Love Wins

Text: Ephesians 1:15-23

Focus: Discernment

Function: To help people see things from a Biblical perspective

Form:

Intro: I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker last week. I don't know his full story, but I guess that he spent some time in Seminary.

We were talking about the bible and the many ways it is, and can be, interpreted.

He said: “People point to passages of scripture and then use them to justify whatever they want to believe.”

He listed and example. 2 Corinthians 6:14. In the King James it says “Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers...” The Bible says that partnership, and I believe it is talking business partnership, between people who live by Biblical value of making sure that business is win/win should not be business partners with people who have the ethic that it doesn't make a difference if a transaction harms the other person.

That is the way I interpret the passage.

He cited that the same passage was used to first deny inter-racial worship, and then to deny inter-racial marriage.

He was misquoting passage, obviously because he must have first heard it that way because he was saying “I have always heard that the bible says people of different races cannot sleep together.”

Now that passage has nothing to do with interracial anything. But he heard it that way.

But he was telling me how shocked he was when someone came to him and said, that it means men can only sleep with men and women with women.

Churches all over the country are having fights about Homosexual rights.

I refuse to get into the politics around it, but something sad is happening in the process.

People are bashing each other over the heads with metaphorical biblical hammers.

If we take to heart the meaning of today's text, perhaps we won't be caught up in bickering that goes on.

This passage of scripture is indeed about discerning God's will from the scripture.

This is his prayer for them: ¹⁷I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him,

I believe that first and foremost in the mind of God is God's hope that people will know Him.

God created us to be His children. God created all of humanity to bring them all into His family.

God gave us the Bible so that we can know Him. God gave us the bible so that we can know what He wants for us.

Listen to how he explains it, from the text: ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,

I think that phrase “With the eyes of your heart enlightened....” is a beautiful way to say the process by which God makes known to us His will and His word.

Seeing with the eyes of our heart:

According to Genesis, both men and women are made in the image of God. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is a Soul, God the Father, a Body, God the Son and a Spirit, God the Holy Spirit.

Oftentimes the phrase Spirit/Soul are both used to refer us to the heart, the inner being, the spiritual person, that part of of that lives forever and communes with all that is around us.

So, when he speaks of “the eyes of our heart...” he is telling us to have, or take on, a spiritual understanding of this world.

I had a parishioner who was a research scientist at Penn State University.

One day he told me of an article in the science journal:“Scientific American.” The article was written in the mid 1990's and it was about how spiritual scientists were becoming.

It was a form of a prediction of the shift in culture from Modernity to Post-modernity.

Science is great. I love it and believe in it. But it doesn't give us all the answers. We can make an Nuclear bomb, but should we use it?

Science can make it, but can it help us discern whether or not we should?

Brother Paul is appealing to the spiritual side of people and asking them to look inside, to their guts, where the Spirit of man and God resides and then they should make their decisions.

And let us go back to verse 17, God's desire is for us to be in relationship with Him.

So, if our spiritual eyes are opened, enlightened, then it will always leads us into the grace, nurture, love, mercy and forgiveness that is inherent in the family of God.

Walter, the man we spoke about last week thanks you for your prayers. He told me that what I said about him was awesome and he was glad that he wasn't judged for having his opinion.

God is a big boy and He would rather have honest and sincere questions than platitudes that don't quite cut it.

I mention that to mention another co-worker who got a bible application for her smart phone.

One day, out of the blue she blurts out: “Phil, God's word is so alive, so beautiful, so wonderful!” “Every time I read it, it jumps out at me, like it is speaking directly to me.” That is what it means to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.

So, I am going to ask you to open your bibles here and help me list off just exactly what we are able to see with our spiritual eyes:

Let me do an exercise with you. I want you to shut your eyes while I read verses 18,19.

With your eyes shut, I want you to look at these verses with your spiritual eyes.

I will read them, and I want you to list off whatever word or phrase seems to strike you.

Let us discuss that:

Verse 18: Hope, Riches of his inheritance. What does that mean?

Verse 19: Immeasurable greatness of His power. What does that mean?
-How great is immeasurable? (as great as He is).

Now, let me read verses 20-23.

What sticks out to you?

I want us to notice something.

I hinted at the beginning of the message that the Bible can be misused and twisted for someone's own purpose.

I hope that I am not guilty of it, but we all of us are after all, only human.

What I notice the most about this passage is the appeal to Jesus Christ and His sacrificial love for us.

I believe that the treasure that our Pastor, Paul is speaking of is Christ's great power to forgive us.

Romans 8 tells us this: Who can bring any charge against us? What charges can stand against the love of Christ?

Who is the Devil to accuse us when God is the one who defends us?

Whatever charge brought against us has to be more powerful than God. And since God is the creator of everything, what charge can stand?

NONE!

God choose to leave out a lot in this passage. And what seems the most blaring to me is any mention of anyone's sin.

So why would people use the Bible to condemn another?

Do they understand the power of grace?

And the sad thing is, the people who seem to do it the most are those who claim to know God the most.

Jesus tells a story about those who would judge others in Luke 15.

Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son who does a despicable thing, walks away from the Father's love, care and protection. Squanders his share of his father's fortune and realizes that he has erred. He has sinned.

When he comes back to the father, he wants to return as a slave, at least that way he could eat.

Apparently his father took good care of his slaves, and he took better care of his sons.

He calls himself a slave. But the father calls him a son.

This is the problem, as we have mentioned, with shame. It tells us that we are not worthy.

And it is the problem with pride, because we can look at this kid as a lazy bum and judge him.

But neither of those opinions take into account the love of the Father.

The boy had the eyes of his heart enlightened and he saw the tremendous power of forgiveness given to him by God.

The parable goes on the tell of the elder brother. And Jesus gives this parable to try to open the spiritual eyes of the religious leaders.

The elder brother was jealous. He told his father that he was treated like a slave. He believed his own story.

He was angry about the Father's grace toward his brother who seemed worthless.

Now, the younger brother has the eyes of his heart opened by the Love of God. His problem, he believed was his badness.

The elder brother had a problem as well. And that problem was what he believed to be his own goodness.*

He believes that he, compared to his brother, deserves to be the son.

He started whining and complaining. Dad, you never even gave me a goat, or let me have a party with my friends, but this worthless brother of mine returns after insulting you and you throw him a party!

It is like a dam has opened up inside of him, things he wanted to say for a long time came rushing out in his anger.

The younger brother's sins have separated him from the Father.

The elder brothers pride, self-righteousness have separated him from the father.

But look at the Father's reaction:

And the father could have been angry.

But instead the father says, “all that I have is yours...”

You are my son.

His father refused to be hurt or retaliate. He just loved on that elder brother.

He wasn't God's son because of his goodness, neither are we. We are God's sons and daughters because of God's love.

That is the power of forgiveness.

Remember, verse 17, God wants everyone, everyone in his family.

And that is why, instead of mentioning other people's sins, or his own faithfulness, Paul points people to Jesus, to the Cross, to the visible proof and demonstration of God's love for all of humanity.

We can't use the bible as a club, and we cannot dismiss its claims as irrelevant.

Because in all of this, God is bringing us back into His family.

*The dialectic between believing in his goodness and believing in his badness, as well as the title for the sermon comes from Rob Bell's book: Love Wins

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