Our collect for this morning reads, …and grant that they may know and understand what things they ough
t to do, and also may have grace and power to faithfully accomplish them.
These words reach down into the deep existential fabric of our lives by asking the question of what ought we to do? What is the meaning of life and what is my purpose for living? Yet in order to understand what things we ought to do, we must first discover who we truly are. I am a firm believer that one must first have definition and identity before they can set out on a particular purpose in life. For it was Aristotle who said, Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we have become more concerned with what we do over who we are. If someone were to come up to me and ask the question, who is the real Thomas Barron, I might look at them sideways. Yet if that same person came up to me and asked, what is it that I do for a living, I would have no problem giving them an answer. We have in essence put the existential cart before the horse, and I am afraid it is a primary reason we so often find ourselves burned out, stressed out, and filled with angst. We have as a culture been conditioned to measure our value by how much we are able to accomplish in a single day. We have in essence come to value doing over being.
In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, we must be willing to find the courage to declare, I am a human being, not a human doing. But in a culture consumed with mass production and obtaining a stellar work ethic, where can we turn to discover our true identity?
Our epistle this morning from Ephesians begins with a great burst of praise from the Apostle Paul: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You can practically feel the living word jumping off the page: the Father has blessed us (you, we, them) with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Not just two or three or ten spiritual blessings, but every spiritual blessing in an infinite kingdom of joy. Paul’s mind has been blown by the Good News of the Father, Son, and HS, and he now wants to share with us who we are in Christ. He is about to peel back the thin veneer of the physical world to introduce us to a whole new world.
There are three points Paul is laying out here in the opening of Ephesians that I believe we often overlook as we identify as Christ followers: Adoption, Redemption, and Inheritance.
Let us take a look first at adoption, for adoption is the Christian doctrine that I believe to be the bedrock of our identity in Jesus.
Paul goes on to write that the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. God the Father has a plan, formulated before anything was ever created, and it stands as the secret plan behind everything. This plan is also known as the doctrine of predestination and for many of us, it is not a teaching we are particularly fond of. For some have taken this doctrine in the past and used it to turn Christianity into an exclusive club where God selects some and rejects others, but this is far from what Paul is saying here Election in its supreme sense means that God creates for a reason and that behind everything in creation and history lies the eternal purpose of the Father.
The light of human existence, the light of our existence, has been given in Jesus Christ for all to see. This also tells us that the Father’s sending of his Son was never a plan B to fix the problem of sin, for we are chosen before the foundation of the world in Christ to be made holy and blameless before him. The phrase before him is an image that suggests the position and relationship enjoyed by children to their parents and to a bride to a bridegroom.
The point here is that we have been chosen in Christ to experience deeply personal relationship, intimacy, and fellowship with God. In verse 5 Paul calls this adoption: that we are here because God has an eternal purpose for us. Paul is declaring to us that we were created to be adopted into God’s family so that he may continually lavish all of his love and favor upon us.
And this brings us to the second point: Redemption.
In verses 7 and 8 Paul declares, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. Our adoption in Christ includes our redemption, the payment Jesus made for us to be forgiven, to be made holy and blameless before him. The fountainhead our redemption flows freely from God’s grace, which Paul says here God has lavished upon us. The word lavish means bestowing in generous and even extravagant quantities.
Before the foundation of the world, you were chosen in Christ (adopted, not a plan B, but the secret plan behind all creation) to receive an extravagant, a ridiculous amount of grace, which is your redemption, the forgiveness of your sins through his blood. And just in case you have not yet grasped the immensity of this Plan A of redemption, Paul adds in verse 10, as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Now we are talking about a cosmic level of unity and peace: all things in heaven and earth untied together in Jesus.
And now this brings us up to our third point: Inheritance.
In verses 13-14, Paul writes, In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
The Father has named Jesus the executor of his will, as the vicarious man that this eternal plan of adoption and redemption is carried out through. Do you see the brilliance of what Paul is saying here: this original plan for the adoption and redemption of creation circles back to Jesus, now signed, sealed, and delivered in you with the promise of the HS. The executor lives in us and is revealing to us this morning that the Father named his own son before creation and said, Thou art the mediator, thou art the executor, thou art the vicarious man! (Kruger, God is For Us, pg. 11).
I have in a sense adopted my wife’s children as my own. They will both hopefully grow up knowing me as their dear daddy who loves, protects, guides, disciplines, and believes in them unlike any other human being. They will hopefully both grow up knowing that there is nothing they can say or do to make me love them more. That there is no mistake they can make that is not already in a sense already forgiven simply because they are my children. And one day, hopefully many, many, moons from now, they will receive an inheritance past down from my parents to me, not because they are Barrons by blood, but because I chose them to be my children.
So back to our Collect for the day and to this idea that knowing yourself is the beginning all wisdom. How do we know and understand the things we ought to do? I dare say that we must first know where we fit into the cosmic plan of Father, Son, and HS. That we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, that we have been destined in love to be his sons and daughters, that we have been redeemed, forgiven, lavished by his grace, and we have been sealed by the promise of the HS, which is the guarantee of our inheritance, to the praise of his glory.
Now that is an identity I could get used to; that is an identity that swallows all our fear, anxiety, and need to produce for self-validation. That is the kind of identity we long for our children and our children’s children to possess. That is an identity I dare say that could help change the world. Amen.
References
1. Kruger, Baxter. God is For Us. Perichoresis Inc. 2008.
2. The Book of Common Prayer. Church Publishing Inc. 1979.
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