There is a saying: “two men looked out of prison bars; one saw the mud, the other the stars.” The scriptures are very honest about the mud and muck of life, but it also calls us to look beyond that. This passage in Ephesians is a clear call to raise our gaze and look to the hope of God.
The church in Ephesus was a small group surrounded by a wealthy civilization with well-articulated philosophies and religions. And yet this shall group went on to conquer the Roman empire – much as was promised in this passage.
The book of Ephesians was a circular letter to Asia Minor that may not have even been meant for that church in particular, though it was certainly sent there. In the book he addresses the division between Jew and Gentile, and how that division was bridged by Christ, and how corporately we all together are the Temple of God, with Christ as the cornerstone.
The Ephesians certainly understood the concept of a temple, being the home of one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis, where Paul got himself into some trouble with some silversmiths.
In contrast, though, the Christian temple is not a breathtaking stone building, but rather a unity of Jew and gentile, man and woman, rich and poor, slave and free, weak and strong.
Because of this, Paul calls on us not to lose heart. We have the very power of God within acs behind us, according to the riches of the glory of the Father, strengthened by the power by the Spirit so that Christ may live in our hearts. The entire Trinity is at work here.
This is the only passage in the Bible that directly describes Jesus living in our hearts, but the concept is driven throughout – in Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.”
The Greek word for “dwell” here means to stay in the place that is your home – Christ is not a guest at your heart’s hotel, but rather it is to be His home. All the rooms and locked closets are his, all the TVs and computers and all. Christ’s lordship touches all aspects of life, which is all to be rooted and founded in love.
That love is what brought their church together. It was not the personality of the pastor or the technology or the quality of the band. Rather, we come together as a church because salvation is a group project. We are saved individually, but we only learn to love when we are in relationship with one another. We need each other, and we need each other most acutely where we want it the least.
Many years later, Jesus himself wrote a letter to the Ephesians. Much of it was encouraging, but Christ called them out for having abandoned the love that first brought them together.
The purpose of all of this, per verse 19, is that we are filled with the fullness of God. The question then becomes, how big is your God? Many of us struggle with an image of God that is too small, and many then reject His because He didn’t behave like the small version of God we have in our minds.
Paul’s vision of God here, is able to do far more than we can ask, more than we can think or even imagine – again, according to the power within us. And to Him belongs the glory in the church.
The glory in the church looks like perseverance, especially for us as we work through transition.
What can we take from this prayer? It can guide our own prayers. We should pray for a Christ-centered life for ourselves dvd others. We should pray for a love-filled church, and pray for a God-sized faith. And as Paul has just reminded us, that size is pretty big.
– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, February 17, 2019
Ephesians 2:14-21
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