WE LIVE “ACCORDING TO”
A meditation by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “according to the riches of his grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)
First
Second
Friday’s
Sun paper had an article about how the “Orangutans’ culture dictates their
behavior.” They have distinct cultures
that dictate how they build their nests, use tools, eat, show
off for each other and even how they say good night. Previously it was thought that only humans
and chimpanzees had such an intellectual achievement. The article went on to
say, “What we’re dealing with here is socially learned behavior. The big difference is whether you learn
something on your own, or whether you learn it from others. If you learn it from others, it’s culturally
transmitted.” (The
We had our new daughter-in-law with us over the holidays. She kept saying over and over how she now understood why Jamie behaved the way he does. He’s a spitting image of his father. Whereas before she knew that Jamie had unique ways of doing things, it now became obvious where he’d learned them. So, every now and then, we’d hear, “you’re just like your father,” or, “now I know why you do that.”
It’s the same thing we hear Paul saying this morning. We all live “according to” something or someone. There is a big difference whether you learn something on your own, or whether you learn it from others. In what we read this morning Paul uses the formula “according to” five times. We hear how “He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.” Our sins are forgiven, “according to the riches of his grace.” God makes known the mystery of God’s will for us, “according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ.” In Christ we obtain our inheritance, “according to God’s purpose.” Because God accomplishes all things, “according to God’s counsel and will.” So, it’s obvious for Paul that we live today according to God’s will for us; it’s not something we have learned on our own.
I had a woman in my office this past week crying hysterically. Her fiancé was killed a month ago trying to protect the family from armed robbery. During the struggle, he was shot in the back. Now, she’s trying to put the pieces of her life together, finding herself suddenly the single mother of two young children, neither of whom will ever know their father. She kept saying over and over how she’d seen reports of such things happening during the evening news, but they always happened to other people. Now it had happened to her, and how was she going to cope? She was beginning to realize that now she’d forever live “according to” the events that took her fiancé’s life away.
Another young friend knew he needed help and checked himself into the psychiatric ward at the hospital. For thirty years he’d denied there was anything wrong with him, but he got to the point where he couldn’t hide from it any longer. He was living “according to” his denial and was now ready to face life “according to” the prospects of getting well.
Paul’s
pretty clear that you and I live “according to” God’s will for us. It’s God who’s called us in Christ. God empowers us through the Holy Spirit. By means of God’s grace our sins are forgiven
and we can claim Christ’s glorious inheritance of eternal life. Back in 1958, the Division of Evangelism of
the American Baptist Convention commissioned Markus Barth to write a commentary
on Ephesians. Back then questions arose
just as they would arise today. “Why a
book on evangelism that deals little with techniques and methods and almost
wholly with biblical theology? How can
laymen ‘get into’ a book like this? What
does a theologian know about evangelism?” (Markus Barth, The Broken Wall,
The answers came then just as they ought to come now. The church is in a crisis of identity. We’ve lost sight of our reason for being. We’re not called to live “according to” the ways of the world, but to keep our eyes focussed on the living Christ. We should be about the tasks of re-forming our own lives and the way culture behaves “according to” God’s will for us. For Paul the best way to do that is to claim the inheritance to which God calls us in Christ.
I asked the young lady whose fiancé was shot why she came to Harundale for assistance. I knew the answer before she told me that Social Services had given her numbers of churches who offer assistance. “It’s God who’s called us in Christ.” That’s why we’re here at 1020 Eastway. That’s why before the end of the year we received a check for $500 for the pastor’s discretionary fund. Time and again it’s obvious that we’re merely instruments for God to get God’s work done.
God empowers us through the Holy
Spirit. This past week I read the
newsletter of my previous church in
Here at Harundale just as at Central it’s time we became prayer warriors and claimed the inheritance to which God calls us in Christ, and resolve to make this year a
year that we will live according to God’s counsel and will.
Thanks be to God,
Amen