Partners and Promise: Our Inheritance (and Responsibility)

 Today, we begin four weeks in Ephesians. Before we dive in, I’d like to offer a few notes about the context and circumstances, as well as, the authorship of this letter. Although this letter has historically been attributed to the apostle Paul, it has become fairly widely accepted that Paul did not write this letter. There was a practice in the first century of later authors writing under the name of an honored teacher or predecessor. The author of this letter adopts Paul’s name, the style and form in which he wrote, and other typical features of Paul’s writing as a way of honoring Paul, but also relating Paul’s teaching for a new time and new circumstances in the church.

It is also understood that this letter is addressed to later congregations, some one to two generations after the churches Paul planted. They reflect churches that are organized and structured and that have specific leadership roles. These are more mature churches. Likely located in Asia Minor - present day Turkey. There is a hint of discord and division in the churches. In chapter 4, we read that they are being “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine” that was coming, perhaps, from newer teaching not consistent with that of Paul and of their heritage. The primary concern of the author is that the unity of the church be maintained. 

Today, we read from Ephesians, chapter 1.

1 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will.

To the holy and faithful people in Christ Jesus in Ephesus.

2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. 4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. 5 God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ because of his love. This was according to his goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves. 7 We have been ransomed through his Son’s blood, and we have forgiveness for our failures based on his overflowing grace, 8 which he poured over us with wisdom and understanding. 9 God revealed his hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son. 10 This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth. 11 We have also received an inheritance in Christ. We were destined by the plan of God, who accomplishes everything according to his design. 12 We are called to be an honor to God’s glory because we were the first to hope in Christ. 13 You too heard the word of truth in Christ, which is the good news of your salvation. You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit because you believed in Christ. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance, which is applied toward our redemption as God’s own people, resulting in the honor of God’s glory. --Ephesians 1:1-14 (CEB)

These opening verses are nothing other than a hymn of praise to God. They follow an ancient Hebrew tradition - the berakah, meaning blessing - a tradition that originated in response to an act of God’s deliverance. The Greek word for blessing, used here, is where we get the word “eulogy” - that practice, especially after one has died, of remembering and giving thanks for a life.

These first 14 verses are a eulogy to God. A song of praise celebrating the wealth and the abundance of God’s grace. Over and over we hear words repeated that, piled onto each other, speak of the riches of all that God has done. 

But this opening song is a distinctly Christian song of praise. It is linked to the presence and work of the Spirit that comes to us by way of our adoption as God’s children in Christ. Adoption that, through our baptisms, has brought us into God’s presence. Where we find forgiveness. Where we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit as downpayment on God’s future promises.

I first met Jesus in an adoption courtroom. I’ve mentioned many times to you of the years I worked in the court system in LA. For a couple of years, I was a relief clerk in the civil and family law divisions downtown. The adoption courtroom was located in the midst of the family law division, set among many departments that handled divorces. Difficult, acrimonious, and hard places to be. But, the adoption courtroom was different. It was my favorite courtroom to work in. A place of pure joy. Jesus was a little boy I met there, who, even though he was still young, had lived a difficult and hard life. He had been abused as a toddler, suffering through cigarette burns, broken bones, beatings and all of the related trauma of severe child abuse. Even though he was only 9 years old, he had been in the foster system since the age of three - in foster homes that, honestly, weren’t much better than the abusive home he’d escaped.

But, then he moved into the home of Fernando and Mary, a couple who’d been able to have a child of their own. Here, he found structure. And safety. But, mostly, here he found love. So, the day I met all of them was the day, four years later, that Jesus would formally be adopted by his new parents. There were balloons and stuffed animals everywhere. There was joy everywhere. It was a celebration of this new family, who had been brought together in adoption. 

You and I are also people of adoption. You and I have been adopted by God in our baptisms. Into places of refuge and safety, to which we have been called and are re-called over and over in our daily walking wet - as Luther calls it. A cleansing and renewal that we need and that is ours every day. Adopted into the forgiveness we receive in Christ. Given the gift of the Spirit as a downpayment. It is all part of God’s plan - a plan made well before the foundation of the world. Not some quick, last minute idea on God’s part, but a long-developed plan to have an intimate relationship with each one of us through Christ. God, who loved us before we were born and who loves us even more now. Who showers us with grace. Who continues to deliver us from the difficulty and hardship of life, even that of pandemic life. 

But, that’s not all! That isn’t all there is to God’s plan. There is so much more - an even bigger plan than the lavish grace that forgives our sins and buys us back from all that would seek to own us. God’s plan is to gather not just us in Christ, but to gather all things up into Christ. A plan that continues to unfold. So that the love, healing, wisdom, and welcome that we receive in our baptisms into Christ will be the same for all creation. It is through Christ that the mystery of God’s cosmic plan is revealed.

This is our destiny as people of God. This is the destiny of all creation. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Preached July 11, 2021, at Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, and Third Lutheran, Louisville.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Ephesians 1:1-14, Acts 2:37-42, Psalm 46

Gifts of God's Grace: The Promise of the Holy Spirit

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Acts 2:1-4 NRSV

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit. Ah, the Holy Spirit. The one person of the Godhead that scares us the most. For us Lutherans, who have grown up in a theology that is so rational...that can seem more of a “head” theology than a “heart” theology...a tradition that for centuries disavowed glossolalia - speaking in tongues that is, in the Pentecostal tradition, a true mark of the presence of the Spirit in one’s life... 
For us Lutherans, I think the idea of the Spirit - this uncontrollable person of the Trinity that flits and floats freely and that can push us into seemingly irrational thought and action... For many of us Lutherans, I think the Holy Spirit scares the living daylights out of us!

So, today, let’s dig into the Holy Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday. And, more specifically, let's look at work of the Holy Spirit, using Paul’s text from Romans as a guide. A text I might add is an important and weighty text for our understanding and a text from which we often hear snippets - phrases that will seem very familiar to you, but that allow for us to look at it as an entire section. So, today, we'll study Romans 8 to help us more fully understand the work of the Spirit, that manifests itself in three ways. First, that the gift of the spirit marks the beginning of Christian life. Secondly, that the Holy Spirit is the power of new life. And, finally, that the Spirit works through us, not only as individuals, but particularly as a community.

Romans 8:18-25. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that marks the beginning of the Christian life.

For the early church, those 120 plus men and women gathered on that first Pentecost who witnessed the first outpouring of the Spirit - Christ’s own Spirit that had been promised to them. When they witnessed this first outpouring, they knew that this was a moment in time when their Christian faith had fully begun. Although they may not have initially understood it, they eventually recognized that this free dispensing of the Holy Spirit on them and those baptized that first day marked a new age. The beginning of the end. The beginning of the last days. This time in between Christ’s first coming to earth and Christ’s second coming. The time in which we also live.

In Paul’s writing, the gift of the Spirit is likewise the beginning of the Christian experience. It is another way to describe our new justified relationship with God. It gives us a new sense of our own identity as adopted daughters and sons of God. In the Greek, the word used is one that marks a profound existential change in relationship. It means that, as God’s adopted children, we are heirs. Just as Daniel, who is celebrating his first communion today, has been adopted through the power of the Spirit in his baptism, so, too, you and I have been adopted.

This notion of adoption and inheritance was a profound message in Paul’s day. Much more profound, perhaps, than for us today. Because very few people had means to pass on. Very few people came from families with means to pass on. To be heir meant you had a future. It might be a future that required your patience and that required waiting. But, it meant you had a future. And, thus, hope.

So, with the early church, we wait. With patience. And with hope. Even in the midst of our suffering and weakness.

Romans 8:28-30.  Second point. The Spirit is the power of our new life in Christ.

The gift of the Spirit is a beginning of our final fulfillment as Christians - the first installment of a life-long process of transformation into the image of Christ. A process, called sanctification, that achieves its end in the resurrection of our bodies. It’s like that first downpayment on a new car. Or a new house. It’s the first step in a months-long or years-long process of purchasing that new vehicle or home. Reaching the point where it is finally ours. And we are fully free.

It is in this first downpayment of the Spirit where God begins to work and to build God’s claim on our whole being. Step by step, even in times of sorrow and struggle, when we no longer have even the words to pray. In contrast with the believers on that first Pentecost who were given the gift of communication, even when we have reached the point where we no longer have words to describe our sorrow and suffering, it is the Spirit who steps in. Who intercedes for us. Who prays for us. Who sighs for us. And whom God hears. For us.

Because God has called us through the Spirit. And, so, life then for us becomes a daily walking in our baptism. Responding to that claim of the Spirit on us. Lives that are given new power in the Spirit to more fully live into God’s claim on us. 

But, lives that are also lived in tension and conflict. Between the old and the new. Between the flesh and the spirit. Between saint and sinner. It is in this tension where God’s grace comes to its fullest expression. In our weakness. Because it was in Jesus’ weakness, in Jesus’ death, where God’s grace became real. Where death did not define the future. But, resurrection did. Life did. And so, for us, too, in our weakness, God’s grace is expressed most fully. It is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus who has freed us and who empowers us to live fully into our identity as adopted children of God and heirs of God’s kingdom.

Romans 8:31-39. Finally, it is the Spirit that is experienced by all and works through all, in the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

For Paul, this idea of the Spirit being experienced by and working through the community was paramount. This community, which Paul called koinonia, was one of common participation where the Spirit worked to form a group of unique and diverse individuals into one body. Where, each of us allows the Holy Spirit to work on our hearts and to come to its fullest expression in what we say and do. Where we are formed into one body. Not that we should be alike. But that we, in all of our diversity, find our unity in Christ. And where we grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ. Living together in honesty and authenticity. With no weak links in our community because through the power of the Spirit, we work to lift everyone up. Testing every word and deed that claims to be authorized by the Spirit with the standard that is Jesus Christ. The standard of love.

Because, isn’t that why we come here every week? To experience Christ’s love for us? This love that has the power to transform us, not only as individuals, but, particularly as a community. A community that is bound together in the love of Christ. A community that, through Christ love, is bound to God. And a community that will never be separated from the love of God in Christ.


This is the work of the Spirit. It is God’s love poured out for us in the Spirit that marks the beginning of our new life in Christ, that gives us the power to live more fully into this new life, and that forms and shapes us into a community of love. To live into a different vision for the future. Into God’s vision for the future. A vision characterized by God’s love in Christ Jesus. And a love from which nothing can ever separate us.

Neither death. Nor life. Nor angels. Nor rulers. Nor things present. Nor things to come. Nor powers. Nor height. Nor depth. Nor anything else in all creation. Will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:38-39)

We give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit. May we continue to live into God's love and be the loving people God is making us to be. Amen.

Preached Sunday, June 9th, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Day of Pentecost
Readings: Acts 2:1-4, Romans 8:18-39; Matthew 28:16-20.