Scripture reading: Numbers 21:4-9.

Sermon text: Ephesians 2:1-10.

I love reading the Bible because it constantly reinforces 2 facts about us. First, the Bible shows humans as we really are: Selfish, complaining creatures who rarely find complete satisfaction or contentment, regardless of our circumstance. Second, the Bible shows humans as we should seek to live: Joyful recipients of God’s grace and love who demonstrate His presence in our lives through our loving acts for others.

The first passage today from Numbers serves as an excellent example of the first. In this passage, the people grumbled about the manna God provided for their food, in spite  of the victory in the first 3 verses of the chapter. God delivered a powerful Canaanite king to the Hebrews, in spite of their lack of military experience. Then, in verse 4, the people fail to praise God for their victory; instead, they complained about by comparing God’s blessing with the diversity of food they enjoyed in Egypt. Only the grace of God spared the people when the serpents’ venom started killing the complainers.

The second passage, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, gives us a shining example of why the world should see joy in our lives. When we read what God prepared for His people and offers us through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we can’t help but feel our spirits soar into the heavens.

These blessings did not come cheaply. The deliverance of the Hebrews cost the Egyptians dearly; the literary and archaeological evidence attests to the heavy price of the Exodus. The Egyptians very nearly lost their entire northern empire in the generation after the Exodus, and the religious upheaval caused by the Pharaoh’s grandson, Akhenaton, wracked the country for another generation. Within a century, Egypt would experience a dynastic transition.

In our case, the blessings St. Paul lists in Ephesians came at a far higher price. Only the death of the Son of God, Jesus, would bring us into the relationship with God that we enjoy today. When we read Ephesians, we read of God’s great, unconditional love for us. God’s love gives us blessings that should help us rise above the petty complaints of everyday life and see life as He wants us to live it: full of joy, peace, and love for Him and for one another.

St. Paul wrote this letter c. A.D. 60-62, during his imprisonment in Rome awaiting his hearing before Nero. You’d think that his house arrest in Rome would have sapped the joy from St. Paul; after all, his hearing would not occur for at least 2 years, and Nero’s

You’ll see no evidence of sadness or despair in this letter. Instead, we find one of the most joyous letters in all the canon of Scripture.

St. Paul began this letter in his typical fashion: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Even in his imprisonment, St. Paul never forgot the grace God had shown him by calling him to his apostleship.  Saul, the foremost persecutor of the Church, experienced a dramatic conversion to faith in Christ on his way to Damascus, completely transforming him into the Apostle to the Gentiles. St. Paul constantly remembered that only by grace — undeserved merit — would God take a persecutor and change him into the Church’s foremost evangelist.

Then, St. Paul reminded the Ephesians of the “peace” that came from God at their conversion. Since St. Paul would use the word “peace” to refer to the term in Old Testament terms, the Ephesians would recognize that he implied more than merely an absence of conflict. Peace in the Scriptures refers to the sense of joy and freedom from anxiety that comes to all believers who confess Jesus as Lord and thus know our sins are forgiven by God. This peace remains with us regardless of the circumstances of our lives.

St. Paul immediately followed this greeting by launching into one of the most comprehensive lists of blessings that Christians enjoy in our new relationship with God. Notice that he reminds us that, in Christ, we have received “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” “Every” blessing? What do these blessings include? Why do we receive them?

First, we receive the blessing of adoption. St. Paul had already developed his teachings on the doctrine of our adoption into God’s family in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians. In Roman law, anyone adopted into a family received all the privileges of the natural born children. In His mystery, God has already chosen us for the privileges of adoption into His family.

The Roman law on adoption included more than the privileges of the natural born children; it also included the responsibilities that fell on the heirs as well. We’ll examine the responsibilities later in this sermon.

The blessings also include “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” In last week’s sermon, we read about Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for our trespasses and the redemption that we receive through that sacrifice.

The blessings also include a revelation to us, to those who confess Jesus as Lord of their lives. St. Paul reminded the Ephesians of Jesus’ words in John 17 that He desired the unity of believers in our faith. In the “fullness of time” — a reminder to us that God accomplishes His purposes on His timeline, not our own — He planned “to unite all things” in Christ, “things in heaven and things on earth.” In His time, God had always planned to restore the unity of Creation, before sin marred humanity’s relationship with Him and before our pride separated us from Him.

This mystery reminds us of the responsibilities that we receive with our adoption into God’s family.

As Christians, the privileges of adoption into God’s family come with a major price on our part. When we reexamine verse 4, we find that God “chose us…before the foundation of the world” so that “we should be holy and blameless before him.” When we look back in Scripture, we find that God always chose people for special purposes. He chose Abraham and gave him the responsibility of blessing  “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3). Abraham’s descendants through his grandson Jacob, the Hebrews, received the blessing of the covenant at Mt. Sinai and gave them the responsibility of serving as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:3-6).

Our responsibilities call for us to live “holy” lives. As Christians, we must live in a way that brings glory to our heavenly Father, the One who adopts us into His family upon our confession of His Son as our Lord. This means we must live by God’s standards, not those of the world.

Jesus gave His disciples the ultimate commandments to guide us in living holy lives: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). When we love someone with everything we have, we constantly try to do what that person expects of us and brings joy to that person. When we love God with all we have, we try to please Him with everything we do.

God also expects us to love others as we love ourselves. This love requires us to place others’ lives before our own. We must place their welfare before our own. We must never forget this doesn’t imply that we must also grant the wishes of others; occasionally, their wishes contradict their own well being. In those times, we must stand firm and help them rise above their destructive desires.

Loving God also means that Christians must demonstrate visible unity before the world. Jesus prayed in John 17 for His disciples: “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”  Jesus knew that the unity of the Church would provide the greatest testimony to the truth of His life, death, and resurrection, praying that “they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

When we consider responsibilities that come with our adoption, it can seem overwhelming. How can we try to live above the desires of the flesh as God expects? How can we love others as much as we love ourselves? Even more, how can imperfect people, with our own priorities and ideas and human quirks, ever expect to live in unity with one another?

The Church today shows little evidence of this unity. In the United States alone, the number of Christian denominations runs in the thousands. Far too many of these denominations began when believers failed to love each other as God required of them.

St. Paul reminds us that God chose us to live “blameless before him.” This responsibility goes hand in hand with holiness. We must proclaim our belief in Jesus as Lord through the lifestyles we choose and the choices we make. St. Peter would later write, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:11-12). The early believers constantly faced slander in Roman society, but their lifestyles put to rest any accusations of wrongdoing.

The commands still stand. Our witness before the world relies on our obedience to live holy and blameless lives and to demonstrate unity before the world. Do we have any help in keeping our responsibilities?

When you read the rest of this chapter, you’ll find that we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (v. 13). The Holy Spirit comes into our lives at our confession of Jesus as Lord and guides us through our lives. When we follow His guidance, we find we have the wisdom to make wise decisions that will bring glory to God’s name.

We also have the Church to help us live holy and blameless lives. Yes, we currently do a poor job of demonstrating our unity. However, the Christian lifestyle requires strength beyond our own efforts. When we confess Jesus as Lord, we must submit ourselves for baptism into the Church. Baptism tells all who know us that we have begun another life; we’ve chosen to live by another standard. Baptism also joins us into a family of other believers who encourage us in times of weakness; lift us in times of despair; and celebrate with us in times of joy. When we come together in worship, we meet with one another to give one another help in living holy and blameless lives.

I encourage you to read the rest of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. I challenge anyone to read this book and fail to find the joy that comes with forgiveness of our sins and the relationship we experience with Almighty God, our Creator and Father by our adoption into His family. Even better, the day will come when we will rise with Christ into a glorious eternity. Sin will never hound us again; temptation won’t even exist as a memory; death will never again frighten us. Our responsibilities before God will transform into the ultimate privileges of our adoption.