(Sermon originally preached on 14th July at St. Mary’s in Kidlingon)

Biblical Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Church is an odd thing isn’t it? All of us could be somewhere else this morning. We could have gone shopping, read a book, gone on a walk or a run, but instead, here we are, singing songs, listening to ancient texts, and talking to an invisible being. (I don’t think we’ll put that summary on the church website.)

So why are we here? Why are you here? As I wrote that question down while preparing to preach, I realised there are probably as many reasons for attending church as there are people here. Maybe it’s the community, the ritual, curiosity, a sense of duty, or something else entirely.

As we spend some together this morning, I want to look briefly at this short, but very dense passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, because in it we see the reason not just for us being here this morning, but the reason any of this exists at all.

Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, while himself in prison in Rome. By the time he writes Ephesians, Paul has been a follower of Christ for perhaps 30 years, and he has come to a very deep understanding of what God has been doing throughout history. It’s worth reading the entirety of the letter, it will only take you 15 mins or so, but this morning we’re going to focus on these specific 12 verses.

The church in Ephesus was mainly made up of Gentiles, i.e. most of them were not Jewish. But Paul was, and he begins here by affirming that God chose the Jews long ago, ‘before the foundation of the world.’ Although Paul and some of his Jewish counterparts often disagreed about the place of Jesus, Paul never let go of the importance of God’s calling of the Jewish people. But that calling had a purpose. In Genesis 12 we read that God called Abraham, telling him to leave his family and his home, and promising to make him into a great nation. But, this call was not purely for Abraham’s sake. He blessed him that he might be a blessing to others. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, Abraham stepped out in faith, but he never saw the fulfilment of God’s promise.

Abraham was never the whole story. God’s call and Abraham’s faithful response led, over many years and through many more faithful people, to another individual, an individual who wasn’t called, but sent: Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God, Christ himself. Paul’s understanding of history is that God’s plan and purpose in calling the Jews, is a plan and purpose that is fulfilled in the person of Christ. The faith of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Rahab, and Ruth, the faith of the prophets who spoke on God’s behalf, not always understanding what they said, that faith has been fulfilled in the person of Christ.

And what changes for us now that Christ has come? We have been redeemed through Christ, we have redemption through his blood. That’s important language in a Eucharistic service. The idea of redemption here is of a slave being bought and released into freedom. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we have been bought, and made free from our slavery to sin.

But there’s more than that. Not only are we made free, but we are made heirs. And as heirs we have an inheritance in Christ, as sons and daughters of God. This is not merely a release from slavery, but a welcoming into the family of God, with all the privileges, and responsibilities that go with it.

We bless God, and God blesses us. But those two kinds of blessing are quite different.

We hear the language of blessing through this passage…and it works in two ways. We bless God, and God blesses us. But those two kinds of blessing are quite different. When we bless God, we are affirming his goodness, acknowledging who God is and what God has done. In our worship we are blessing God. But our blessing God does not change God.

When God blesses us, we are changed. We are different people, ‘marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit,’ as Paul phrases it. We are redeemed, adopted, given an inheritance and a hope. But despite all these blessings, we miss the point if we think it’s about us. If you’ve been following along in a Bible, the heading for this section, ‘Spiritual Blessings in Christ,’ is a helpful reminder here. We are blessed, but the focus here is Christ:

We have been redeemed, through Christ.
We have been adopted, through Christ.
We have gained an inheritance, through Christ.
And our hope, is in Christ.

We have been blessed, not because of our own work, but because of Christ, to the glory of God.

I don’t know the reason you came to church today, but as we come to the table together this morning, may we all remember the reason we have church at all. It is Christ alone.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen