"Changing the World" sermon by Dan'L. Preached 11/8/2020 in Faith Bible Church, Mapleton, MN.

[DanL]

A couple of years ago, I was at MANCAMP, sitting at a table talking to a couple of guys and in walks this guy with a guitar case. Written on the guitar case in big letters is his name –TIM OGLE. He looks like a musician, so I figure he’s somebody cool and possibly a little famous. He sits down at the table I’m at and we start talking and eventually I ask about the guitar case, you know, trying to figure out if he’s some kind of big shot or something. Tim says something like, “Yeah, I play some music. I went to Nashville. I didn’t make it.”

Turns out, Tim was a Pastor at Litchfield Christian Church and he’s at Pinehaven to teach a Leadership Conference, which I had signed up for. Truth be told, I signed up for that Leadership Conference so I could spend more time up north fishing.

As it turns out, the Leadership Conference was wonderful and really helped me and Tim and I ended up becoming great friends. I love Tim. I’ve described Tim as a guy who is like a bulldog with a bone, convinced that the truth is inside that bone and he’s going to keep gnawing on it until he gets to the truth in the middle of it. He relentlessly follows Jesus and relentlessly loves people. Tim is the guy who told me about the book Bo’s Café. (Remember, where the main character is a guy in a Hawaiian shirt.) I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt when Tim met me.

Tim is also the guy who told me the back-story behind the book of Ephesians, and what he told me has changed me and helped me and blessed me by opening my eyes to the glory and power and love of God in ways I had not known before.

I’ve preached about what Tim told me before. I’ve preached this in the Altar of Jehovah Church in the Dominican Republic, to orphans in Guatemala, in Israel, and from this pulpit before. I absolutely love what I’m about to tell you, so if you’ve heard this first part before, bear with me. We are going somewhere with this, I promise.

The Apostle Paul first arrived in Ephesus in the spring of 52 AD. At the time, Ephesus was a Roman colony and, under Roman law, it was absolutely legal to dispose of excess or unwanted babies simply by leaving them at the garbage dump or manure pile to die of exposure. It was expected and carried no social stigma, especially if the child was deformed, illegitimate, a child of infidelity, the family was poor, there was family conflict, or that child was just guilty of being one of too many children.

 

Sometimes the infant was eaten by the dogs that scavenged public places. Sometimes, the child was picked up by slaver traders and sold as a pet, a play companion for another child, or as a prostitute. The great temple of Artemis in Ephesus mentioned in Acts 19 had many temple prostitutes.

 

Into all of this steps the apostle Paul, who tells them about Jesus and plants and grows and nurtures the people of the church in Ephesus. Jesus changed everything for the people of Ephesus.

 

And once they truly knew who Jesus was, they quietly started going out and picking up those babies from the trash heaps and the manure piles, taking them home, and adopting them as their own children.

 

And that’s why, when you read through the book of Ephesians, you keep seeing Paul’s references to US as adopted children of God.

 

You see it right away in verse 5 of chapter 1.

 

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself

through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

 

And this under-current of having been dead but now being alive, of being adopted into the family of God and saved by the blood of Jesus is woven all throughout the first two chapters of Ephesians.

 

When we get down to verses 13 and 14 of Ephesians 1, we find this:

 

And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

 

As I’ve said before, Christianity is the only religion in the world that comes with a guarantee. Not Buddhism, Bahia or Sikh. Not Wiccan nor Islam. None of the above.

 

Now, the translation I just read you was NLT. In some other translations, they use the word “seal.” The Spirit is God’s seal. And the reason Paul uses that word and that imagery is because when the people of Ephesus adopted those children and went through the legal process to do so, they signed papers that were affixed with the government’s seal making it legal and binding. The seal was indeed a guarantee between the citizen and the Roman government that this was a legally irrevocable contract –and under Roman law, while a naturally-born child of any family could be disinherited (written out of the will) and lose their inheritance, an adopted child could NOT be disinherited.

 

Those adoption papers with their seal were a lifetime contract. 

 

And the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives is the seal, the guarantee, that we have been adopted into the family of God and he will not leave us or forsake us. We never have to worry about being abandoned on the trash heap or the manure pile. And the inheritance guaranteed to us is eternal life in heaven –bought and paid for, not with our good deeds, but with the blood of Jesus Christ.

 

Now, can you imagine what kind of Christians those adopted children would someday become? Children abandoned on a trash heap or manure pile and left for dead—or worse.

 

Throughout the book of Ephesians, Paul never stops thanking God for these people and their love and mercy and kindness.

 

See, Jesus changed them.

 

And, can you imagine how those people and their adopted children changed the world around them? Can you see how a Christianity like that, --a radical, love-at-any-cost, reckless, glorious, amazing love like that would absolutely change the world?

 

And, then as we move into chapter two, we come across verse 10:

 

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

 Throughout Ephesians, Paul continually stresses that all of this was God’s plan. Then, in this verse, he tells us that we who were formerly as good as dead in our sins, but have now been rescued from the manure pile are God’s masterpiece! (Now, other translations will use “workmanship” or “handiwork” at this point in the verse, but I am convinced that “masterpiece” is a legitimate translation of Paul’s intent in the original Greek.)

But the part that really gets me here is that he planned all of this for us manure-pile babies from before the moment He spoke the universe into being AND that plan involves us doing good works!

Now, let’s not get into a works-righteousness bunny trial here. We were indeed created to do good works, but our good works do not save us. Doing good works is the natural response of joy and gratitude for having been saved and being adopted into the family of God --and doing good works is the joyous fulfillment of God’s reason and purpose for our very being! Good works are our destiny and reason for being!

I loved hanging drywall in Texas on that mission trip down there! I sometimes find myself with a strange craving to hang drywall with other believers. It’s kinda weird but I love it.

It’s all part of God’s plan and submitting yourself to the plan is glorious! Let’s jump to 2 Timothy 1:9

For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.

Did you catch that? From the beginning of time. Actually, if you look at the meaning of the Greek words it says, “from before time eternal.” Bingo. God has a plan and He had that plan in His mind before He created any of this.

That same phrase is in Titus 1:2

in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,

He has a plan. And we are part of the plan. So, how do we as children of God, as members of His own family, and as Faith Bible Church, know what those good works are that we should be doing? How do we participate in this plan as He intended from before the universe began?

Ahh, brothers and sisters, there is an answer to that, and it’s simple.

We follow Jesus. That’s what a disciple is. We simply follow Jesus. We go where He goes, we listen to His teaching by reading and studying our Bibles, we pray, we listen, and we seek Him in all we do and say. We submit ourselves to Him and we try and be more like Him each day. He leads, we follow. Christ is the head of the Church. It’s in our constitution.

Annnd brings us right back to Ephesians: verse 1:22

God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.

But what if we get confused? What if all the things of this world muddle our thinking and it gets hard to know what Jesus would have us do?

Well, we then we spend more time in the Word and in prayer and we never forget that there’s a promise Jesus made us in John 15:26.

“But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.

Yes, that same Holy Spirit, the same Spirit the Bible says raised Jesus from the dead is the guarantee of our salvation is also our guide and our advocate.

2 Corinthians 6:19a Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?

The Holy Spirit lives in us! The very Spirit of God!

A lot of times, it’s hard for us to feel like the Holy Spirit is in us and working. Let me show you something that just blew my mind.

When I went to Texas for the second time, my sister in Christ Evangeline went with us. I met Evie on the mission trip to Israel and I have never met anyone so dedicated to purity, living a life that is pleasing God the Father, and being a good and faithful servant of Jesus. Evie is also a relentless, dedicated student of the Bible. I love Evie like she is family. I still pray for her every day.

Anyway, we travelled to Texas in a 15-passenger church van. There were, I think, ten of us and all our luggage and tools in there and, for much of the trip I would sit next to Evie because I loved studying the Bible with her. We would often have three-hour Bible studies as we traveled along. Then one day, she shows me this.

Pull out your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 11. Starting at verse 1.

1Now Jesus^a was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

And, of course, we all know this is where Jesus taught His disciples to pray:

 2And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3Give us each day our daily bread,^b
4and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

And then he goes on to teach about the importance of continued prayer and being persistent in prayer.

5And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence^c he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11What father among you, if his son asks for^d a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 

And that’s where most of us stop. We read those verses and think that Jesus is telling us to ask for our daily physical needs and He is, BUT Jesus wasn’t done with this teaching. Look what He says in the very next verse!

13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Jesus is telling us to pray and ask for the Holy Spirit! And the way I read that in context is that we are to ask for the Holy Spirit on a daily basis! Seems to me Jesus was saying we need the Holy Spirit in our lives as much as we need our daily bread.

Now, I want you to catch something here. Last week, I told you about my friend Kenny who is the biggest jerk he knows. This week, I told you about Pastor Tim and Evie. Each of these people have revealed to me something of God’s glory, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the love of Jesus Christ. Each of these people has changed my life in some way.

And so have you. I have seen many of you do amazing things. All of you, in your own way with the gifts God gave you, have in some way furthered the kingdom of God and changed not just my life, but other people’s lives.  I see that and appreciate that. THANK YOU!

And the thing is, there are a lot of people out there who need their lives changed. There are a lot of spiritual babies in this world lying abandoned on the trash heaps and manure piles of this world. They are hurting and in danger of dying, brothers and sisters. We can pick them up and bring them into the kingdom of God where He will adopt them and care for them and give them not just life, but life to the full and life everlasting.

All we have to do is follow Jesus. I am convinced that is God’s plan for each of us as His own dear children and for Faith Bible Church. That plan includes good works which He planned for us from before the beginning of time, and He will bless and enable us as Faith Bible Church to be what He intended us to be through prayer, faithfully following Jesus and sharing His love through those good works, and asking for and heeding the direction of His own Holy Spirit.

As we conclude, let’s go back to Ephesians and look at this beautiful, powerful prayer Paul prayed over the church in Ephesus. This is one of my very favorite set of verses in the Bible: Ephesians 3: verses 14 -21

14When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,e 15the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.f 16I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18And 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. 19May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

20Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

Let’s make it a habit to pray that prayer over each other, over Faith Bible Church on a regular basis.