©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

12/28/03

Finding Hope For The Future

Ephesians 3:20-4:2

12/28/03 Finding Hope For The Future

Those of you who have been a part of our church family for any length of time

probably know that, from a teaching point of view,

by far my most favorite holiday of the year is New Year’s.

I know it would seem more reasonable for a preacher to be drawn to Easter,

or Christmas,

or maybe even something more obscure like the day of Pentecost,

something that, at least in its roots, has great Christian significance.

But for me

nothing even comes close to the preaching potential of New Year’s.

I think it’s because the day has imbedded in it

profoundly Christian concepts

without having the liabilities

of 2000 years of religious traditions that corrupt and obscure the truth.

There have been times on past New Year’s

when we have talked about how those of us who live in the northern hemisphere

have the added advantage of a New Years that arrives in the dead of winter,

providing us with a great reminder that our God is in the business

of bring life out of death,

and hope out of bleakness.

This next week we will once again celebrate New Years,

and once again I simply cannot let the event pass

without reminding us of the reflection of our Lord

that I see mirrored in this holiday.

You see,

our God is the God of new beginnings,

the God who delights in offering us

first the hope,

then the assurance,

then the living reality of His redemptive and recreative work in our lives.

Those of you who are familiar with C.S. Lewis’ children’s book, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe,

will remember that great line

in which the animals of Narnia attempted to describe the bleakness

of the curse placed on Narnia by the White Witch.

The children were told that the Witch’s power was so strong

that she had made it “always winter and never Christmas” in the land of Narnia.

Part of C.S. Lewis’ genius

was in his ability to take profound, universal concepts of life

and communicate them in ways that even his young readers could grasp.

And, when he described a world in which it was “always winter and never Christmas”,

he touched on one of Satan’s most effective lies

as he seeks to blind the human race to the true nature of our God.

A time in which it is always winter and never Christmas

is a time in which there is no hope,

a time of darkness, and cold, and hardship that has no meaning,

no end,

no movement through,

and nothing to look forward to.

There was a film released a few years ago titled “As Good As It Gets”.

The title came from a line in the story

in which a neurotic, self-serving, obsessive/compulsive, deeply mentally and emotionally disturbed man bursts out with the line,

“What if this is as good as it gets?”

That line captures the heart of the kind of emptiness

that becomes such a destructive force

in the lives of those who buy into it.

If our Enemy can succeed in his efforts to bring us to that belief

he has won the only battle he needs to win in our lives

because in the process

he will have stripped us of one of the most critical foundational truths about our God -

the truth that He is the God who creates,

and the God who recreates,

the God who brings life out of death,

the God whose very presence brings with it the absolute assurance of a future and a hope

for all those who turn to Him.

The week ahead of us will bring with it

the beginning of a New Year,

and with it the hope of a future better than the past we have just completed.

It is true, of course,

that simply changing the date from 2003 to 2004

cannot in itself give any solid basis for a change in our lives,

but it is my hope that it can and it will stir in us

a reminder of the kind of recreative work of our God

that truly can give us unending hope for our future with Him.

My friends, if you are His child,

let me tell you clearly and simply,

in Him it is not “always winter and never Christmas”,

and this is definitely NOT as good as it gets.

We are going to allow Paul to help us celebrate the truth

of the endless new beginnings that come to us through our Lord,

and we’re going to do so by returning to our study of the book of Ephesians.

There is a treasure handed to us in the section of the book we have been studying most recently,

but it is a treasure that can be easily missed,

even though it exists in the text in plain sight,

simply because of some alterations that were made to the original text

several hundred years after Paul first wrote this letter.

You may be aware already

that the chapter and verse format

that we are so familiar with in the Bibles that we have today

did not exist in the original documents.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians

he did not begin that letter by writing “Chapter 1, Verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus...”

He simply sat down and wrote out his letter

in the same way you or I would write a letter today.

This is true of every one of the books in the Bible,

with the exception of the book of Psalms

which had no verse divisions in its original writing,

but did exist as a collection of separate Psalms.

The chapter and verse divisions that we are so familiar with today

were not added to the text

until the middle ages,

introduced into the text

simply to make it easier for people to locate specific passages.

I mention this again this morning

because, even though these chapter and verse divisions obviously serve a necessary function,

there are times when they can obscure some important truth the author wanted to communicate

simply because our minds just naturally assume

that the end of a chapter also marks the end of an idea.

I think this is the case with what happens in Ephesians

between the end of chapter 3

and the beginning of chapter 4.

We have already seen the call given to us by Paul in his opening words of chapter 4.

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...

We’ve even talked about how these words are linked

to the message we heard Paul proclaiming to us in the first three chapters of the book.

But we haven’t yet looked at the direct link that exists between Ephesians 4:1

and the last two verses of chapter 3,

and without that link

we can easily miss the union between two concepts that must always be kept together

if we are to truly share in the hope being offered to us by our God.

You see, the human mind simply does not quickly or easily let go of those flesh-based assumptions

that form the foundation for all of life

apart from the presence of Christ within us.

By that I mean simply

that, unless we consciously choose otherwise,

we just naturally assume that, whenever a Biblical writer gives us a call to change in some way,

that change is to be accomplished by us for God

by means of whatever flesh-based resources we can bring to the task.

If we are reading the book of Ephesians on our own,

and come to the end of chapter three,

we see that word, “Amen”,

and just naturally assume it is the end of a section,

the end of a thought,

and a convenient place to stop our reading for the day.

Then, the next time we pick up our Bible and return to our reading of Ephesians,

we just naturally begin our reading where we left at Ephesians 4:1,

and hear Paul saying to us,

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...

and because we begin our reading and our thinking at that point,

our minds just automatically hear and interpret what we read

on the basis of all those rules that have governed our lives

prior to our union with Christ.

What we are being asked to do

is something that we must, of course, accomplish on the basis of our own human resources.

If you are in school now,

or when you were in school years ago,

and the teacher handed out an assignment for the class,

explaining what was expected

and what type of performance would be needed for an “A”, or a “B”, or a “C”, and so forth,

you understood exactly what was being said.

You understood that your success in that assignment

was directly linked to two things -

your own mental abilities to handle the assignment,

and the degree to which you invested both the time and the effort into what was required of you.

You had no illusions about someone stepping in for you at the last miniute,

someone who knew the material perfectly,

someone who would put your name on the top of the paper

and fulfill the assignment flawlessly.

And even if such a person did approach you

your own sense of ethics would, hopefully,

give you some major reservations about having them do it.

When I was still in school

whenever and where ever I had control over my course selection,

I always consciously avoided every class

in which I knew I would be required to do a great deal of reading.

I am such an incredibly slow reader

that I knew I wouldn’t even have a chance at success

if I placed myself into a class that required me to read pages and pages of material rapidly.

And we understand that the same principles, of course,

apply in every aspect of our lives.

We get a job.

Our boss lays out what is required of us.

We know that our continued employment depends directly upon our ability and willingness

to show up and do the work assigned to us.

It’s just the way life works.

And then we pick up Paul’s letter,

resume our reading at the beginning of chapter 4

with the assumption that the chapter begins a whole new line of thinking,

and the first words we read are,

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...

And of course we approach this calling on the same basis.

All that stuff that has come before

told us of the things God has done for us.

Great!

Now It’s our turn

and here’s what we need to do for God.

And we dutifully attempt to muster up the determination,

and the willpower,

and the self-discipline to pull it off.

Now, I have to be careful that I’m not misunderstood here.

I certainly do strongly believe

that we should aggressively make every choice for righteousness we are able to make in our lives.

And in the vast majority of moral choices we face in our daily lives

we can do just that.

And even more important,

we must live with a fierce determination

to hold to those areas of victory and deliverance

that Christ has already accomplished in our lives.

Paul makes a fascinating one-line comment in Philippians 3:16.

It is made in the context of that glorious call to the people of God

that we live with an attitude toward life

in which we “forget what lies behind and press on toward what lies ahead”.

And at the end of that section he concludes with a single statement in which he says,

PHI 3:16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Do you know what I hear him saying to us in that statement?

I hear him saying that we should treasure those victories that God has brought into our lives

as precious trusts given into our care.

If you are growing in your walk with the King

I believe you will understand what I am about to say.

Our walk with Christ is just exactly that - a walk.

It has direction,

it has forward movement,

it has places we once were,

it has a point at which we are now,

and it has places we will one day reach in the future.

If it helps,

we can think of it as a progressive journey

out of our old way of life that we knew prior to our union with Christ,

and into our growing discovery of His love for us and all that comes with it.

In that process,

there are times in the life of every growing Christian

when our Lord Jesus Christ brings into our lives

a new level of freedom,

a new level of deliverance from some form of bondage that has held us up to that time.

When those times come

we recognize them for what they are -

His sovereign works of deliverance,

His direct intervention into our lives in a way that brings new freedom to our spirits.

When those works occur within us,

we should treasure them,

protect them,

guard them,

reinforce them,

recognizing them as the great victories of our God within us that they truly are.

And when Paul says,   “...however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained...”,

I hear Him calling us to fierce determination to treasure and guard carefully

each new beachhead given to us by our God.

But I’m getting a little bit ahead of what I really wanted to say this morning.

There certainly are a multitude of areas in our walk with the King

that are very definitely under the control of our will

and our decision-making abilities,

places where we can simply choose to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.

But the real problem arises

in those areas of our lives in which chronic sin patterns

have already been imbedded into us prior to our union with Christ,

places where we have already forfeited our ability to choose,

places where we have become slaves to sin.

The world of religion has all too often promoted the idea

that sin is fundamentally simply a wrong choice we make,

and it can be corrected by just making the right choice.

But the truth is,

frequently sin is not simply a wrong choice,

it is our answer to some unmet physical, emotional, or psychological need or pain within us.

A man feels insecure about himself as a man

and he desperately wants to find some way of proving to himself and to others

that he has value and importance in the male world.

What does he do?

First he selects his target audience,

perhaps a father who never gave him approval,

or some other man or group of men he thinks he can impress,

or possibly he simply selects his own mental image of what a “real man” should do or be.

From there

he then plunges into his desperate attempt to achieve the success he thinks he needs

in order to impress those he wants to impress

so that he can then, hopefully, find peace with himself.

If he thinks his target audience will be impressed with financial success,

he does whatever he has to do

to try to bring that about.

And if a little dishonesty,

or deception,

or outright theft seems like it will help the process,

then so be it!

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do...

Or if his target audience is impressed with having the greatest hunting or fishing story,

and a few of those fish and game laws have to go by the way

in order to get the kill or the catch he wants,

then so be it!

From his point of view,

morality is a luxury he simply can’t afford

given his craving for peace with himself or affirmation from others.

Or sometimes our sin issues

are driven by a desperate desire to mask the pain that exists within us,

pain rooted in unresolved wounds from our past,

often even from our childhood.

In our desperate desire to make the pain go away

we may reach out to anything that makes us feel good -

the exhilarating adrenaline high that comes from a conquering sexual relationship;

the physical thrill that occurs in any form of intense competition;

the more subtle pleasures of fine dining;

the seductive, destructive blast of addicting drugs -

these and an endless variety of other physical pleasures

all have the potential to appeal to those same needs within us,

our longing to find a purpose for our existence apart from our Creator,

or the longing to find some place to hide from the pain within.

And, if the lines between moral and immoral,

right and wrong,

good and evil are obliterated in the process,

then so be it!

And my point here is simply this -

the really difficult sin battles we face,

and those areas in which we are clearly not walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

exist within us not simply because we have failed to make the right choice here and there,

but rather they exist because we have become addicted to sin patterns in our lives

in a desperate attempt to meet some need within us,

or to hide from some area of pain deep inside.

And where those patterns exist,

any attempt at beginning our reading of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians with 4:1 is utter futility.

Any attempt to,

by sheer strength of will,

and self-discipline,

and determination,

create for ourselves a walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called

is destined for failure.

Only when we keep Paul’s comments locked into the context in which they were written,

and realize that 4:1 is not the beginning of the letter,

or even the beginning of the thought,

but recognize that it is directly linked to the two verses that come before it,

only then will his call to us in 4:1 become both a reasonable calling

and an achievable reality in our lives.

So, with that as preparation,

let me now read this section of the letter as it was written,

and then I’ll share a few comments

on how I see this whole thing being lived out in our lives.

EPH 3:20-4:1 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...

And I do hope you see what Paul has done here.

By writing this section of the letter the way he has,

and by linking our call to “walk in a manner worthy”

with one of the most powerful affirmations found anywhere in Scripture

of God’s willingness and ability to transform our lives,

Paul is once again returning us to one of the most crucial central truths of the Christian message -

in Christ we are not called to do for God those things that need to be done,

we are called to seek and then embrace the healing

that God alone can bring into our lives.

And the first two questions that come to mind to me

when I say to myself

what I’ve just said to you is,

what’s the difference between the two,

and just exactly how do we do that?

I’m going to leave most of my comments about the “how” question until next week,

but I can easily share with you

how to tell the difference between what we try to do for God

and what He has done in us.

All we have to do

is to look at the results that take place in our spirit.

If what we are clinging to for hope

is the product of our own efforts,

we will find a little voice within ourselves that says,

“Look what I have done!

Look at my great success!”

And our hope for the future will rest upon our ability to continue to perform at the same level.

If, however, our forward progress in our walk with the King

is the result of the healing work of Christ within us,

we will find our spirits exploding with that same burst of gratitude

that we heard Paul proclaiming in this passage.

EPH 3:20 ¶ Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

EPH 3:21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

To Him be the glory...

To Him be the glory...

To Him be the glory...

And, just so I don’t leave you without a hint as to what our role is in this whole thing,

let me add one final word.

Where you have come to recognize

that some area of sin bondage continues to corrupt your walk with your Lord,

and where you have found

that simply choosing to walk away from the bondage

has simply not been an option,

let me offer you the prayer

that will give you the hope for new life in the new year ahead.

“Lord, you alone can bring the healing I need.

You alone can break the power of this corruption within me.

I hunger for the freedom that only You can bring.

I pray, deliver me from the evil within me,

that my heart and my mouth may be filled with praise and honor to You. Amen.”