©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

01/12/03

The Inheritance Of God

Ephesians 1:3-14

1/12/03 The Inheritance of God

I have something I want you to see this morning,

and, as so often happens when I begin to prepare for our time together,

I find myself feeling frustrated with how I can most effectively communicate to you

the truth I so very much want us to see.

We are returning to our study of Ephesians.

We attempted to do a quick review last week

of the portion of the book we’ve already studied

and then move ahead in the book,

and we never made it through the review.

But, for those of you who were here,

I think our time together did help to get us back into the book.

One of the things that so often troubles me

about teaching the Word of God

is that I know how easily we can loose sight

of what’s really suppose to be taking place between us and our Creator

as a result of our exposure to His Word.

When we first come to Christ

we all come with an extremely narrow and limited concept

of what we have really entered into

when we enter into Christ.

We’re a little bit like a homeless man

who has been living on the streets,

eating out of dumpsters and garbage cans,

who suddenly discovers that he is the sole heir of a great fortune.

At first all he cares about is the realization that he can buy all the food he can eat,

and that he can sleep somewhere warm and comfortable.

With many of us

when we first come to Christ

what we we’re concerned about most of all

is just finding peace with God and with ourselves.

The realization that now, at last,

the burden of our sin has been taken off of us forever

is all we longed for, and all we expected.

We have no idea whatsoever

what we really entered into through Christ.

But then, through His written Word,

God begins to open us up to a world we never knew existed,

a world that reveals to us

a purpose for our lives,

and a significance for our lives that we never even dreamed of prior to our union with Christ.

I know that an illustration about a homeless man

who digs around in other people’s garbage for food is difficult for us to relate to

because most of us in America live our entire lives

having never gone to bed hungry

unless it’s by choice because of the latest diet we’re on

in yet another desperate attempt to slim down a bit.

But the truth is

in one sense

we are not nearly so different from that fellow as we might at first think.

You see,

though most of us don’t have to scrounge for food,

yet we all enter this world

scrounging around for something, anything that will feed our hunger

for a sense of self-worth,

and significance,

and importance.

We’ve talked a lot about this in the past,

but the truth is

apart from the voice of our God in our lives

we have no way of knowing either who we are

or why we have value.

We desperately seek for some sort of affirmation from those around us,

beginning with our parents as children,

and then with our friends and our teachers,

and then with our employers and other significant voices in our lives.

With all of us here this morning,

apart from the healing work of God in our lives,

our basic self-concept is the result of our own personal integration and interpretation

of whatever other people have been saying to us and about us throughout our lives.

I was involved in a project this past week

that required me to write up a description of myself in the third person.

It was a fascinating experience, describing myself to myself.

It began with a brief personal history...

“Larry Huntsperger is 55 years old, a 1969 graduate of Seattle Pacific University. Born in Wichita, Kansas, he spent most of his childhood in Seattle, Washington. He studied with Dr. Francis Schaeffer at the L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland in the fall of 1970. After traveling extensively throughout the early 1970's, Larry moved to Alaska in the fall of 1975 where he met his wife, Sandee. They have lived in Soldotna, Alaska for the past 28 years where he writes and pastors Peninsula Bible Fellowship. Their only child, Joni Sue Thacher, and her husband, Matt, live in Seattle, Washington...”

But then it went on to talk about those things

that I felt were my personal strengths and abilities.

No, I will not share it with you.

But, when I finished it

I realized that nearly everything I’d put down

was the result of what other people have told me about myself.

Of course I shared it with Sandee,

and after we talked about it

we both got laughing about this “amazing man” she’s married to.

I suppose I really should frame it

and give it to her just in case she happens to forget sometimes.

But that’s where we all begin.

That’s what we do.

We turn to the world around us

and scream, “Tell me who I am so that I can find some peace with myself.”

We’re not scrounging around in the dumpsters for food,

but there is a very real sense in which

we are scrounging around in the identity dumpsters of the world

forever looking for some scrap that will bring us a greater measure of peace with ourselves.

And the problem, of course,

is that, no matter how many affirming voices we hear,

it can never bring us the peace with ourselves we long for.

I remember reading about an incident in President Nixon’s life when he was in office.

Here was a man who began his second term

with one of the biggest landslides in history.

He had the entire nation proclaiming to him his significance.

When he was in the oval office,

he had a habit of leaning back in the chair

and placing his feet up onto the desk.

After months of doing this,

the wood on the top of this priceless piece of furniture

was all nicked and dented from the heals of his shoes.

During one of his extended trips away from the oval office

someone in his administration seized the opportunity

to have the top of that desk restored and refinished.

When Nixon got back and saw what had been done he was furious.

When they asked him why,

he said, “When I’m gone I want them to remember that I was here!”

How many voices does it take

to quiet the demons inside of us?

How many people need to affirm our value

before we can hear it,

and find peace with ourselves?

The truth is,

even if the whole world rose up to affirm us

it would not do inside us what needs to be done.

Only the voice of our God can do that for us.

And the remarkable thing is

that when we have heard His voice,

even if others tell us something else,

we can still keep our feet on solid ground.

But I bring all of this up again at this point in our study of Ephesians

because it is central to what I see happening between us and our God

in both the first chapter of the this letter,

and actually all the way through it.

We started a review of the first 14 verses last week,

and I want to return to that review this morning

and then move a little ways farther into the book.

But I want us to listen to this review

in the context of what our God is saying to each of us

about who we are

and why we have significance in this world.

OK, Paul offers some introductory comments in the first 2 verses of the letter.

Then, in verses 3-14

he shares with us

6 gifts given to every Christian by God.

But he does far more than that,

because with these 6 gifts

he also begins to talk with us

about who we are in the eyes of our God.

And before we go any farther here,

I need to warn you

that the only way this passage can accomplish within us

what needs to be accomplished

is if we allow the Spirit of God

to make it personal in our own lives.

You see, the problem we run into here

is that these words spoken to us by our God

are not the first words we’ve ever heard about ourselves.

The truth is, every one of us hears these words

against the backdrop of whole lifetime of human voices

that have already clearly defined for us who we are.

They haven’t told us the truth, of course,

but we’ve believed them

and have built our lives upon the assumed validity of what they’ve said.

And the result in each of our lives

is our own personal highly refined system of self-validation.

Some of us seek to validate ourselves

by manipulating the people around us

into doing for us the things we want them to do.

And every time we succeed

we file it away as a “proof” that we have importance.

Some of us seek to validate ourselves

by forcing others to submit to our will.

Because we are bigger,

or louder,

or more verbal,

or physically stronger,

or richer,

or because we hold some position of authority

we conquer them, and force them into submission

and then use their submission

and our dominance as our “proof” of our value, our importance.

Some of us use a superior IQ,

or academic degrees,

or physical appearance,

or special gifts or abilities in some area

as the means by which we validate ourselves.

And then, of course, we seek to place ourselves

in some group of people who will be suitably impressed with our credentials.

Some of the greatest gifts our God ever gives us

come from His suddenly dropping us into a group of people

who are utterly unimpressed with whatever self-validation tool we are clinging to.

In the fall of 1969 I got onto a plane in Seattle, Washington

and got off another plane a few hours later in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

I was going to be a “missionary” for a year.

But at first I didn’t realize

that I was not just changing countries,

I was changing cultures

and with that change

came a total change in the things that brought about validation from those around me.

I’d just come out of 4 years in a closed academic society,

a university campus in which status and success was determined by your academic performance and achievements.

And then, all of the sudden,

all the rules changed.

Some of the people I was living with couldn’t even read,

and none of them even knew or cared about any of those things

that brought so much status in the world of academics.

It was one of the best things that ever happened to me

because it forced me to let go of some of my external validation tools

and discover the kind of fulfillment that comes from just learning how to love people

and be loved by them in return.

But my point here is simply to point out

that, whenever God speaks to us about who were are,

he does so against the backdrop

of a well-defined but deeply flawed validation system

that’s already in place within us.

And the only way we are ever going to move toward the real peace with ourselves that God has for us

is to allow His Spirit to give us ears to hear what He’s saying to us on a personal level.

And with all of that as background,

let me remind you once again

of what Paul says to us in these opening verses of Ephesians.

1. Paul begins by telling us

that we have been chosen in Christ, “...before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”

But that’s still just doctrine, isn’t it?

it doesn’t touch us where we live,

or where we hurt

because it’s not yet personal.

For, you see, what Paul really says there

is that God chose YOU in Christ before the foundation of the world,

he chose YOU for Himself.

He knew you when you existed only in His mind,

and the thought of His sharing a friendship with you brought Him joy.

It was no accident,

no random chance that brought you to Him.

From the day you entered this world

and, in fact, long before that,

He actively organized those things in your life that He knew would bring you to Him

because he wanted you with Him forever.

2. Then Paul tells us

that we have been predestined to share a Father/child relationship with God Himself.

And here again in must become personal.

It isn’t just that we have a “doctrinal basis” for addressing God as Father,

it’s that, from the very beginning,

God did not just want a Creator/creature relationship with you

in which you were forced to submit to His superiority.

What He wanted

was a union with you

in which you knew His Father heart for you,

and the joy He finds in saying to all of creation,

“This is my son, this is my daughter in whom I delight.”

Have you ever had anyone in your life who delighted in you?

Have you ever had someone who,

when you looked into their eyes,

you could see there that just your presence with them brings them joy?

Have you ever had someone whose countenance lights up when you enter their presence,

and you know you are the reason for the change?

I hope so,

because, if you have, it will help you

to understand what God is saying to us here.

Several months ago

Sandee handed me a piece of paper with a quotation from the Psalms,

and even after 35 years of discoveries in the love of God,

I still found myself reading it over and over again,

thrilled at what it said.

It was from Psalm 16:3 and it read,

As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.

That is God talking to you, about you.

Now set that next to your own attitude

about how you think God views you.

The truth is

very few of us can imagine God delighting in us

because we don’t delight in ourselves.

We don’t even like ourselves very much.

And only when we begin to see ourselves through God’s eyes

will we find an adequate basis

for altering our perspective on ourselves.

3. The next thing Paul tells us is that, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace...”

And here again the key is to always keep it personal.

It wasn’t just “the sins of the world” for which Christ died.

It was all that messiness in your life personally

that caused Him to reach out to your need with His own death.

And He didn’t do it

because He was so offended by your sin

that He simply had to do something to clean it up.

He did it because He loved you so much

that He was willing to do whatever He had to do

to remove whatever separated you from Him,

and what separated you from Him was your sin.

It doesn’t say, “For God so hated the sins of the world that He gave His only Son...”

it says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son...”

I don’t know how that can be.

I only know it is.

4. Then Paul tells us that in Christ God has revealed to us, “...the mystery of His will...”

so that we can now share in an administration

that is perfectly matched to this time in human history.

(That’s the one we got stuck on last week and never got past,

but it really helped me to reteach it,

so I have no regrets.)

And here again, keep it personal.

You are His child,

and because you are His child

He wants you to know what He’s doing in this world and why He’s doing it.

My daughter, Joni, knows all sorts of things about me,

about my struggles,

about my hopes and plans for the future that no one else other than Sandee knows.

She knows simply because I want her to know

because she is my daughter.

God does not share with you “...the mystery of His will...”

as some sort of divine leverage to attempt to pry you into improved productivity.

He shares with you His mind, His heart,

because you are His son, His daughter

and He wants you to know His mind.

5. Paul tells us

that we have become God’s inheritance,

the inheritance that He received as a result of the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

That’s the one we haven’t spent much time on yet,

the one we were shooting for this morning

and now, obviously aren’t going to get to

except to say that Paul is telling us here

that the inheritance God received as a result of the death of His Son

was US!

We are what He got

as a result of all that Christ went through.

And the truly amazing thing

is that He is thrilled with what He received.

In fact, in verse 1:18 Paul prays

that God’s Spirit will open our minds to understand

...what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints...”

He’s not just satisfied with what He received,

He describes you as His riches...His glory.

Your presence with Him

is His crowning achievement.

6. And then, finally,

He tells us that in Christ, “...you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance...”

And the words He uses here

once again communicate His heart attitude toward us.

He didn’t just grudgingly acknowledge our entrance into His family.

He didn’t just nod our direction from a distance.

He met us at the door.

In fact, He waited, and watched,

eagerly anticipating our arrival.

And when we knelt before Him,

filled with a heart full of shame and remorse,

seeking only a place in the servants’ quarters of the king,

He raised us up with Christ,

and seated us with Him,

and He placed His ring upon our finger,

and clothed us in His righteousness

so that, from then on and forevermore,

all the world would know

that we now belong to Him

and no one can ever take us out of His grasp.

Sealed in Him by the Spirit of God.

And no one ever breaks God seals.

And that will finally finish our review of where we’ve been so far.

The key, of course,

is to always keep it personal.

Only then can we hear correctly

what our God is really saying to us.