Ephesians 1:3-14
We were talking after dinner at the home of friends recently. “I realized that I was really aging,” the woman who was hosting us said, “when I looked at my hands and thought, ‘Those are my mother’s hands!’” I was a bit surprised to hear this because I’d had a similar experience a few years back. Looking at my own hands, I saw those of my father.
Even if we wanted to, it would be tough for us to run away from our heritage. Genes are perseverant things!
This was driven home for me back when my Grandfather Daniels died. My wife, who had never met him, went with me to Bellefontaine for the funeral viewing. We walked into the old Kennedy Funeral Home there and discovered that several other viewings were happening at the same time. The place was packed and there were no signs indicating whose viewing was where.
So, I went in one direction and my wife went in another as we tried to find the right place. A short while later, my wife beckoned me to come to where she’d gone. I walked over to her, where she was pointing into a crowded room. “This is it,” she said. I looked around and told her that I didn’t recognize anybody there.
“Mark,” she told me. “Look around. Most of the men are about 5-8, 5-9. They have prominent brow ridges and they all stand talking with their arms folded over their chests, their upper bodies tilted to one side. If that isn’t a bunch of Daniels men, I don’t know what is.”
Sure enough, she was right. Others might not have seen it. But anybody familiar with the Daniels family could pick it out as my wife had. Each of us has the marks of our family relationships.
This is no less true when it comes to our relationship with God. When we have a close relationship with the God we meet in Jesus Christ, there will be certain marks that will show us and others that this is so.
Today’s Bible lesson tells us that those who follow Jesus Christ are, “blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing.” Jesus enters the lives and characters of those who surrender to Him and their lives, sometimes faintly, sometimes stongly, bear His marks.
The most distinguishing characteristic of those who surrender themselves to Christ is that they, more and more, live for God's purposes.
And what are God's purposes for us? As I pointed out in the first reading of our 40-Days to Servanthood emphasis during this past Lenten season:
God’s goal for your life is for you to be like Jesus. God has set apart every person He’s called to follow Jesus Christ, in the words of the New Testament book of Romans, "to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the first among many brothers.”This doesn’t mean that God wants you and me to become mindless clones of a first-century Judean carpenter. It means that He wants us to manifest the character traits of Jesus through the prisms of our own personalities, abilities, experiences, and relationships. If you’re a teacher or a parent, your call is to strive being the kind of teacher or parent Jesus would be. If you’re a bricklayer or an engineer, an accountant or a janitor, your call is to let the likeness of Jesus permeate how you do your work and live your life.
But you can’t hope to do this if you resolve to do it under your own power. Jesus was the perfect, sinless coming of God into our world. And unless I miss my bet, there isn’t a single perfect, sinless God in this whole room today! We only start to look like Jesus when we claim the spiritual inheritance that our Bible lesson for today talks about. We’re told:
In Christ, we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of Him Who accomplishes all things according to His counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live to the praise of His glory.
God’s aim is to help us become like Christ, to bear the marks of our closeness to Him. Our aim is to use the blessings God gives those who believe in Christ to glorify God.
Years ago, I heard a preacher talking about his young daughter. From her earliest years, she was smitten with acting on a stage. At first, he thought this was just a passing phase, something she’d get over once she’d grown older. But the realization hit him that she was wired for a career on the stage when, one night, after they had prayed together, she began to tell her father about rehearsals for the school play. “You know, Dad,” she told him with unvarnished enthusiasm, “when I’m up there, that’s when I feel the most alive!” She’s an actress today, letting Christ live through her and glorifying God in the way she uses her talents.
Pastor Mike Foss talks about two people from the twentieth century, one of whom sought significance in the eyes of the world and came up empty, the other who sought to glorify God, focusing on Christ, and found significance. He says, “Few of us recall the name, let alone the accomplishments and wealth of Howard Hughes. Here was a man at the epicenter of his generation. He dated movie stars and hobnobbed with presidents and earth shakers. He became one of the wealthiest men in the world...and is forgotten. On the other hand, many of us still know the name and can picture the face of Mother Teresa. She renounced wealth and human achievement for the sake of caring for the poorest of the poor. Yet, God raised her up to travel the globe and meet with presidents, prime ministers and earth shakers. All because she lived for eternity.”
God wants all of us to make similar discoveries about ourselves. This is the pathway to real significance. The only people who find significance and fulfillment in their daily lives are those who have their minds fixed on eternity, whose lives are focused on the God we meet in Jesus Christ!
Mother Teresas are one in a million, for sure. But each of us can live each day for God’s purposes. I often think of we Christians as God’s insurgents, sent by God to give people glimpses of the power and eternal destiny God gives to all with faith in Christ. But unlike those other insurgents, our weapons aren't bombs or force. Our weapons are things like prayer, worship, reading Scripture, service, acts of kindness, love of enemies, and forgiveness. As we use these tools, we become more like Christ, God is glorified, and the one Martin Luther identified as “our old satanic foe” is undermined and destroyed.
A young woman was soaking some rays on the beach one day when a little boy in his swimming trunks, carrying a towel, came up to her and asked, “Are you a Christian?” She was surprised by the question, but answered, “Yes, I am.” Then he asked her: “Do you go to church every Sunday?” Again, her answer was “Yes!” “Do you read your Bible and pray every day?” “Yes!” At last the boy sighed with relief and said, “That’s great! Since you are a Christian, will you hold my 50 cents while I go swimming?”
I’ve shared with you before that back in the days when most of our friends weren’t believers in Christ, my wife and I were usually the first people they called when they got into scrapes in their lives. It wasn’t because we necessarily had any answers; we usually didn’t. (We still don't!) It was because whenever we run into scrapes in our everyday worlds, we have a natural inclination to try to get in touch with eternity...or with those who try to keep in touch with eternity themselves. We know, deep in our hearts, that to make it through everyday life, we need an eternal God! We know that life is best when we live for God's aims and not our own.
And living for God's aims, glorifying Him through our lives, can be such a simple thing. This past week, I met a guy with the office supply firm from which we lease our copier. The old lease was up and I needed to sign a new contract. We had a full, if rather brief, chat, Jeremy and I. I learned about where he grew up, where he played college football, how he met his wife, where they live, and that they have two little boys, aged two years and eleven months. Before he left, I said, "Since you live close-by, I would be remiss not to tell you that if you and your family don't have a church home, you're always welcome here!" He thanked me, but said that they were part of another congregation, up in Milford.
Years ago, I might not have felt comfortable doing asking someone I hardly knew to worship with me. And I can also tell you lots of stories of times when I failed to invite people in this way. But the point is that if we make ourselves available to Him, God will give us ways, small and big, to glorify Him. And nothing glorifies God more than inviting our friends, neighbors, classmates, and co-workers to follow Jesus with us!
By faith in Jesus Christ, you are part of God’s family. Today and every day, ask God to help you to aim your life toward His aims, to let Christ live in you and so be empowered, in your own unique way, to give glory to the God Who made you and promises you eternity. It’s when we aim our lives Christ-ward that we start to look Christ. It’s then that our lives take on real meaning. Amen!
[Thanks to John Schroeder for linking to this post.]
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