among you, as you become saints. 

HOW it is said is as important as WHAT is said.

Paul is exhorting us in a discipleship process known as “sanctification.”  We don’t have time to unpack that term, but we should recognize that it is urging and inspiring us down the trail of faith, not setting up bright lines of conduct where our salvation hangs in the balance. 

Which is where plain meaning of the words come in. Let’s be honest with ourselves. What it is saying about these sins are true. These things cause destruction in our world and in our lives. And we have to treat our sin seriously. We can’t ignore sin. 

Because if, on one end of the spectrum, we have a casual attitude toward sin, counting on Jesus to forgive us…IF and WHEN we get around to asking. We’ve engaged in what is known as “cheap grace.”

That is a term coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his best known book: The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer defined “cheap grace” as 

“The preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

But on the other end of the spectrum, we demand strict compliance. “Sorry, no exceptions. Just following the rules…” Then it wouldn’t mimic the character of God, would it? This would not be keeping the big picture in mind. In fact, using this approach, we wouldn’t need Jesus would we? We just pull out the old rule sheet to see where we stood.

This is what Ephesians 5 is speaking into. We can’t read the rules without remembering the big picture. What is that exactly?  The LOVE & GRACE of Jesus

If we make these into rules that condemn us, then Jesus died for nothing and our faith is useless. And somewhere deep down inside of us, a voice speaks out and says: “That isn’t true!”

So we have to take our sin seriously, and we have to depend on Jesus’ grace desperately. 

When we get down to it, what any law is trying to do, no matter if it is legislative or biblical, is communicate a value. But communicating values is tough to do. It has to include concrete and specific descriptions of conduct. It has to give a standard which we can compare and measure. Because we all know if God simply told us: “BE GOOD” (which, by the way, he does!), we’d be all over the place with that. God does tell us: “Be Good”…and here is what it looks like.

But again, it’s not a law without exception…without mercy.

God doesn’t apply this standard without also including his forgiveness…because if he didn’t, we are doomed and there is no hope. The exception is known as forgiveness and grace. We covered that in chapter 4, so I won’t revisit it here.

Now I should land the airplane here and let us all disembark. But I’m not, because there is another big thing in Ephesians 5 that we have to wrestle with. 

It has to do with our marriages.

Everything we’ve talked about applies to our marriages as well. So let’s do a quick look at verses 22-24

Ephesians 5:22-24 (NLT)
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
______

Again, the word that stands out to us is that word submit.

As we use it in everyday English, we define that as: To accept or yield to a superior force or authority or will of another person.

Three times it says SUBMIT. Three being a holy number representing the trinity, why argue? Sorry wives, I don’t make the rules…I just follow them.

(As an aside, this approach is in direct conflict with a natural law that I discovered living in a household of 4 women: “I can be right or I can be happy…but I can’t be both.”)

So for husbands, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s get to the ORIGINAL INTENT of what Paul writes. The word “submit” (Greek hupotasso) which means to be obedient towards. But would it surprise us that this word never literally appears in the verses we read?

It is inferred, not actually in the original manuscripts. If we want a literal reading of the verse it says this: Wives unto your husband as to the Lord.

It has a better feel to it doesn’t it wives?

So why is it there in our English translations?

The inference is used because of the verse that sets the stage for ALL the rules. It is included in the verse that comes immediately before the verses we read.

Again, I didn’t include it to make the point. It reads this way.

Verse 21: And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

This is where submit actually appears (Hupotasso).

Hmmm…turns out submission is not exclusively for wives. ALL believers in Jesus must learn to live in submission. This isn’t a wife thing…this is a human thing.

To be honest, NONE of us like the idea of submission. It is a loss of control and freedom. 

Ephesians 5 is communicating that it doesn’t matter what our status. Married or single; Husbands or wives; Man or woman; We ALL have to submit to God.

But since we’re talking marriage, husbands - if we want to read it literally - we have a much bigger task than wives.

Let’s read what it says further on in Ephesians 5:

Ephesians 5:25-30 (NLT)
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 

He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 

In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 
________

Husbands, in case we missed it, this is telling us we have to mimic Jesus. That is the original intent. 

If we are going to mimic Jesus, who is he and what is he about? Answer: He is our Lord, yes. But more than that, he is a SAVIOR.

As one author put it: “A savior is a loving rescuer…not a dictatorial tyrant.”

From Jesus’ lips to our ears, what does he say: the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Let’s magnify and repeat that: “not to BE served but TO serve.”

So what happens to the rules when they get read with the original intent of Jesus? Those bright lines of black & white rules begin to blur.

Let me quote Rachel Held Evans:
“If wives submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ, and if husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, and if both husbands and wives submit one to another—who’s really ‘in charge’ here?” 

Answer: Jesus. 

Jesus - who is powerful…but who invited us to mimic him as powerless. Not to be served, but to serve

Let me close by borrowing from the Apostle Peter.  (Remember Peter? The apostle who repeatedly broke rules and abandoned our savior in his most pressing moment. But who Jesus redeemed and returned to significance.) 

He says this: 

Act out of love…not because you have to, but because you want to. 
Not seeking what you can get out of it, but what you can put into it. 
Not bossily telling them how it is, but tenderly showing what it is.

(1 Peter 5 in case you were wondering.)

Rules are important because they provide a standard. But also remember to ask this: When we start to look for rules, instead of a savior, are we seeking power instead of love?

So have the same mindset of Jesus. Start by seeking love and end by showing love. Let the first and the last and everything in between be guided by love.

Keep the Faith - Pastor Art

“Magnify Unity” - Ephesians 4

We recently added a communion table to our stage. What makes it special is that it was built this summer by our very own Dave Baughman and Cal Olsen, with Jared Hoesel chiming in with the engraving on the front.


Now when we look at the table, our brains tell us to see it as a single, unified piece of furniture. We see it as a whole, not as the individual pieces that go into the whole.

But if we were to disassemble the table, we would discover a story, especially with the wood that went into it. From my perspective, wood, which by definition comes from a living organism known as trees, always has a story. That is especially true for the story of the wood that was used to make the top of our communion table.

The top is made up of two kinds of wood: Hickory & Cherry. It is not a store or lumberyard purchase. In fact, we can trace the history of this wood all the way back to where it grew on a plot of land in Michigan.

Allow me to lay out the timeline that brought it from Michigan to our stage, working backward thru time. 
- This past May I came into possession of this wood thru my surrogate dad.
- My dad came into possession of it thru one of his oldest friends from childhood, a man named Tommy.
- Tommy came into possession of the wood thru his son named Tommy Jr (“TJ” as he is called.)
- TJ came into possession of it when he knew someone who was clearing a plot of land that had a stand of hickory and cherry trees on it, and apparently, couldn’t stand the idea of this wood being cut up and either burned or put in a landfill. 

Instead, TJ dreamed of building something beautiful with the wood from these trees.So he had them cut down, rough-sawed into lumber, stacked, and left to cure. Time passed, and the wood sat under a tarp outdoors, undisturbed on at his dad’s house. (But that’s how it goes with young men. We always store our stuff at our parent’s house.)

I think this is similar for most of us. We have visions and intentions for projects in our life, but then the busyness of life interrupts and projects don’t get completed. So there the wood sat, and sat, and sat. Roughly 20 years passed and the wood went unused, except maybe serving as a home for the small creatures in God’s creation. TJ held onto his dreams and held onto the wood. 

Then a couple of years ago, TJ’s life was interrupted in a way that couldn’t be ignored. He was diagnosed with cancer for a second time. Last October, TJ lost that battle. He was 42 years old.

He never got to put the wood to use.

It is a sad story for sure, but as you will read below, I think it is YET another example of how - when it comes to God - the story is never over. We learn something important about the character of God in this wood and in this story.

So bear with me.

When it became obvious TJ’s original plan wasn’t going to happen, the future of the wide pile was in doubt. That is when my dad stepped in and used up a big part of the pile to build cabinets. But there was a lot more to go around, which is where I got the idea of using it for a communion table.

So last May, just before I started on sabbatical, I went up to my dad’s to collect it. It is helpful to the story to recognize the original condition of this wood when I got it. It was old, weathered, and cracked. It didn’t really look fit to be made into anything.
 
 But a good woodworker can see through deceiving external appearances. So my dad and I started the first stage of making it fit to be made into a table, which meant it had to be milled and cut. We ran the planks through a planer and edger to get it closer to workable condition. Then I transported it to Dave’s workshop and said: “Here you go Dave. I’ll see you in 3 months!” (I secretly wish ALL my ideas for projects would go like that.)

I tell this story to magnify what we are going to encounter in Ephesians chapter 4.  It’s about unity. Unity is a big focus of chapter 4, and rightfully so. Unity is a powerful binding agent in the church. It is the like the glue that holds us together. It is what makes us strong.

But what exactly is UNITY? What does it look like? How do we experience it? And why is God so concerned about it?

In the opening verses of Chapter 4, the Apostle Paul writes this: 

Ephesians 4:1-6
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 

Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.
______

In these verses God, thru Paul, is communicating something important about unity. It is something we should sit up and take notice.

Unity is being bound together with someone about something. 

Maybe it’s better understood by what it is NOT. Unity is not uniformity. It doesn’t mean we all have to look, think, act the same way. We don’t have to be clones of one another.

Rather, as Paul writes, there is a sense of ONENESS that binds us together.
- One Lord
- One Faith
- One Baptism
- One Father - that weaves over - in - and thru all of us. 

Unity is the thread that keeps us connected.

If were to keep reading a few verses down to #15-16, the importance of UNITY is really described.

It says this

Ephesians 4:15-16
Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
_______

It is like Paul is giving us assembly instructions to build unity. Have you ever bought something that has “some assembly required” printed on the side of the box? Church is a kind of box where - yes - some assembly is required.

When we open up the box and we find it has step-by-step instructions on HOW to put it together? That is what verses 15 and 16 essentially are: Step by step Instructions

Step 1: "Speaking truth in love"

We want to be accurate. We want to communicate the truth. But our motivation has to come out of care and love.

Step 2: "Growing in every way"

This might be telling us “being” is as important as “doing.” We fall into habits of valuing doing more than being. I certainly fell into that old trap upon returning from sabbatical. After three months of “being”, I overcompensated by focusing on “doing.”  

As Francis Chan reflected in his recent book, "Spending time with God is never a waste of time."

Step 3: "More like Christ"

This is like checking the picture on the instructions. Are we, as a body, looking like the picture painted in the New Testament about this thing called ekklesia (Greek for 'church')? 

Step 4: "Who is the head of his body, the church."

Who exactly are we building this for? Is it for our own benefit? Or is this for Jesus?

Step 5: "As each part does its own special work"

We ALL have roles, and those roles are different. (More on that in a few weeks look at 1st Corinthians 12 in a couple of weeks.)

Step 6: "It helps the other parts grow"

Those roles have impact others in positive ways.

Final assembly: "So that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love."

Are we? Or is there more assembly required?

This is where I want to go back to the story of our table. It serves as a metaphor of what is being communicated here. It is the WHAT of unity, as well as the HOW is unity achieved.

Our new communion table has lots of different components to it.  It is made up of all kinds of parts and wood. I said, there is cherry and hickory in the top, and poplar in the legs and bracing. It has screws and brackets and glue that help keep it sturdy. There is a finish on it.

But as we look at it - and as we use it - it is WAY more than a sum of its parts. 

We see deep symbolism in this table. This is the place where we come to receive the body and blood of Christ. This table has a sacredness attached to it.

To be sure, this table didn’t appear out of thin air. It was built. There were many hands that went into getting it to where it is now. This includes TJ, the young man who first had the foresight to save the wood that became part of this table.

TJ was a faithful and dedicated Christian man who, shortly before his cancer reappeared, had realized two big dreams in life. First, he had just gotten married for the first time to the love of his life. Second, he had gotten his “dream job” as a videographer for Christian Broadcast Network. His calling was to tell ‘God stories’ in short videos.

Now if we told TJ’s story in its entirety, which it certainly deserves, we’d find a painful but beautiful story. But the part about him salvaging wood from a stand of hickory and cherry trees would, most likely, end up on the cutting room floor. It doesn’t seem like a big part of his life,and maybe it wasn’t to him. But it is to me…and to us.

Because of his decision 20 years ago to save the wood destine for the burn pile, we ended up with some wood that realized significance.

Personally, I love how the wood sat for two decades unused. It highlights an implicit value about God in this scripture - and in this story. We call it REDEMPTION. 

This is important. We should never forget this. It is at the core of God’s intent for us. God isn’t in this relationship to USE us - 
God is in this relationship to REDEEM us.

God is in this to give us a sense of meaning - purpose - significance. God is not up on a throne just to take in all the glory, and we are the minions to manufacture that glory. God deeply desires to SHARE his glory with us. The New Testament says this over and over. 

Together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. (Romans 8:17)

And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. (Colossians 3:4) 

For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:12)

In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. (1 Peter 5:10)

That sharing of glory is known as redemption. Redemption can describe the outcome as we are woven together into unity, all of us being used.

Remember the old cherry and hickory boards? If we walked by them, most of us would say ‘useless.’ But a craftsman who works in wood knows better, and God is the ultimate craftsman - and he definitely knows better. In our natural state, we’re like those old boards. Stained, faded, dirty, cracked, and aged.

But as we say all the time: Jesus accepts us as he finds us, but he doesn’t leave us there.

So like the old wood for the table, to collects us (what theologians call ‘justification’), and then he puts us through the woodshop process of planning, edging, and trimming (what theologians call ‘sanctification’.) This sanctification process frequently feels painful. But we put up with the suffering for the sake of becoming better and growing closer to God.

And in that process God “fits us together perfectly” like our communion table. New wood, old wood, different kinds of wood. He inscribes on us, much like we’ve engraved on the front of our table. We experience unity - each of us unique, and yet bound together - redeemed to share glory. 

Our communion table reflects a reality about us. That doesn’t mean we ARE perfect. That never happens this side of heaven. But what we are fitted together as can be, even with our flaws, yet perfect for what God needs it to be.

This is the church. - This is UNITY. Unity sets us on the path toward redemption and then glory.

Keep the Faith - Pastor Art

"Magnify Grace" - Ephesians 3

I am a person who is fascinated by our culture. I love reading about studies and surveys about culture. How people are shaped by it. How trends happen & impact on our values and behaviors.


This week, I came across a study about something we all can identify with: Television.  EVERYONE has a TV in their house. It’s like standard equipment.

This particular study was on the continual trend to for BIGGER televisions. When it comes to TV’s - bigger HAS ALWAYS been better. The study gave some interesting statistics:
• In 4 years average screen went from 40” to 48” 
• Close to half the tv’s being sold this year will be 60” or larger.

Researchers wanted to know: what is driving that? Especially since we don’t see the same dynamic in cellphones. Cell phones we have settled into two choices:
1) Standard: Approx. 5 inches
2) XL or Plus: 5.8 inches
But TV’s just keep marching onward to bigger.

What researchers found boiled down to 3 basic things that drives the size of television: Technology, Culture, and Social. Technology is the easy answer. We do bigger simply because we can. Culture, we are increasing our "screen time." There is an ever increasing availability of “streaming” (internet) from places like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. Social is because we are becoming a 'staying in' society. 

Studies have given hints on how this is manifesting itself in our social behavior: More people prefer drinking at home instead of going out to a bar or restaurant. Restaurants biggest growth area is that customers increasingly opt for home deliveries. 

The social influence goes along these lines: If we’re all staying at home more, we might as well have the cinematic experience of a bigger tv. 

I bring this is up because we’re in the third part of our series “Magnify the Lord.” This series is centered on a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the ancient church in Ephesus. 

I identify with Paul because I get the sense he loved studying the culture as much - if not more - than I do. He paid attention to what was going on around him, and God used him to speak into that culture.

Obviously didn’t tweet text or email. But he did the only thing technologically available at the time. He wrote letters. What he communicated in this letter known as Ephesians is what we are working through in this series. The words are so timeless that they still speak into our culture today.

In this post, we are going to explore Ephesians 3 and the meaning of God’s grace. We

going to read the first 12 verses of the chapter. But before we get to it, let me set the stage.

Ever heard or read the expression known as a “sidebar”? It means a short article in a newspaper or magazine, typically boxed, placed alongside a main article, and containing additional or explanatory material.

Verses 1 through 12 is a kind of sidebar. Paul starts into a prayer - but then diverts into an explanation. But rather than tell you, let me show you.
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Ephesians 3:1-12 (NLT)
When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles . . . assuming, by the way, that you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles. As I briefly wrote earlier, God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me. 

As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ. God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now by his Spirit he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets.

And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus. By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News. 

Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning.
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Now let’s pause here at the end of verse 9 before we plunge into verses 10 thru 12.

Verse 9 introduces what we have all been waiting for. Drum roll please - God’s mysterious plan! It is telling us that verses 10-11 will give us what we’ve been longing for: The big reveal. The “Move That Bus” moment.

But the first 9 verses of this “sidebar” tells us about a progression of how God is revealing the PLAN to humanity. And make no mistake, it is a progression.

Verses 1 to 7 reveal that God gave Paul a special job as an “apostle.” It meant special task from God. Doesn’t make him better, just different. Verses 8 and 9 we see that we, as a church, receive God’s plan through Paul.

Now comes the moment we’ve been waiting for: The Church’s purpose. The plan for us. Our role in this life.

Verses 10 to 12 say this:
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God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 

This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.
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Now if we just read that quickly and without much thought, it’s kind an outpouring of religious jargon. So let’s back up the bus and read that again slowly. Let’s MAGNIFY it. Let’s put it on the big tv so we can see the detail.

It tells us three important things.
The Mission: “God’s purpose in all of this…”
The Method: “was to use the church…” 
The Message: “to display his wisdom in its rich variety” 

We, as a church, are playing the role of a BIG tv. We are being used to magnify to others. 

But who would is it directed at? Who is this pointing toward? Who is the “target audience” of the mission, method, and message?

In other words, who are we the BIG tv for? I’m guessing we’d say something like: to other people, to non-Christians, or to the world. But the answer Paul reveals is astonishing:

to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 

God’s mission is to use the church (the method) to witness the message to the rulers and authorities NOT on earth.

Wait. What???

We have to unpack the two titles used here. In the other major English bible translations NIV - ESV - KJV all pretty much say it the same way...except they replace “Rulers and Authorities” with “Principalities and Powers.”

If we skip ahead to the end of this letter (ch. 6) we know it is talking about angels and demons.

Paul writes this in the final chapter of Ephesians:
For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Now this should blow up our standard conception of our mission, method, and message. We always thought it was just to other people just like us, when in fact…IT. IS. SO. MUCH. MORE!!!!

We are witnesses, not only to the seen, but to the unseen.

We are not small tv. We are BIG GIGANTIC COSMIC TV

It is like we are called to testify…and raising our hand and taking the oath: Promise to tell the truth, whole truth, nothing but the truth. 

But our witness is far more than our words, it is our lives. Our lives are telling a story. Our lives act out our testimony. It doesn’t just TELL the truth…it SHOWS the truth. And that testimony is being heard and seen not only by other people…but the powers and principalities. Angels and demons

It tells us that when it comes to God’s PLAN, the church is the most important instrument of that plan,

Ephesians 3 is magnifying our role as a church. We are the method to take the message to the unseen. 

We suddenly see that the church…is WAY BIGGER than we thought in that plan.
It is bigger than any nation or politics;
It is bigger than any ethnicity or tribe or skin color;
It is bigger than any thought or idea.

We are the Body of Christ…and WE. ARE. BIG.

We are COSMIC big. 

If we had kept reading our scripture passage, check out what Paul says how big. (Remember, he was just about to pray when he started into his sidebar.) He writes: 

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 

Why is he falling onto his knees? He suddenly sees how big the church is in God’s plan.

And he goes on to say this to us:

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

Paul is trying to reveal how big God is, and how we - the church - magnify it by being witnesses. 

John Piper writes this:
“Most of us live our lives with far too little awareness of the stupendous realities around us. Most of us go through day after day and seldom feel the impact of the magnitude of what we are caught up in by belonging to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the ruler of the universe.  

"And we don't take enough time to meditate on how our jobs, our home life, our leisure, our church involvement—how each of these fits into the cosmic significance of the church. And consequently our lives often lack the flavor of eternity and the aroma of something ultimate." 

Love that closing line: our lives often lack the flavor of eternity and the aroma of something ultimate.

We were created by God - who loves us - who chooses us - who sets us apart and makes us holy - to have a life that reflects something mysterious and wonderful.

A life that has a cosmic significance - even if we are doing nothing more than SMALL GOOD.

Because that is what life with Jesus is like. 

The apostle Paul recognized this and pursued it. Remember, Paul wasn’t some super-star popular preacher with his own mega-church. From his perspective, he was just doing his own little ministry. I am convinced that he was Holy Spirit inspired to write the letters that became the New Testament. But I’m convinced he didn’t have any idea it would become the New Testament.

And the same is true for us. We are not only a light to the world, we are a light to the cosmos! That is our mission.

But I want to circle back to our message and method.

Message: what Paul refers to as the “divine wisdom,” or the "mystery of Christ." But it is not really a mystery. Jesus - by the work of the cross - gives us eternal life for us individually…

But it is so much more than that. Jesus’ work of the cross unites us into a single body. A church composed of everyone. Heirs of the covenant because of his love, and beneficiaries of blessings because of his grace. 

So how does God use us to make this divine wisdom known to the powers and principalities? 

Here we are talking about method. 

First off - angels and demons KNOW all too well what God wants.  They don’t suffer from a lack of knowledge, they suffer from a lack of belief. They know the message (the “plan”), they just don’t believe it works. 

If we are witnesses, then the powers and principalities are asking us what the rest of world is asking: Don’t TELL us…SHOW us. In other words, live it out. Our method is demonstrating how it works. We show them by receiving and sharing God’s grace (or what we call “forgiveness.”)

From where I stand, the first and fundamental practice of Christians is putting grace into action. We are forgiven by God, so we have to forgive others - AND - we have to forgive ourselves. Jesus himself says none of this is effective until we do that.

Let me stop and dwell on this topic of grace and forgiveness.

I like to say that grace is the currency of God’s kingdom.

What does that mean?

If love is the culture of God’s kingdom (the product of heaven), then grace is the “money” (how it gets shared.) Love is what is needed and desired, and grace clears the path to make that happen.

So often people stumble right here.

It’s is a line of thought that goes like this:
• “God could NEVER forgive me for what I have done.”
OR
• “I could never forgive God for what has been done to me.”

Let’s take those 2 questions in turn.

“God could never forgive me”

I invite you to read the passion account. Jesus’ death scene.
Falsely accused - kangaroo court conviction - torturous death.
From that cross, Jesus calls out to God: “Father forgive them”

To get this flow of grace going - God says: I’ll go first.

God demonstrated his love for us by forgiving us for what we (humanity) has done to his son.

It’s not like God says: “I don’t care” OR “it doesn’t matter.” He does care and it does matter. But God has a power that we don’t. The power of redemption. He can redeem all things. He WILL redeem all things.

That allows us to engage in grace.

To forgive and be forgiven. And it is critically important because it is impossible to love without grace.

The flip side of that.

What if something horrible has happened to us, and our question is: WHY did you allow that God?
WHERE WERE YOU? 
WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP IT?

That is not a pain that can be resolved by a few quick words in a blog post.

But start here: If you are placing fault and responsibility on God for what happened…then give him a chance to bring healing. Accept an invitation to start the process of forgiveness. Give God a chance to “recover” and redeem this wound

This will look strange to your eyes and sound weird to your ears - but so often there is a great gift inside of great suffering. Not trying to minimize or downplay what happened in your life. Nor am I implying that the healing will come suddenly, or overnight, or in week, or in a year. But it will start…and the place it starts is with grace.

Give God a chance.

Bottom line - we gotta do grace

When we MAGNIFY grace… 
we are witnessing to the world AND the cosmos. 

When we MAGNIFY grace…
Our witness is that the sacrifice of the cross was not in vain: 

When we MAGNIFY grace…
Our witness is that the Jesus reconciles us to God, and to each other.

When we MAGNIFY grace…
Our witness is that the wall of hostility is torn down, and we share unity as the Body of Christ.

That is the call - the witness - the message that the body of Jesus, known as the church, is supposed to deliver. We show the divine wisdom of God to everyone by being the church Christ died to create.

This is a message that should stretch us. It is challenging, but it is also invigorating. But as always, we see that is more than just about us. It includes our task to witness to powers and principalities that God has been wise in sending his Son. 

Because if we don’t - the message becomes 
God's purpose is failing; 
His divine wisdom is foolishness.

So let us do GRACE, it shines a light into darkness.
Not just the world’s darkness…
But the darkness of the cosmos.

Keep the Faith ~ Pastor Art