SUMMER SERMONS AND ASHBURNHAM 2007

We hope that you all find the opportunity for an enjoyable break this summer - and that you manage to catch some sunshine!

Over these summer months, the leaders of Children's Church at both churches take a well deserved break. This means that most services are Worship Together and will be "child-friendly" which tends to mean more audience participation. We don't post these sermons on the blog. Children's Church returns on the 9th September and normal blog service will be resumed.
In the meantime, you can read the sermons delivered by our guest speaker, Philip Mounstephen, who provided entertaining, thought-provoking and inspirational sessions at our recent Parish Weekend Away at Ashburnham Place, near Battle.

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 1 - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 1: Rediscovering the Church

Please note that this introductory session was delivered with an accompanying power point presentation. Due to temporary technical difficulties, this presentation cannot be displayed on this blog at this time. We are working on it and will post it as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Back in AD 313 the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which officially removed all obstacles to the practice of Christian faith within the Roman Empire. It was only a few years later that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire – and what had a been a religion of a minority – often oppressed and persecuted - became the religion of the majority, enjoying eventually a position of tremendous privilege, prestige and power.
That made a profound difference to the way the church practiced its ministry in Europe and the West. A difference of the most fundamental kind. It ushered in a period which we know today as Christendom – a period which lasted well into the lifetimes of many of us – though the cracks appeared long before that. It was a period in which the law was founded on explicitly Christian principles, in which the values and the story of the Christian faith had a profound influence on people at all levels of society. It was a period in which people were essentially assumed to be Christians unless they very deliberately opted out – in which case they could expect to find themselves up before powerful courts for heresy or treason. It was a period marked by a remarkable consensus about what was good and right and true. It was also a period in which despite major social change, the ministry of the church changed very little. Mission was something that happened in other countries. The ministry the church exercised in the west was essentially a pastoral ministry, bringing care to those it considered to be its members even if it actually saw them very rarely.
But things have changed, fundamentally and radically. Not every church has caught up with that fact yet, but I hope it’s not news to us. We live in a fundamentally different world. We live in a Western world that intellectually and morally has largely turned its back on the Christian faith. That is fundamentally not true in many parts of the world, and in many ways you can say that Europe is out of step with the rest of the world. But it is certainly true of Europe – of the UK, of Australia, of France, if less so of the States, that the Christian faith, and Christendom, is by and large a thing of the past, that the church is an irrelevancy.
I have the great privilege of living just a few hundred yards from the Place de la Concorde in Paris – the place that was once called the Place de la Revolution where both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, along with thousands of others were guillotined. The great Chinese communist leader Chou En Lai was once asked what he thought the impact of the French revolution had been, and he replied that it was too early to say. But the radical secularism that drove the revolution undoubtedly now holds sway in the west. And it is often militantly anti-Christian – witness the recent writing of Richard Dawkins.
And that is the world in which we go about our business as the church; that is the world in which we are called to share the Christian faith; that is the world we are called to witness too. And it is a fundamentally different world to the one in which many of us grew up. But unless we understand this world, how it is, how it thinks and how it works, we cannot hope to exercise effective ministry and mission in it.
Perhaps for the first time since the Edict of Milan we are beginning to live in a world not all that different to the one the early church lived in. It’s a world the little church in Ephesus would have been very familiar with. It was probably from Ephesus that the apostle John was sent to Patmos because, as he says in Revelation, of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. In other words, John was exiled from Ephesus for being a Christian and for exercising Christian ministry. We’re not there yet, but maybe not too far away we might be.
So the world of the church in Ephesus and the world we live in might not be that dissimilar. They may well have much more in common that the centuries of Christendom that lie between them.
Now there are two possible ways of reacting to such a changed situation. We can become angry of Herne Hill (or Paris) and write letters to the Times (or Le Monde). We can simply decry things, and wish sentimentally for a past that is just that – in the past. Or we can get to know this new world we’re living in, and re-examine what it means to be the people of God in such a situation. And that is much the better thing to do. In this context we can have the humility to question some – maybe even many – of the ways we’ve had of being church. We can rediscover what it means to be Church. And because we’re that much closer to the world of the NT than maybe our grandparents world was, we can re-engage with the scriptures to discover afresh just what it means to be the people of God – and we’re going to use the first half of the letter to the Ephesians to do just that this weekend.
Now in many ways the church in recent days has been doing a lot of that self-examination. The Mission Shaped report that came out a couple of years ago has been a modest best seller – and certainly outstripped any other General Synod report (not that it’s had much competition). Rediscovering mission is back on the churches agenda – and that’s great. In an increasingly hostile intolerant world, we need to be about the business of the Kingdom, announcing the reign of God: we need to re-orientate ourselves for mission. The world around us doesn’t want us to pastor it any more. Just like the Church in Ephesus we need to be in business of bringing the good news of Jesus to a world to whom it makes very little sense. Evangelism was once upon a time a question of calling people back to a faith they fundamentally knew about. But now we are sowing in very different soil. But we must be sowers of the seed. Once upon a time mission was a subset of Christian ministry, an occasional activity of the church. But it’s the other way round now. Christian ministry is a subset of the great mission of God to a lost world, a mission that he calls us to participate in. So part of our urgent agenda for the future needs to be to rediscover our cutting edge in mission. The church exists for the mission of God.
And yet at the same time I wonder if there isn’t another aspect of the life of the church that we have to come to terms with, and take with the utmost seriousness – recognising that if we don’t we’re likely to be very ineffective in mission. And to illustrate what that aspect is, I’m going to tell you a story….
[ppt]
About 8 years ago = took over residential activity hol. – some trepidation – how could it get any better?
1st year – thought: that was really good! Why? Many ingredients…
But seemed to be more than the sum of its parts. Then it struck me – what we had done, unwittingly- was to build community. That’s why it was so hard for kids and leaders to leave. Breaking bonds of community.
Next year, we set out to be much more intentional about building community.
It struck me – two specific dynamics which govern community [click].
External constraints – on a res. hol – timetable, rules and regs, health and safety, child prot policy. [click x 4]
And they are important constraints. No community can do without them. But not whole story
There’s another important dynamic which governs community [click] – not just those things which control it from without, but the things that shape it from within.
And for us, seeking to build Xn community these were values such as accountability, care, support, justice, compassion and above all love [click x5]. These are internal dynamics which are much more powerful than the external ones in hold community together – they are the real glue that keep us together.
And these are the internal dynamics [click] – stand in contrast to the external constraints In any human society you cannot do without laws and rules – boundaries are always necessary. But external constraints are never enough – and the best example of a society that is simply controlled by the constraints of law is a prison – and we didn’t want to be that. So we on our holiday set about consciously relying less and less on the external constraints – on the rules and regulations - and sought to rely more and more on the internal dynamics instead.
And the real challenge for Christian communities is to allow themselves to be shaped by the dynamics of the gospel: really and genuinely to be gospel communities. And that’s the challenge we’ve sought to meet on our holiday over the years.
And s’thing really signif happens when we focus less on the external constraints of law [click x2] and more on the internal dynamics of love [click x2]
We find that the boundary becomes less and less important. It’s in a prison that the boundary is of supreme importance. In communities shaped by grace the boundary matters less. It’s not the boundary that defines the community so much as what’s going on at its heart.
So we find that the boundary becomes increasingly porous, the edges become fuzzy. [click x 4]. And that shouldn’t surprise us. The more the community is shaped by the gospel, the more missionary the community becomes. Not only is it easier to go out from the community with the good news, but it’s also easier to come into. We find that the boundary between the Christian community and the host community becomes blurred – and that shouldn’t worry us because it’s these internal dynamics which give the Christian community its identity and integrity. Communities that sit light to law but major on grace and love are warm welcoming and attractive places to belong to, easy places to join, missional communities we can expect to grow.
Year after year at the end of our holiday – yp ask – why can’t church be more like this?
Year after year – fobbed them off with excuses. Until I decided not to do that any more. Perfectly reasonable question. Churches should be more like this: churches should be shaped by the dynamics of grace; churches should be all that the gospel is – warm welcoming and attractive places, places of love and places of grace: gospel communities not just in name, but in reality. It’s my passion that they should be such places – that’s certainly what we’re seeking to do in Paris.
Let me just give you another little illustration using of the church – Robert Warren – Building Missionary Congregations… three circles in balance
George Lings – reality: circles out of balance.
Challenge to bring them back into balance – and we do that I believe by rediscovering the joy and wonder of Christian community – by rediscovering the Church.
Three quotes that express the excitement of being Christian community, apassage that gets me out of bed in the morning and that captures something of the joy of Christian community. The joy of Christian community I hope we can recapture not just in our learning but in every aspect of what we do this weekend.

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 2a - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 2a : Revelation & Power
Ephesians 1: 3-14

I guess if I started my sermon with the words 'Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin' you'd either feel I was treating you like children, or you'd be pleased because I was going to tell you a story. For myself, if I heard a preacher start like that then I'd be glad, because I love stories. I love reading them, and I love listening to them. Stories can excite us, grip us, move us, shape us and change us in a way few other things can..

Stories can be very powerful things. Let me give you an example: take the case of Israel where in recent years there has been such terrible blood shed between Jew and Arab. Why should there be such tension between people who live side by side in the same country? It's because both sides see themselves as part of totally different stories. A Jew in Israel would say to you, 'My people have suffered terrible prejudice and hatred, and we have finally come back to where we belong, to the land that is ours by right. But even here we still suffer at the hands of terrorists, and we cannot give in to them or they will push us off this land into the sea.' That's the story they tell, but a Palestinian will say to you, 'My father, and my grandfather, and my great grandfather have always lived in this land, they built houses here, and farmed land here, but then these Jews came and took our land away from us, and made us refugees, and treated us as second class citizens within our own land'.'

Those are stories that Jew and Arab see themselves as a part of, those are the stories that have powerfully shaped the way they see themselves. And you find the same kind of thing in every place of conflict - in Darfur, in Iraq, in Ulster. But it doesn't just go on in places of conflict. Most of the ideologies that at different times people have followed - all those words that end in -ism like fascism, and feminism, and communism - all of them in one sense are stories that people use to explain how things are in the world. Communism told a story about a world-wide class struggle that was going to bring in a universal workers' proletariat. In the days of imperialism in this country we told ourselves a story about how Britannia rules the waves, and how through our own national -and racial superiority we were able to bring stability and civilisation to the savages. Different – but similar story in France....

Now it's easy to be critical of many of those stories, but the truth is we all see ourselves to some extent as having a part in a story. We may not feel they're very exciting, but these stories we see ourselves in are important to us because they help us understand ourselves and our situation, and the world we live in.'

But it's vitally important that we get a right understanding of ourselves our situation and the world we live in. We can see all too clearly in Israel and Ulster and Rwanda what happens when people come up with the wrong answers. No, we need to see things as they really are - which means we need to listen to the right story, to the true story.

And that is what God's Good News, the gospel, claims to be - the right story, the true story, the only story that will give us a right understanding of ourselves our situation and the world we live in. And it's that story that we see sketched out for us in our passage from Ephesians that we're going to be looking at together this morning. And this story is important for us because it's this story – and no other that defines the Church as the people of God. It's our story.

It's a story with three major characters in it. And it's a story that Paul gets very excited about. In Gk. Vv 3-13 are just one long sentence - and words just tumble out of Paul in his passionate enthusiasm for the story of God's good news.

To says it's passionate, however, is not to say that it's disorganised or incoherent. There's a clear pattern in what Paul says. He deals with each of our three main characters in turn, describing what part God the Father, Jesus the Son and his Holy Spirit have had to play in this unfolding story. And he concludes each part with what is in Gk. an identical call to us to praise God who is Father Son and Spirit - to praise them for their part in the story, & you can see those three calls to praise in vv. 6, 12 & 14.

So let's look at each character in turn. We start with God the Father: let's hear his part in the story again in vv. 3 - 6a [ ]. We're to praise the Father for two reasons. First he has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We'll see what those blessings are as we work through the passage - but just note how lavish our God is in his generosity: he has blessed us... with every spiritual blessing in Christ. He doesn't hold back, he's extravagant in what he gives. It's in his nature to go over the top - not just a few spiritual blessings - but every one in the heavenly realms has been given to us.

Secondly we're to praise the Father for one very significant blessing: vv. 4 & 5 [ ]. This story starts with God the Father. It's not just that he's the first character to set foot on the stage - he's the one who built the stage in the first place. He's the one who sets the story in motion, he initiated it, he made the first move by choosing us to be his even before the creation of the world. Isn't that an amazing thought? That you and I have been in God's plan, his story, since before the creation of the world. He's always had it mind to make you and me his children. We've not stepped into the story when it's already been running for few millennia - no, because the Father loves us, he chose us to be his from the very beginning. Doesn't that make you feel good - knowing you've been personally chosen to be his child? I hope it does. It should make us together feel good that together we've been chosen to be his children, his church.

It should also make us humble. We've been chosen to be his children not because we're special, but because (v. 4) he loves us. And it should also make us holy - that's why we've been chosen (v. 4 again) - he chose us to be holy and blameless in his sight. And he chose us finally so that he should be praised (v. 6). The story that starts in the love of the Father, who reaches out to us in love and chooses us and makes us his own, ends in our response of praise and thanks to the Father. And those are key markers of the church: humility, holiness and worship.

So God the Father starts the story by choosing us and blessing us. And the person through whom he chooses and blesses us is of course his Son Jesus: vv 7 -10 [ ]. When we think about Jesus' place in this story - the story that the Father has started, we're not to think so much of the beginning, but of two different points. One point is the key point right in the centre of the story, the climax up to which all the story so far has been leading. And the second point is the very end of the story, when there's no more story to tell.

Let's look at each point in turn. That key point in the middle of the story is of course the Cross. It's on the cross that we find (v. 7) redemption through his blood and forgiveness of our sins. Behind the word redemption there's the idea of setting slaves free by paying a price for them. And that of course is exactly what Christ did on the cross. He set us free from the slavery of sin and death: the slavery to every evil force which enchained us, paying the price with his own blood. And because the price is paid, we can enjoy the Father's forgiveness.

And what do we find at the end of the story? There we find a mystery revealed (v.9) Something once secret has been made public. To us who believe has been revealed the secret of what will happen at the very end of time (v. 10): 'all things in heaven and on earth' will be brought together 'under one head, even Christ.' One day every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. That's how the story ends. In this story we know the ending before it's happened – and that's the revelation in the title of this session.

And in between the cross and that moment when Christ will be fully known as Lord stands Paul and his fellow Jewish believers: v. 11 [ ]. Paul could have seen himself in a different story - a story that took him from his prison, possibly to death in Rome. But that's not the story that matters - all that's put in the shade by the fact that he has a part in the only story that counts: he's been chosen, hand picked by the Lord. And he's been chosen for a reason: v. 12 [ ].

So just as what the Father has done should lead to his praise, so what the Son has done should lead to his praise too. It's quickly becoming clear to us that our part, our role in the story is not only to be on the receiving end of these great things the Lord has done and is doing for us. Our specific part, our specific role, is to praise him for them – and that's the only response we can really make.

I said a moment ago that Paul and his fellow Jewish believers stand between the cross and that moment when Christ will be fully known as Lord - but they don't stand there alone. We stand there too, with them: vv. 13 - 14 [ ]. We too stand between the climax of the story - at the cross - and the culmination of the story when all things are put under Jesus' feet. We stand in between. You see remarkably we have a place in this story. I said earlier that there are three main characters in the story: the Father, the Son and the Spirit And there are – but the remarkable things is that these three characters invite to participate i the story as well. [Mary Poppins pavement pictures....]

We're invited into the story. We have a place in it. But sometimes the climax of the story can seem a long way in the past, and sometimes the culmination of the story can seem a long way in the future, and sometimes may be we doubt whether it's a true story at all, or was it just a beautiful dream?

Well because life can be like that we've been give the third of the three main characters - the Holy Spirit. As the Father has blessed us and chosen us, and as, in the Son, he has redeemed us and revealed the future to us, so he given us the Spirit both to seal us and to reassure us, as we read just now. God has given his Spirit to us both to tell us that we belong to him, and to assure us about what the future holds.

The Spirit is God's seal on us - that's to say, the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on us. In ancient times cattle and even slaves were branded with a seal to show who they belonged to. Well the Holy Spirit is God's brand, his stamp of ownership on each one of us. To have God's spirit within us is to be assured that we belong to him. Through the cross we've been set free, and by the Spirit we're marked as God's own. The Spirit guarantees us that we have a place in God's story.

And the Spirit is also a guarantee of what's to come. The Spirit if you like is a downpayment - a deposit - assuring us that the full package of God's blessings will be given to us at the end of time. But more than that God's Holy Spirit is a foretaste of what's to come. The blessings of heaven will be beyond our wildest dreams - but they will be recognisable to us, because through the gift of the Spirit we have already had a foretaste of them. Standing as we are in the middle of the story, the Spirit assures us that the end will come - & that we have a part in that end.

It's a great story isn't it? But you might be wondering why I told it to you. 'We know that already,' you might say, 'we don't need you to come in and preach it to us.' Well no you don't. But whether or not you know it, it's always worth hearing it again, because there's always more to discover in it.

But the particular reason I've sketched out this story again for us, is that we need to ensure that this story continues to shape us: to mould our thinking, our believing and our behaving. That's why it's at the beginning of Ephesians - it sets the agenda for all that's to follow. And I want to issue three brief challenges to us, as to how this story should shape us, and set our agenda for us as well.

First it must shape us individually. We need to see ourselves as having a place within this story. We're not just readers of it, but, astonishingly characters in it. We need to know that the blessings that God has given, the things God has done - he has given to us individually, he has done for us personally. There's is nothing more important for us to know than that we have been adopted as a child of God, and nothing will give us a greater sense of identity, of assurance, of security and of purpose than knowing that we are individually loved and cherished by our Father, redeemed through the Son, and sealed with the Spirit. So if you're a Christian see yourself as part of that story, delight to have a part in it - and then praise God for it.

Secondly this story should shape our Churches. We need to ensure that this story really is the story of the church we belong to. In Paris we've recently been through Ephesians – and we did that because I think we'd lost sight of what our true story is. We were starting to tell ourselves a different kind of story – one that went like this: we've been through a rough time in the last couple of years. Relationships have been damaged, trust has been strained, we've struggled to get by. And you know all those things were true. But they were in danger of becoming the dominating truth in the church's life, the dominating story, that was in danger of making us forget this story: this story that truly defines us. So we needed reminding of the true story that truly defines us. We needed to bring it back into centre stage of our life and thinking and believing and praying – and we've needed to rediscover our central calling – to be people of thankfulness and praise who worship God for this story.

And finally we must ensure that this story shapes our world. The story of God's good news is not a story just for individuals, it's not just a narrow thing for Churches, it's for communities, it's for society, it's for nations, it's for the universe. God's story is a universal story, that enfolds everything and everyone. To be the Church is to be caught up already into the story that will one day be the story of the whole universe. And our job is to work to see the universe - or at least our little part of it - our place of work, our home, our school, our community - shaped by this story, incorporated into this story, our job is to see Christ given his rightful place, with all things - work, home, school, community, nations continents - all things in heaven and on earth under him as head. Our job is to see him exalted - and then to join together to praise him. Let's pray


Wnat to give you space as individuals to reflect on this story together. Find space. Ask self three questions:

● What story do you tell about yourself?
● Do you see this story as your story?
● If not, what are the barriers to you doing so?

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 2b - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 2b : Revelation & Power
Ephesians 1: 15-23

Let me start by asking you a question: what do you most want for the people around you? It's not that easy a question to answer is it? I wouldn't blame you if you have to stop and think for a few minutes. I wouldn't blame you, because it's not something we tend to ask ourselves.

But Paul had no doubt about what he wanted for the Christians in Ephesus, and he makes it abundantly clear in this wonderful prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23, which we're going to look at now.

If you want one word to characterise this prayer, I would choose the word passionate. Paul is passionate in his praying, in his hopes and desires for the Ephesian Christians. This prayer springs out of a real excitement, a real passion, about the story of God, and the Ephesian Church's involvement in it. And that this passion is expressed in a prayer suggests the Ephesians involvement in the story isn't a completely done deal. I don't mean by that their place in it isn't secure. What I do mean is that by praying for them – and by praying this prayer for them – Paul signals his desire, his passion that this story be told with ever more clarity and with ever more power in their lives. His excitement about what God has already done for them, drives him on with renewed passion to ask God to give them yet more. "God's done all this and for this reason I ask him to do more."

There's a holy restless passion about Paul. He's never content. He doesn't pray for this Church because God hasn't been at work in their lives – clearly he has – look at vv 15 – he pray for them precisely because God has been at work amongst them, and still is. I have a friend who never tires of saying, 'God's got more.' And he's right. God's got more for his church. If there's a holy restless passion in Paul, it's only because God himself has a wholly restless passion for his people, for his church, for us, that we should discover more and more of the riches he has for us.

But before we look in details at what those riches are, we need to look at another of Paul's passions, that isn't stated in so many words in this prayer, but which underlines it, and is a key motivation for it. Not only does Paul have a passion for the gospel, he also has a passion for people. Indeed you can't have a real passion for the gospel unless you have a passion, a real heartfelt concern for people, because the gospel is for people. I once found myself running a training event at which found myself saying that sounded slightly heretical, but which I think is profoundly true. I said, if you care about the gospel more that the people you're sharing it with, then you're not being true to the gospel – because of course the gospel is about God's love for people. . And Paul the Apostle who God has sent to these Ephesian Christians has a real heart for them, he has a passion for them, he loves them. He doesn't need to say it, it shines out from what he writes. These are not people he occasionally gets round to on his prayer list out of a sense of duty but little else. These are people he cares for passionately, and prays for continually. He cares deeply about their spiritual health and welfare - and so he prays for them.. I once heard prayer described as 'holding people up to God with love in your heart'. And that's surely what Paul is doing here. The passion in his prayer springs not only from his passion for the gospel, but also from his passion for people.

So now let's move on to what Paul actually asks for. Taken all together, the various requests in his prayer amount to a passionate vision and that's my third point: (x2). Indeed there are really two passionate visions here, and we'll look at them in turn. The first vision is of what he wants for the Ephesians in vv 17 -19a. Indeed you could say that his vision for the Ephesians is that they should have vision themselves: vv 17 & 18a [ ]. Note again the work of the Trinity in v. 17 [ ]. And note what the Trinity is to do: Father, Son and Holy Spirit will take the spiritual blinkers off the Ephesians, 1. to give them wisdom - real understanding of spiritual things; 2. to give them revelation - real understanding of God himself; 3. to give them knowledge - not just knowledge about God, but knowing him personally; 4 to give them light, so that spiritual things become clear to them. And the particular three spiritual things he wants them to see clearly he lists at the end of v. 18 and the start of v. 19 [ ]. What he wants them to grasp are 1. the glorious hope that lies before them, 2. the wonderful blessing that await them, and 3. the mighty power which is even now at work amongst them - the mighty power which is nothing less that the power which raised Jesus from the dead. That's the passionate vision Paul has for the Ephesians, a vision he wants them to share. Spiritual tunnel vision is to be replaced with this wonderful wide-screen, glorious Technicolor panorama of the blessings of God for his people, his church.

But that as I said is only the first part of this passionate vision. If the focus in the first part of the vision is on the Ephesian Church the focus in the second part is on the Lord of the Church, on Jesus Christ and here we're looking at vv. 19b - 23. Here is Paul's passionate vision of Jesus [ ]. It is a passionate, a glorious vision - but what's it got to do with the Church in Ephesus? What we mustn't think here is that in his passion and excitement Paul gets carried away, and forgets his passionate vision of the Church in favour of a passionate vision of Jesus. He's not running off at a tangent. Christ has been raised from the dead, and by virtue of that fact he now reigns above every other power and authority in the universe. And - here's the amazing thing – he does this, v. 22 for his church: he rules over everything for his church, for us, for the church which, v. 23, is nothing less than his body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way. You see the one thing you can't do here is separate Christ from his church. The Church is the bride of Christ and what God has brought together let no-one put asunder. It's not just that they belong together – it's that they're almost indistinguishable, the two have become one: the church is his body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way.

Well let's pause for a moment with that breathtaking thought, and just let it sink in. No wonder Paul is passionate. No wonder Paul is passionate about the Church. You see you can't really separate the passions in this prayer – his passion for the Lord, for his Church, for it's people and for the story that brought them into being. They belong together, they are intimately intertwined. And in the end we have to stop the process of analysing this passionate prayer. We simply have to own it's passion and pray it ourselves. We need that same restless passion that wants more that we find in Paul, and which has its roots in the restless passion of God.

Ask your average person in the street for the defining characteristics of the church and they're unlikely to talk about the church as a place of passion. But they should be. It should be one of the prime internal dynamics of the church that we looked at yesterday. It's my prayer for you this w/e that you will recapture your passion, your excitement about being the people of God, and your love for the God who makes you his people.

This world desperately needs passionate churches. And this world desperately needs passionate churches for one simple reason – because it's in the demonstration of our passion that the passionate love of Jesus is revealed in us and through us [x2]. If frankly we don't care all that much, then however much we may claim to be the body of Christ then nothing of Jesus will be seen in us. If we're indifferent, then he'll be invisibe. But if we reflect and demonstrate his passion, then he will be seen and found and known in us. And that's what the world desperately needs – to meet Jesus in his Church. This world desperately needs us to recapture our passion, that it may meet Jesus in his Church. And that means that this world desperately needs this prayer to be answered in us.

Let's pray it together now.

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 3a - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 3a : Salvation & Unity
Ephesians 2: 1-10

When was the last time you had to write a CV, a curriculum vitae? Some of you I guess may never have written one. If you’re like me, you’ll have one filed away somewhere on your computer. Mine has quite a long history, and maybe says more about my past than the present. It says for instance that I enjoy badminton. I came in for quite a lot of stick from Ruth and Kitty when they realised it said that. But I stick by it. I do like badminton. The fact I’ve only played it twice in the last eighteen years is neither here nor there.

If you’re like me, then you’ll not find the business of writing a CV that easy. You can feel torn between the need to sell yourself – because it’s a competitive market out there – and the need to be humble – because that’s what as Christians we should be. But there’s a more fundamental unease than that. There’s a fundamental issue about how we see ourselves? About what it is that defines us. Ask both Marx and out and out capitalists, and they’ll tell us that we’re primarily economic beings. Others will tell us that who we are is defined by our genetic predisposition. Some psychologists will tell us that ultimately we are sexual beings. Now of course there can be valuable insights into the reality of the human condition from all kinds of quarters, but we need to exercise discernment as well. Such viewpoints may tell us things about ourselves, but by themselves, if they are mirrors, then at best they are distorting mirrors, like you get at a fair. They don’t give us a true picture of ourselves.

And of course it’s not just a question of how others see us. Much more important in many ways is how we see ourselves. What do we really think matters about ourselves. Is it the shape of our bodies? Is it the power we exercise? Is it the size of our bank balance? Again, these can be seriously distorting mirrors. One of my observations from my years of pastoral ministry is that half the people one meets seem to suffer from a terribly exaggerated sense of their own importance, and the other half suffer from cripplingly low self esteem. Both are tragic. Both stop us from being the people we should be. Both stop us from being the people God wants us to be.

By contrast Ephesians 2: 1-10 tells us like it is. It’s a true mirror that helps us to see ourselves as we really are. It’s our real CV. Paul finishes chapter 1 with this glorious vision of Christ in glory reigning over everything for his church. But now he’s as it were wound the tape back. And he wants to tell this Church – and us – how they got into the story in the first place. So in this passage he goes back to the beginning and tells us the story that is the story of every Christian – and is indeed the story of the church, our corporate story. The story we looked at in Ch 1 is the story from God's perspective. But this story here in Ch 2 examines things from our standpoint. And it’s a story which tells us who we really are. So let’s use this passage to answer the question, ‘Who are we?’ We’re going to look at the passage in two halves. Vv 1-3 tells us who we are by nature. And vv 4-10 tell us who we are by the grace of God. Let’s be logical and take the first half first.

And of course it makes grim reading doesn’t it. We’d rather skip it and get on to part two, because it tells us rather embarrassing things about ourselves. But we need to remember that there’s no good news without the bad news first.

There are, according to Paul, three aspects to this bad news about us. First, to put it bluntly, we ‘were dead in our transgressions and sins’ v. 1.Transgressions and sins are interesting words, with subtly different shades of meaning. The idea behind ‘transgression’ is of crossing a boundary. ‘Sin’ on the other hand is about falling short of a requires standard. The first is about rebellion. The second is about failure. And that’s the truth of the matter. We are both rebels and failures. We have overstepped the boundary. We have fallen short of the mark. And the result of this rebellion and failure is quite clear. Death. The penalty for rebellion and failure is death: spiritual, moral and eternal. Let’s be clear about this. To be trapped in sin is not just a question of not being able to live life to the full. It’s not just a question of failing to realise our full potential. It’s is about being dead, spiritually, morally and eternally. It’s a stark as that. And we have to look in the mirror and face up to it. Because there is no good news without the bad news first.

By nature we are dead. And secondly by nature we are up against three old foes in V. 2 & 3a. Three old foes in the shape of the world, the flesh and the devil – or rather, in the order we find them here, the world, the devil and the flesh. All three are deadly enemies..

Enemy one is the world. When Paul talks about the world, he doesn’t mean the world as God created it., which although fallen, has much in it for us to enjoy, treasure and preserve. He means instead the whole structure and value system of human society which is organised without any reference to God. Wherever people are dehumanised, made less than they should be, there we see the power of the world at work. It happens in all kinds of ways: through political oppression, through poverty, through pornography, through materialism, through racism, through an obsession with celebrity. All of these influences are examples of the world at work, demeaning human beings and making them so much less that God would have them be.

And enemy number two is the devil. Paul talks in v. 2 about ‘the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.’. We've come across the ‘at work’ word before – though it’s a bit hidden in English. It’s the same word used to describe the power of God which was at work when Jesus was raised from the dead, and which is now at work in us. The point is of course that you’re going to have one power or other at work in you. Either the power of Satan, or the power of God. There’s no middle ground. And remember, that by nature, without Christ we are those – however nice we may be – in whom the devil is at work.

And our third enemy is the flesh. In v. 3 Paul talks about ‘gratifying….[ ]’ Sinful nature is what used to be translated ‘flesh’. And I think it’s helpful we’ve got away from that translation. When Paul uses the Greek word ‘sarx’ (which does literally mean flesh), he’s not saying the body is evil. Nor is he saying the there’s nothing wrong with our minds. He’s saying that just as human society without God goes tragically wrong, so human beings without God go tragically wrong too. We become trapped inside ourselves, cut off from one another and from God, by the selfish desires and passions which control us. They seem to offer so much, but actually offer us nothing at all.

Let’s recap. Here’s the bad news. By nature we are dead, by nature we are enslaved by our three enemies: the world, the devil and the flesh. And thirdly, by nature we are condemned: v.3b [ ]. Here’s another uncomfortable fact we have to face. God cares about sin. It angers him, it infuriates him. He is angry with those who sin. Many find that untenable. We live in a supposedly spiritual age. But go to the mind body and spirit section of your local bookshop where all the new age self help stuff lurks and you’ll not find much there about the wrath of God. But go to your local Christian bookshop, and you’ll not find much about it there either. But we can’t ignore it. We have to face it. And it is strangely comforting. The fact that God is angry reminds us that we isn’t indifferent. He isn’t neutral We live in a moral universe. Right and wrong matter. We have a God who cares. He’s angry for exactly the same reason that he’s merciful – and that’s because he cares.

So that’s the bad news. By nature we are dead, enslaved and condemned. Doesn’t look good does it?. Doesn’t look good on your CV. Doesn’t look a pretty sight in the mirror. But that’s the truth of it. And there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t educate or self-help our way out of it. Chicken soup for the soul won’t help. This is a deep problem requiring a deep solution. And we are out of our depth. As Elvis used to sing: ‘we’re caught in a trap, there’s no way out.’ Except of course that there is.

In Greek, vv. 4-10 start with the awesome words, ‘but God.’ And that makes all the difference. By nature we are dead, enslaved and condemned – but God. Suddenly the clouds lift, the tables turn, bad news turns into good – because God has stepped on to the scene. Our CV changes character completely, our mirror image is transformed.

What difference does God make? Twice he tells us: we have been saved – v. 4 & v. 8 - in other words we have been rescued, from death, from slavery, from condemnation. That’s who we are, not by nature this time, but by grace: we are those who have been saved.

How has this happened? We need to understand that this passage is simply a continuation of Paul’s prayer back at the end of Ch. 1. There he was talking about Jesus being dead but raised. Now here, he’s talking about the same thing. He’s talking about us being dead but raised. And the point is, of course that the two are connected - all this has happened to us because of Jesus.

We can sometimes think that there are basically two stories in the NT – the story of Jesus and the story of the Church. Actually there’s only one. There’s only the story of Jesus. But the wonder of the good news is that by grace his story becomes our story. What’s true of him, becomes true of us. And that’s really clearly spelt out here. V. 4a, 5 [ ]. V. 6 [ ]. Jesus has been brought back to life – and so have we, in him. Jesus has been raised up to heaven – and so have we, in him. Jesus has been seated at the right hand of God – and so have we, in him. What’s true of him, becomes true of us. Just let that sink in. It’s breathtaking. What’s true of the Son of God becomes true even of us – even to the extent that we are enthroned with him in heaven. He doesn’t treat us we deserve. He doesn’t even give us a good seat in the stalls. He seats us with him in the heavenly realms. Amazing.

And why does he do this? Look at the language Paul uses. God is rich in mercy – v. 4, it is by grace vv. 5, 7 & 8, it’s because of his kindness v. 7. This is the language of love – and in case we didn’t spot it, that’s exactly what Paul says in v. 4. – ‘because of his great love for us’. Think for a moment of everything we saw in vv. 1-4: we were dead, rebels, failures, enslaved by the world, the devil and the flesh, condemned by the wrath of God. And yet he loves us. And yet he loves us. Isn’t that awesome? We were all that, and yet he loved us.

Let me ask you. Do you know that you are loved? Do you really know it? Have you ever know it? Have you maybe forgotten it? But you are. Deeply, unchangeably, unshakeably loved. And there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more. We can’t in fact be anymore loved by him, than he loves us now, because his love is total and eternal. There’s nothing we can add, nothing we can do, nothing we can bring. The Lord is all we need. His love is quite enough. That’s why Paul reminds us in v. 8 & 9 [ ]. We need to beware any thought that we had a part to play – that would make us feel good wouldn’t it? But it’s not about us. It’s about love.

Yes there’s things for us to do – v. 10 makes that clear. But we don’t get involved in these good works to make up for anything lacking in the love of God, we get involved in these good works in response to the love of God. We are God’s workmanship. Our good works follow.

In fact there’s an interesting phrase hidden in those last words of v. 10. Literally it reads [v. 10 – ‘which God prepared in advance for us to walk in.’ Why is that interesting? Go back to vv. 1 & 2 and again read it literally, and you get [v1 – in which you use to walk]. So our passage begins and ends with two ways of walking/. One the walk of death in sin and transgression, the other, the walk of life, as we do things God has planned for us. That’s the contrast. This passage describes. What we are by nature, and what we are by grace. And the great hinge on which the whole turns are those two simple words, ‘But God.’ He’s the one who makes the difference. Because he loves us. To be the people of God is to be people who are – quite simply - loved.

So what does this mean for us? What do we need to do? Simply this. We need to learn to see ourselves aright. Individually and as churches we need to have a right sense of self-esteem. We need to know how we really look in the mirror. We need to know what our CV really says. I said earlier half the people one meets suffer from a terribly exaggerated sense of their own importance, and the other half suffer from cripplingly low self esteem. Well if you are a little too much in love with yourself. Remember what you are by nature – and learn to love instead the one who in spite of all that loves you far more than you love yourself. And if you do find it hard to love yourself, then remember what you are by grace., learn that you are loved, and loveable, and cannot be loved more than you are already. In C. S .Lewis second Narnia book, Prince Caspian, Caspian tells Aslan that he wished he came from a better family, and Aslan says, ‘You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, and that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.’

So let’s remember what we truly are, individually and together – by nature and by grace. But let’s remember too that to be a Christian is to have left the first behind. We have been set free. By God’s grace we can leave the past behind. We have been liberated by grace. We are loved unconditionally, we cannot be unloved, and we cannot be loved more. We have been set free to be ourselves. Set free to be the people God always designed us to be. Set free to be the Church God always designed you to be. Let’s pray.

Quiet: meditate on passage – re-read inserting name? Sing 'Only by grace' Leg stretch

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 3b - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 3b : Salvation & Unity
Ephesians 2: 11-22

For some strange reason I’ve always been fascinated by boundaries and borders. They are after all purely arbitrary lines on a map. Sometimes it’s true they follow the lines of rivers, or a range of hills, but in many instances they are just arbitrary, lying where they do for all kinds of accidental historical reasons. Venture exp... Animals don’t recognise them of course – they have their own boundaries - and yet they are powerful things, with a particular emotional power. Often you can’t see the boundary between Scotland and England – but which side you live makes a huge difference to how you see yourself – and indeed to how others see you.
And ‘boundaries’ is essentially the theme of this passage from Ephesians – or at least of the first two thirds of it. The passage we just looked at describes a complete and utter change of state and transformation. It’s about the crossing of a very fundamental boundary.
It is of course a process of individual transformation – but it's not only that. This is a letter written to a church, after all, not just one person, and in this passage 2: 11-22, Paul spells out the implications of this transformational boundary crossing not just for individuals, but for people together – or rather for two distinct groups of people together.
The first group is the Gentiles – that blanket terms of course which includes everyone, of whatever race, who is not Jewish.
And the fact is Paul doesn’t have anything too flattering to say about those of us who are in that camp. Listen to v. 12 [ ]. We really are on the wrong side of the boundary – as if we were on the wrong side of the Berlin war at the height of the cold war – but much worse.
It’s not flattering language – but we have to recognise, those of us who are gentiles, that Jewish people have a privileged place in the purposes of God, a place that is not ours by right. It is with the people of Israel that God chose through Abraham to make his covenant, and it is through the people of Israel that God chose to bring blessing to the whole wide world. And if Israel failed in that calling it doesn’t mean that the gentiles automatically take their place – or indeed that we would have done any better. Israel was the people of God’s own choosing, and we Gentiles are those who were on the outside looking in.
Except now we’re not of course – because of Jesus – v. 13 [ ]. In Jesus the boundary for us Gentiles has been crossed. And there’s one very clear implication from the fact that we are brought near to God through the blood of Christ. It is that in coming close to God, in crossing the boundary between God and humankind – ethnic identity, descent from Abraham has been superseded by something better – by the blood of Christ. So what is sauce for the gentile goose is sauce for the Jewish gander – the same rules apply. Jewish people too come close to God, and cross the boundary by the very same method – by the blood of Christ. They may have been closer to the Father than the gentiles – but there was still a boundary to cross, and we all cross it in exactly the same way – through the blood of Christ. So Paul talks about God’s plan, in v. 16 [to reconcile…] and in v. 18 he makes it quite clear that [through him ]. The same rules apply. There is only one way to cross the boundary, and that is through the cross of Jesus Christ.
And this new equality in Christ between Jew and Gentile has another profound implication. If the boundary between God and Humankind – whether Jew and gentile – has been crossed – then the boundary – the wall – between Jew and gentile becomes utterly redundant. But even more than it being redundant, Paul tells us that it’s been destroyed.
And it’s been destroyed in the same way that the barrier between God and man has been destroyed – through the blood of Christ: v. 14 [ ]. So Jesus death breaks down not only the vertical barriers separating heaven and earth – but also all the man made barriers we like to construct.
That’s the point of what Paul writes in v.15, when he talks about [abolishing…regulations]. He’s not saying that the God-given law is now suddenly out of date – rather he’s referring to the Jewish practice of using the keeping of the law as a vital demarcation line – a boundary if you like – which marked them off from the gentile world. Not only were they the people who were given the law, they were the people who kept it – and that’s what made them different. But no, Paul, says, we’re all in the same boat. If we have the same access to the Father, then we have open access to each other. If the boundary between us and God has been broken down, then no boundary we set up between each other – whether it’s the law or anything else - has any validity. It’s gone: the wall has been destroyed by the power of the cross.
And it’s at this point in what Paul’s saying that the metaphor changes. We leave the boundaries, the walls behind. Of course we do – they’ve been knocked over. We move from walls which divide, to a dwelling place which unites: a dwelling place which unites, because we live in it together. It’s as if the Lord has knocked down the walls, and taken the stones and turned them into a house
And there are a number of features of this house which we need to notice. And the first is that for us Gentiles it’s a place of great privilege – listen to v. 19 [ ]. That language is Israel language. ‘Foreigners and aliens’ was language often used in the OT to describe the Gentiles, especially those living in the land of Israel - but we’re not them any more. Instead we’re fellow citizens with God’s people. We’ve got the passport and the identity card. We are members of God’s household, we can eat from the same table as the children. Indeed we are children with them.
And then again we belong to a house with very special architecture – it’s built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That’s a significant partnership: it points to the partnership between the Old Testament and the New Testament people of God – both of whom in the prophets and the apostles have born witness to the truth of God. And what (or rather who) ties the old covenant and the new covenant people of God together is, as we’ve already seen, Jesus himself – Jesus through whom we both have access to the father. Which is why in this building Jesus is the chief cornerstone – the one stone that gives the building stability, and without which the whole thing would tumble to the ground.
So it’s a dwelling place, a house, which all God’s people can share together, both Jew and gentile. And that’s fantastic. But it’s more than that. Listen to v. 21[ ]. You see it’s not just a house, it’s a temple, it’s a temple in the Lord. That has a very specific implication. The temple in Jerusalem was the very centre of the Jewish faith, the epicentre of all things Jewish, and it was that because it was the place where God had promised to meet his people.
Well Paul says, God still promises to meet his people – but not in the temple in Jerusalem. He meets us as we meet each other: as we belong together to his household, so we known his presence amongst us, we become a holy Temple in the Lord. The Lord is present amongst us. And in case we don’t pick up the heavy hint he’s dropped in v. 21 he spells it out for us in. v 22 [ ]. Once again in Ephesians Paul doesn’t soft pedal his language about the church. The church of God is nothing less than the place in which God lives by his Spirit.
So what does all this mean for us? Well for start, just be encouraged, whether you’re a Jew or a gentile. We’ve both us been brought near to God through the blood of Jesus. We’ve both therefore been brought near to one another. The dividing wall’s been knocked down: we share together in all the promises of God, and the Lord chooses to make his home here amongst us. And if that isn’t good news then I don’t know what is.
So be encouraged. Yes the boundaries have well and truly been crossed, yes we belong together, and yes together we belong to God. He makes his home amongst us. Don’t doubt it, rejoice in it.
But at the same time we also need to make sure that our attitudes and behaviour are of a piece with this truth. We need to live lives of genuine Christian integrity: lives of truth that reflect this truth.
That means I think that we need to do two things. The first is that we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down [x2].
Building walls, and setting boundaries that we don’t allow other people to cross is a very human tendency. We like to define ourselves by what we are not, we like to define ourselves by being different from other people. ‘Well I may not be up to much, but at least I’m not as bad as him’ as if that let’s us off the hook. Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector? The Pharisee who stood up in the temple and said 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. But it was not the Pharisee, who was all too ready to build walls between himself and other people, who went home justified before God.
And the walls of prejudice, or pride, or self-satisfied smugness have no place in the people of God. We all stand in the same place before God. We only have access to God through the blood of Jesus. So where Jesus has broken down walls we have no business to rebuild them. And we have to knock them down whenever we find ourselves rebuilding them – and we rebuild them when we become choosy about who we mix with, when we limit our circle of friends to those who are like us, when we all too easily write other people off – maybe they’re not bright enough, or beautiful enough, maybe they don’t the right job or enough money. Well if there is no barrier between them and God then we have no business building one ourselves – and if we do then all we actually do is cut ourselves off from the Lord.
So we need to repent of our wall building tendency and be genuinely open to one another, however different we are one to another. Your two churches are wonderfully diverse Churches. All human life is here – well nearly. That’s a real strength. But it’s also a real temptation within such a diverse parish to seek out those who are like us – which is really a form of self worship – and whenever we do that we’re building walls. But we’re not to. We’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. So let’s delighted together in our diversity, and see it as the real gift that it is.
So we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. And the second thing we need to do is to ensure that we don’t knock down the temple that God is building [x2].
I hope it’s becoming clear to you by now, if you didn’t know it before, that Ephesians gives us an incredibly exciting view of what it means to be the Church of God. So we’re told that Jesus is head over all – for his church; that the Church is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. In Ch. 3 we’ll be told that the church is God’s means for revealing his wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. And here we’re told that the Church is nothing less than a temple in which God lives by his spirit.
So we’re not to knock the church! That much at least is clear. There is a tendency in some Christian circles to do just that - but we’re not to join in. But it’s more than that. We knock the church when we undervalue the immense privilege of belonging, when we have a take it our leave it attitude to the church. It’s not about being blinkered, and doing nothing but church stuff – belonging to God’s church should not consume us, but should rather should fire us for living our lives for God in every area of life – at work, at home, at leisure, wherever. But Church won’t fire us and resource us to live for God in those areas if we undervalue the immense privilege it is to belong to his people. It is our passport, it gives us our most fundamental sense of identity. We need to know just how privileged a people we really are, and delight in it, and take its responsibilities seriously. It is an immense privilege to belong to the people of God. We’re not to knock down the temple that God is building, but work with him to build it, and ensure we are built into it.
There is you see a giveness about Church. We tend to think – rather sloppily – that you become a Christian, and then you choose a church. Well it really doesn’t work like that. To be a Christian is to belong to God’s people, is to belong to God’s church. We have to recognise that Church and God go together: you simply can’t have the one without the other. It’s not on offer.
That's why I think our Anglican parish system has so much to recommend it. We simply gather together from across the local area in all our oddness and diversity to be one people. And it's here in all your wonderful technicolor oddness and diversity that you can truly discover what it means to be the people of God, what it means to be a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. It’s here that you can discover what he can do through you, as he works among you, as he builds you as his temple.
So make sure you do nothing to undermine what he’s doing in your churches. Turn your backs on the separatism and individualism that surely does just that. Break down the walls that divide you. And let me encourage you instead to commit yourselves instead to work together and to work with the Lord in all he wants to do amongst us and through you. Be the temple he wants you to be – that in you, and through you his presence may truly be made known in Herne Hill. Let’s pray.

Identify walls and barriers in church life.
How can they be broken down?
How can you be built together into a temple in which God lives by his Spirit.

ASHBURNHAM SESSION 4 - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN

Ashburnham Session 4: Kingdom & Fulness
Ephesians 3

Cast your minds back a couple of months to Easter. What was the point of everything that Jesus did? The entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday? Praying in Gethesmane? The last supper? The trail? The cross? What was the point? What did Jesus enter Jerusalem to do, what did he come to make possible?
In a sense – even if it's not immediately obvious – that's what our passage today from Ephesians tells us. The first half of chapter 3 up to v. 13 spells out what Jesus came to do, and the second half, Paul's great prayer for the Ephesian church, spells out what he came to make possible.
We need, I think to be careful that we assume we know what Jesus had come to do in that last week in Jerusalem. Ask many Christians and they'll say something like: he went to Jerusalem so he could die on the cross so I can go to heaven when I die. But what Paul writes here suggests that that is too limited and narrow – and not say distorted - view of what Jesus came to do.
Imagine you're climbing up a high mountain, and it's hard going. But what sustains you is the fact that someone's told you there's a rather nice little tea shop at the top, so you press on. But when finally you've crossed the last ridge what you see is not a tea shop but range after range of breathtaking mountains stretching off into the distance. It rather puts the promised tea shop into perspective.
Well Paul in Ephesians is really concerned that we should get the big mountain top panorama view of what Jesus entered Jerusalem to do, of what he entered the city to make possible, of what the gospel is really about. He wants us to grasp – and be grasped by – the big picture.
Indeed that's what Paul's ministry has been all about – that's why there is that particular personal quality about what he writes here – look for instance at vv. 2 & 3[ ]. Paul has a particular personal calling to make this mystery know – and he's been given particular resources so he can make it known – v. 7 [ ].
And what is this message he's called to share? What did Jesus enter Jerusalem to do, to make possible? Essentially, Paul says, Jesus entered Jerusalem as King in order to bring in the kingdom, the reign, the rule of God. True Paul doesn't use the word Kingdom – but he uses the language of kingly rule all the time. He talks of Jesus as the Christ no less than eight times in this one chapter. 'Christ' as I'm sure you know wasn't Jesus surname. It's a particular title – it's a royal title. It's simply the Greek version of the Hebrew word messiah – a word which means anointed one. And who was the anointed one in ancient Israel? It was the King. To be the king was the be anointed with oil – to be marked out as God's ruler. And at the risk of being very monarchist and very British for a moment that moment of anointing – rather than the crowing – is what lies at the heart of the British coronation ceremony.
And what are the features of this Kingdom Jesus entered Jerusalem to bring into being? Well first of all it's an open Kingdom – that's to say it's one in which Jews and Gentiles can share together. Yesterday we looked at how Jesus through his death broke down the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, giving them both the same access to God, through his cross. So the Kingdom he brings in through his death is one on which Jews and gentiles share together. The mystery God has given Paul to reveal is that v. 6 [through...]. Let's just unpack what he's saying.
First of all the gentiles – which I guess includes most of us – are heirs together with Israel. Now what does that mean? What are we to inherit? Actually it’s nothing less – and this is where we need to remember the fantastic mountain-top vista of all this – its nothing less than a promise that we – God’s people – will inherit the world. Think of Adam entrusted with stewardship of all God had made; think of the vision in revelation of God’s people enthroned with Jesus, think of Jesus promise that the meek will inherit the earth. It has always been God’s plan that his people will exercise dominion over his creation – and he hasn’t changed his mind. The promise is not of ruling with Jesus in a disembodied heaven, but of of ruling with and for him in restored, recreated heaven and earth – nothing less than that.
Second Jews and gentiles are members together on one body, the body of Christ. We gentile Christians have a full place with Jewish Christians in the body of Christ. We’re not second class citizens: we are part of his body, he makes himself present to us, and he makes his presence felt through us.
And thirdly Jews and gentiles in the body of Christ share together in the promise in Christ Jesus. The ancient promise to Abraham that he and his descendants would be blessed and would be a blessing to the whole world – those promises are one that the Gentiles too share: we will be blessed and the means of bringing blessing to God’s wide world, from mountain top to mountain top.
That’s what this Kingdom of King Jesus is like – and furthermore says Paul in v. 8 it is a Kingdom of extraordinary riches [ ]. And it is. It is. Christian faith to people outside church often seems like a very narrow, tedious humdrum thing. But sometimes Christians can make it so much less than it as well. A teashop on top of mountain, instead of a glorious panorama of a heaven and earth that is ours to enjoy. These riches that Paul talks about are nothing less than the joy and wonder of God’s people being fully and wholly alive – both now and for eternity.
And God’s people, fully and wholly alive – both now and for eternity have an extraordinary role to play. We’re a kind of trophy, a demonstration to the spiritual powers and authorities of what God can do: v 10 [ ]. We demonstrate the wise loving kingly rule of God to the whole universe. We may feel sometimes we’re practically invisible, but actually we are sign of God’s wisdom, of God’s purposes to the rest of the universe. Nothing less than that – and once again just note how highly God thinks of us his church, that he should use us to that end. He is proud of us, and wants to display us to the rest of the universe. Whatever we may thing of ourselves, we are wonderful in his eyes. And what he loves we should not despise but love and value too,.
So, Paul says, step into all that is ours. Step into all that Jesus went into Jerusalem to do, don’t hold back, but step into the kingdom, step into the presence of the king: v. 12 [ ]. And by the way, Paul adds in v. 13 – don’t worry about me and my suffering – it’s part of God’s plan for you, just as was Jesus going into Jerusalem to die. It was part of God’s glorious plan for you.
And this invitation to step into the Kingdom leads us onto the second half of the passage, and what Jesus came to make possible – and this marvellous prayer that fills verse 14-21. And in essence what Jesus came to do was to make an answer to Paul’s prayer not a pie in the sky home, but something wholly possible.
So what does Paul pray for? He prays essentially for power and love; those are the two dominant themes of the prayer, and Paul wants us to enjoy both in full measure – indeed that is our birthright as Christians, what comes from having God as our father. When Jesus who embodies in himself the power and love of God, rode into Jerusalem he rode in that through his death it might be possible for his followers to receive that same love and that same power in full measure.
And he asks for both love and power for us for one simple reason – that we may be ever more deeply rooted into Jesus, that we have both power and love to know his power and love – there’s a wonderful circularity in the argument, that speaks of an ever growing, and ever deepening relationship – with just one aim – v. 19 [ ]. Again isn’t an astonishing thing – such a glorious mountain top panorama – it’s certainly not on offer at the tea shop: that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
And when that happens – well then everything becomes possible; vv. 20 & 21 [ ]. It’s tremendously faith stretching stuff isn’t it?
Just imagine what God could do in us and for us and through us as a church – and then double it, and treble it, and quadruple it. All that and more God can do amongst his people, by the power which is at work in us. You see the only think we should expect is to be surprised. The only thing we should expect is to expect the unexpected – because God really can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
I said just now that the Paul’s prayer has one aim in mind for us: that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.. But there is another aim that we should have. To the one who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine glory is to be given. God is simply to be given his due; he is to be glorified.
When I was vicar in Streatham my prayer was ‘Lord fill your church’. It wasn’t a bad prayer, because it wasn’t just about numbers – it was also about knowing his presence in us. But it was to an unhealthy degree, I have to say, a bit ‘me’ centred. After all it reflects well on the vicar, doesn’t it, a full church?
But that’s not my prayer for St. Michael’s – my prayer is simply that the Lord will be glorified there, that there he will be given what is his right, that there he will be lifted up, praised, honoured, shared, known and loved – that he will be given his due. Because he is the Lord, he is the King, and we live in his kingdom, under his rule.
So where does this leave us? Here are two negatives for you, and I’ll follow them with too positives. First of all, don’t underestimate what Jesus came into Jerusalem to do. This business of the kingdom isn’t a narrow personal world denying thing. It’s actually about the transformation of all creation, starting with us. It’s not just about going to heaven when you die, it’s about the kingdom: God’s kingly rule being made known in his people and through his people to the whole of the universe. It’s not the tea shop but the mountain top vista.
Second, don’t underestimate what he can do. Because God is King, there is nothing he cannot do. There are no limits on him. The only limiting factor is our failure of imagination, of courage and of faith. So let’s not put any limits on what he can do, but expect – and ask for - the unexpected from him.
Those are the negatives – and here are the positives. Let’s heed the invitation to step into what is ours. Maybe you feel you’re standing just below the ridge, expecting the tea shop. Well don’t hold back, but take that step forward and be amazed by all that God has for you.
And secondly have the courage to pray this prayer and dare to expect the Lord to answer it amongst you – that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God – and that he may be glorified.
Here’s one tiny closing thought. Paul’s desire is not simply that God should be glorified in Christ Jesus – in all that Jesus did in his life, death and resurrection. Paul’s desire is that God should be glorified in the church and in Christ Jesus. Not that he wants to detract from what Jesus did – not at all – but rather it’s because the Church is so directly the product of what Jesus did, and the demonstration of what he did, and the body which he now indwells and empowers, that the two cannot really be separated, so utterly does he love his church, and so deeply committed to it is he. He entered Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday to make his Kingdom possible, to make his church possible, to make us possible. Everything he did he did for us. Everything he did he did for his church. Let’s pray.

Time in groups...
If this prayer was answered in us, what might some of the results be?
Discuss and pray together.
What as a Church do you think God might be saying to you through these 3 chapters of Ephesians....?
Plenary