It’s a new year and a new start! It seems like every advertisement that you see in the week between Christmas and New Year is something to makes you stronger, slimmer, organized, smarter etc. There’s something about turning the calendar over that makes us want to begin with a fresh slate.
Or maybe you’ve decided on this resolution for 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eOu-jVuuxo
So some of you think lot about this fresh start idea and what we want to be, and some just want to raise the bar and make everything easy. But did you know that God has a New Year’s Resolution for you? I'll give you a hint: It's not about working harder or just scraping by, God wants a change in your thinking this year.
first glacier-covered slope. As my young eyes gazed across the landscape I truly felt like I was at the top of the world and like this was “my mountain.”
As I read and re-read the book of Ephesians I’m struck with the same feeling as being on the top of Mt. Shasta. The sweeping panorama of God’s design is clearer before me and His overarching plans are made known. It’s almost as if Ephesians gives a mountain top perspective of the entire Bible. We may be missing out on the details that we get when we read from Genesis to Revelation, but man, “we can see everything up here!”
Ephesians begins like this: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,”
Paul (who’s name at the time was Saul) is first introduced in the book of Acts chapter 8, where he helped out in the first killing of a Christian and then led a vendetta against the church. Acts 8:3 says; “But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” This guy was later knocked off his Nass (I mean donkey) by God and convinced by the resurrected Jesus Christ to start a new life.
By the time Paul wrote Ephesians he was in prison because the government wanted to shut him up for causing people to turn to Jesus and changing the way things were done. But nothing could shut him up. While in prison he wrote letter after letter to the church and those letters make up most of the books in the New Testament.
So that’s Paul, and he goes on to say “to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Do you know that throughout the Bible, people who trust in Jesus with their lives are called “Saints.” The greek word here is “hagios” and it means “a most holy thing.” God looks at you and sees the perfection and holiness of His Son, Jesus Christ. He sees those who trust in Jesus as saints, regardless of their mistakes and failures.
He then goes on to say: “grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Grace is “Charis” which means that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness. Peace is eirēnē meaning security, safety, prosperity, happiness, and fearlessness.
We could finish there. I mean what student does not dream of grace and peace at school, sports, with teachers, friends, family, God… joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness, security, safety, prosperity, happiness, fearlessness.
But, we must move on.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons, through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment – to bring all things together under one head, even Christ.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.”
God’s New Year’s Resolution for you and me is that we see who we really are through Jesus Christ:
- Vs. 4 Christians are blameless saints through Christ. What a wonderful thought that God does not hold you past, present, or even your future mistakes against you, but sees you as righteous because of His Son.
- Vs. 5 Christians are adopted as children of God. I was able to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law this weekend with their 3 adopted kids, Isaac, Emily, and Antonio. They would do anything for those kids and they love them as their own. I can’t imagine life without those my nieces and nephews. God adoption of us is binding and unbreakable. He loves his children with an unending love.
- Vs. 7 Christians are redeemed and forgiven. The price has been paid. Our lives have been purchased by Jesus Christ. We were owned by evil, and now we’re owned by our Heavenly Father.
- Vs. 9 Christians know God’s will. God’s will is not a question of whether I should choose a sandwich or lasagna, but it is that everything we do is to be dome for the glory and Lordship of Jesus Christ.
- Vs. 13 Christians are sealed with the Holy Spirit. We are never on our own, we have the very Spirit of God living inside us, comforting us, and guiding our paths.
- Christians do not choose God, God chooses them. Did you notice this in the passage: "Chose, predestined, chosen, chosen, predestined, plan, conformity." Christians disagree to what extent this choosing determines our lives, but what we all agree on is this: God loved us first and it is God’s work that allows us to turn to him. It starts and ends with God. Listen to this song (the video is a bit lame, but oh well) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0-Tq1pSAXY from MikesChair that describes what it means that God loves you first!
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