Let’s Make Lemonade!

Ephesians 1:3-14

January 4, 2009

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.

You have heard of the old adage: “If life gives you lemons, you (make lemonade!)”

Most of us would agree that 2008 was a lemony year—a real lemon of a year. This being the first Sunday of the new year, we’re now looking ahead at what we hope will be a better year.

While many parents are wondering how to make ends meet, many kids have taking this opportunity to literally make lemonade and get rewarded for it—beyond their wildest dreams.

Inc. magazine loves the entrepreneurial spirit of the sidewalk lemonade stand, so they started a contest a few years ago to honor “The Best Lemonade Stand in America.” Each year, entries come in from across the country with pictures of the fresh-faced youngsters smiling behind pitchers of sparkling lemonade. The optimism of these kids goes way beyond making some cash for some ice cream cones. Some of these kids are building their lemonade stands for the benefit of someone else.

The 2007 winner, 11-year old Grace Bova from MacUngie, Pennsylvania, got her whole neighborhood involved in a lemonade stand to raise money for cancer research in response to a neighbor suffering from melanoma. Grace called it the “Race Against the Sun” Lemonade Stand, and along with friends and neighbors, raised more than $4000 for cancer research.

Paul’s Optimistic Hope

Since we live in sunny California, we can still appreciate the idea of making lemonade in January. The Meyer lemon tree in our neighbor’s yard still has lemons on it that by the way we have been given permission to pick lemons anytime we want.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we can sense the optimistic hope that Paul had about his life and that he wants his life and ours to be—the best lemonade stand ever. As a goal for this first Sunday of 2009, it’s not a bad one. The opening words of this letter find the apostle Paul bubbling with the kind of optimism and hope that makes for a great spiritual lemonade stand. Listen: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

You might be thinking that just because the calendar has changed to 2009, that a simple turn of a page should give us cause for optimism and hope. We remember that President-Elect Obama said the economic recovery will be slow and still painful so why the optimism? But the joyous tone of the opening lines of Paul’s letter is quite surprising. The fact that Paul had been given some serious lemons to deal with in his own life as an apostle, not the least of which were the “chains” that bound him in a prison while he was writing these very words (6:20), Paul was making lemonade.

If we have received the best-ever blessing possible in Christ, how can we ensure that this year we’re going to have the best lemonade stand ever? How can we make 2009 sweeter rather than sour; more fertile rather than fallow; fulfilling rather than futile?

Revelation Rather than Resolution

One of our rituals of ringing in the New Year is to make resolutions. Have you been able to keep those resolutions in the first three days of the New Year or are you like the most of us that this is probably not the case? The good news about Paul’s letter is that the gospel is basically about revelations and not resolutions.

Resolutions are dependent upon what we do. The sad news is that we can do very little all by ourselves. The forces within and without us are too strong for our weak wills. No matter how we fix our resolutions in our minds and summon up our will, our old habits and ways of thinking are so entrenched that they overcome our good intentions. The good news, according to our text, is that God has not left us alone to wallow in our guilt of broken resolutions.

Given the lemons of trials and imprisonment, Paul gives the Ephesians some reasons for hope. Notice that the word, “blessing” appears three times in Ephesians 1:3 alone. In Christ, God has provided the whole cosmos, which Paul refers to as “heavenly places,” with a reason and rationale for hope regardless of how things look at any given moment. The incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus had burst upon the world like freshly squeezed lemonade, changing everything. Paul is telling those who might be passing by his lemonade stand that if you are thirsty, there is truth and faith-filling value in this lemonade that he’s telling us about.

So if we were to stop at Paul’s lemonade stand and buy a glass of lemonade for 25 cents, what would be the benefits? There are three ingredients in making this lemonade thirst quenching for today and tomorrow.

Chosen by Grace

In verses 4-6, “Before the foundation of the world” God had already planned its salvation and “destined us for adoption” as God’s own children. God has a plan for all of creation. God has established a plan of holiness for humanity and, indeed, all of the created order; a plan for salvation, making God’s adopted children “holy and blameless” through the “glorious grace” of Christ, God’s own “Beloved.”

It’s important for each of us to have our personal salvation but we have been saved for the larger purposes of God. We weren’t chosen for our own sake or because of any worthiness on our part. Rather, we were chosen because God wants us to accomplish something through us.

When we engage in acts of justice, mercy and peace, we’re accomplishing God’s plan for the world, what Jesus called “the Kingdom of God.” If you are looking ahead toward the new year, there’s probably no greater resolution or plan you can make than to see your purpose within God’s plan.

What other reason than this that Pastor Peter Lee and his family have pulled up roots in Hong Kong and to be with us at FCBC but to see his life and ministry to be a part of God’s plan. What other reason than this that many of you have agreed to serve as church officers, board and committee members even in the midst of raising a family, keeping a job and hoping that your house won’t go into foreclosure but to see your life as a part of God’s grand plan. I don’t know about you, but for me, I have given up my life for God’s plan. That’s the only reason why I am standing up here.

Redeemed by Christ

The second ingredient in this lemonade that will always quench your thirst is found in verses 7-10. We are redeem by Christ through his blood which means that our trespasses or debts are forgiven so that we are released from the bondage of guilt and shame that we carry with us from the past. God does not want us to wallow in the poverty of spiritual slavery, but instead has “lavished” the “riches of his grace” upon us. In Christ, God’s plan is no longer a “mystery of his will,” but has been revealed and accomplished “according to his good pleasure” and in “the fullness of time.”

Starting a new year can be a daunting task because the past is such a heavy weight. As some of you noticed, I use a Day-Timer to keep my schedule of meetings and tasks organized. By the time when December comes around, my Day-Timer is worn out: the weekly calendar pages are all filled up with notes, the once gold leaf edges are dulled, and for the past two months I have been carrying both my 2008 and 2009 calendars with me as it feels like I have one leg in old year and already stepping in with the other leg into the new year. This week I finally retired my 2008 calendar and my 2009 calendar still has many empty spaces.

What an awesome thing it is to know that God has released us from all that and offered us a clean slate made possible through Christ. Paul wrote joyously about his release from bondage while chained to a prison wall. He was focusing on lemonade and not lemons. He was not focusing on the circumstances and disappointments of everyday life, but on Christ.

In Christ, We Have an Inheritance

The third and final ingredient in this lemonade that gives us new life is mentioned in verses11-14. When we think about inheritance, we think about unexpectedly receiving some money or property. In the ancient world, an “inheritance” was usually received in the form of land that was not to be sold away.

Paul writes, “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.” What is this inheritance that God promised?

Many Christians would say that it is “heaven,” which is often defined as the distant spiritual place to which those who have been redeemed by Christ are eventually going. But Paul’s idea is different and bigger than that. In verse 10, he says that, in Christ, God would “gather up all things…things in heaven and things on earth.”

God is the creator of the world and has no desire to abandon his creation. Instead, God’s purpose is to redeem the world and renew it, which is the whole reason Christ came into the world in the first place. Our inheritance, then, is a new and renewed world; a world that is being made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus and will be completed when he comes again. Because of what Christ has done for us and in us, we are to be at work now accomplishing his purpose for the world. We are to enjoy the spreading the wealth of our inheritance with the rest of the world!

Our 2009 Church Theme is the continuation of our canvass theme, “Footprints for Christ.” We’ll be emphasizing the importance of evangelism and fellowship in this year by spreading the wealth of our inheritance! We want our neighbors across the street on Waverly Place to know that they can share in our inheritance. And if people in our church still think that they are not in God’s will, through genuine and unifying Christian fellowship, they will know that they have an inheritance too.

FCBC Lemonade Stand

In the Peanuts book titled Lucy’s Advice, Lucy has her psychiatric stand set up like a lemonade stand offering help for 5 cents. The doctor is in and good ol’ Charlie Brown is the patient.

Charlie Brown asks Lucy, “Tell me a great truth.”

Lucy smiled. She could do that. “When you are getting a drink of water in the dark, always rinse out the glass,” she said. “There might be a bug in it.” She held out her hand. “Five cents, please.”

“Great truths are even more simple than I thought,” Charlie Brown said as he handed Lucy a nickel.

God knows that life often gives us lemons, but if we take Paul’s good news seriously we can have a completely different outlook as we plan for a new year. The great truths that we find in this letter by Paul reminds us that in Christ, we have heard the “word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” We have been “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.” In Christ, we have obtained this inheritance of being “God’s own people” ready and prepared to give praise of God’s glory in the whole world.

If we were to set up a lemonade stand right outside our church in a neighborhood full of thirsty people, we have something refreshing and renewing to offer, something that can profit the whole world. We’ve been given the tools, the ingredients and the recipe to put together the best spiritual lemonade stand ever—one that quenches the deepest needs of the human soul.

We haven’t set up a lemonade stand outside. But if you feel that you are ready to build one whether it’s on Waverly Place or in your own neighborhood, you are invited to take a lemon as a symbol that it’s time to get to work.

Let us pray.

Dear God, lead us to face this New Year with optimism and hope because you have blessed us with the assurance that we are adopted as your children, that we have received an inheritance to accomplish your will, and that we are your own people because of the redemption we have received in Jesus Christ. Lord, we know that the year ahead may give us lemons but in faith teach us to make sweet lemonade to quench the thirst of many who needs the Lord. In the riches of your grace, we pray. Amen.