Well here we are at the beginning of 2021, I think the whole world breathed a proverbial sigh of relief on New Years Eve when we eventually closed the door on 2020.
At the turn of every year we have always taken the opportunity to pause draw breath, refocus and begin to step forward again.
Each year in ministry I’ve tried to hear from the Lord what might be a word of encouragement for the Church to focus on and use as bread for the journey. On one we could simply say open your bibles, anywhere and pick a verse…its all good.
But I do find, personally, that our verses for the year have been helpful.
This year, this very odd and different year, I found verse 14 from this chapter continually resonating in my spirit as both a challenge and an invitation.
Now I don’t simply want to pluck the verse completely out of context but rather draw out the meaning from the text and apply it to where we’ve come from and hopefully where we will go in this next year.
I would also want to say that if there was a subtext to sit alongside it would be from Paul’s letter to the Philippians 4:13 which says:
“For I can do everything through Christ, who strengthens me”
I don’t want to dwell to much on the past today, but it is right for us to reflect where we have been. I would say particularly as regardless of the fact we have entered a new year, the challenges that we faced are still with us and in some respect, seem more prolific than they have been at other points through this year.
The suffering and pain we have experienced, are experiencing and will experience is very real, very painful and very distressing. I certainly don’t want to offer up spiritual platitudes that are aimed at simply trying to cheer us up. To do so would be to water down the power of the Gospel message, to cheapen somehow the grace of God towards us not to mention that we wouldn’t be dealing with reality
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It was Annie Johnson Flint who wrote the words of the incredible hymn “ He Giveth More Grace”. These were not words that were penned from a background of comfort and security but by a remarkable women acquainted with personal loss and crippling illness. Rather than dismiss or make light of her personal circumstances she sought to draw people into the knowledge of the truth that God is sufficient for our EVERY need regardless of its size or impact.
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase
To added affliction He addeth His mercy
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace
When we have exhausted our store of endurance
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure
His pow’r has no boundary known unto men
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again
And so to our text within the book of Ephesians…a letter that was meant for not only the Church of Ephesus but for many in that region of Asia Minor time and would have been sent on to them.
At the beginning of the letter in the first Chapter Paul is really keen for the readers to understand the fullness of their identity in Christ. After greeting the Church he immediately launches into praise to God for all the blessings He has given us through Jesus as his adopted children.
It was of primary importance to Paul that they really grasped this whole concept of identity through Christ.
And it is fundamental to us, we have preached and taught on this subject and will continue to do so because it is the very thing and often the first thing that gets stripped away from us through trial and temptation.
The evil of jewish concentration camps was to reduce peoples humanity down to a serial number. Oppressive evil will attempt to do this.
There is a danger in what we have experiencing world wide where we have had instructions about what we are unable to do forced upon us, predominantly from the motive of our safety, for us to feel oppressed, under the heel of circumstance, powerless and vulnerable.
It is into such circumstances that Satan will come to tempt us to believe differently about God, ourselves, our present and our future. His intent is to rob us of faith and hope in God and tempt us to place them elsewhere.
I know that those temptations have been real for me this year, and I’m pretty sure that many of you will have faced similar thoughts and feelings through the desperation of the circumstances that you have faced too.
It feels like we’re in the midst of a beating…where our attacker has only paused briefly to draw breath and is now still relentless upon us.
It feels as though we have had to retreat …from each other to socially appropriate distances, to Zoom, behind face masks. I don’t know about you but it feels a bit like being buried under this incredible weight, squashed and dislocated driving us to simply give up.
For the Church at Ephesus, their battle was against promiscuity, culturally encouraged by the sex cults at the heart of Ephesus. The context of the oppression came from this direction. The circumstances might have been different but the purpose of the enemy was still the same.
To rob the people of God of their identity, to cause them to live lesser lives than those they had been called to God himself.
And so Paul is exhorting them to right thinking, right relationship. To come out of agreement with the world around and into agreement with God.
Wake Up O sleeper and Christ will shine on you
In verse 8 Paul says:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord
This is a really significant verse to understanding not only Paul’s theology in Ephesians but his very reason for writing.
You, I, We are light in the Lord. What does this mean, well it means when we are in Christ, when we abide in Him, when we make our relationship with Him the absolute priority of our lives, when we spend time in his presence, saturate our minds and souls in his word, when we walk with the Spirit. Then we are His light, the glory of God is revealed in us when we abide in Him in this way.
The point being as John so distinctly puts it. The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Whatever darkness you have faced, are facing will face into this next year will not overcome you, will not destroy you, will not destroy the power of eternal life within you when you choose to abide fully in Him.
In fact if you canI want you to remember the preach that I gave on the subject of exile back in the Summer.
When the Israelites were taken to Babylon, when they were stripped of everything other than their lives. The word of the Lord came to them in Jeremiah 29 we read it:
4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
This is a word about their ability to prosper in the worst situation they could have imagined themselves to be found in.
If they walk humbly with God, if they follow His ways, if they make their relationship with Him their priority then the promise is that they will with Gods help be able to rebuild their lives.
Being born in 1969 I am very much a child of the 70’s and one of my favourite TV shows of that era was “The Six Million Dollar Man”. Some of you will remember Lee Majors playing the part of Steve Austin, a pilot who has a dreadful accident in which he loses limbs, however he is pieced back together by a special government department and becomes a superhero spy. The opening sequence came back to me as I was thinking about today and what I’ve felt led to share on….those of you who are ld enough you might remember:
Steve Austin, astronaut: a man barely alive
Gentlemen we can rebuild him
We have the technology
We have the capability to make the worlds first bionic man
Steve Austin will be that man
Better than he was before
Better, Stronger, Faster
Cue the iconic theme tune………
I felt this was a word for us as the Church and it may be that some of you might relate to this. It may feel like this crisis has impacted large parts of your life almost like having limbs removed from you.
I feel the Lord would say to us, He has the power to rebuild. He has the power to heal the cuts and the wounds, he has the power to restore missing limbs, he has the power to help us walk again, smile again, run again, laugh again.
Even more than that I feel he wants us to know the power of resurrection is abundant life out of death and that everything is possible through Christ who strengthens us.
If I’m preaching today then I want preach at your spirits even as I preach at my very own. Let us not lie down and sleep under the relentless beating of this virus. But lets’ hear the word of the Lord to us.
Wake Up….Wake Up…..Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.
I believe that the Lord is wanting us to understand who we are from His word, allowing this to inform us and not the circumstances around us or the lies of the enemy. In doing so he encourages therefore to continually abide in Him. This will enable us to be more, maybe not necessarily do more, but I do believe that the opportunities to build the Kingdom of God are present for us even in this pandemic.
There will be opportunities to love people, grow in our love for God, serve others inside and outside the Church and go and help others understand Gods love for them when we follow hard after Jesus.
I pray that 2021 we be a year of growth for each of us and us as the Church. No longer beaten and worn down, but one that is alive, active and growing because Jesus is no 1 in our lives and his light is shining through us and drawing people to Him
Further Questions for Discussion
- At the beginning of 2021 what are the things that you are thankful for from last year.
- How has the last year with all its restrictions and difficulties made you feel?
- To what degree do you feel that the current crisis has been restrictive on your faith?
- What have you been tempted to believe differently?
- What do you hope for for the coming year?
- Read Eph 1: 3-14 together what do these verses say to you about your identity in Christ.
- What steps do you take to help you “Abide in Christ” ..share with each other what really helps you.
- Think about your friends and family who may be struggling at this time. What can you share with them or do for them from this study that might help or encourage them?