Ephesians 1:3-19
January 4, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Just a few days ago, we woke up and realized that we were living in a new year. A new year is always a bit surreal. Although we know it in our heads, we catch ourselves dating our checks with last year’s numerals. We have a hard time making the brain tell what our nimble fingers to do!
During last week, I finally converted from carrying two calendars around for the past two months to just one. It was like living in a twilight zone—a little reality of 2003 was still lingering and the big reality of 2004 was coming with a full steam.
Once again there were spectacular New Year’s Eve displays all around the world: fanfare, fireworks, one more brilliant than the next. Globalized television networks excel in showing us our connectedness with people across the planet, from one time zone to the next. Seeing many joyous faces makes the possibility of a new era of peace more reachable, more desirable, more conceivable, than ever. New Year’s Eve was magnificent and Dick Clark still looks as young as ever!
Now that the fanfare and the parades are over, what makes this new year any different from all the others? While things around you looked pretty much as they did the night before the big ball came down in Times Square, can we say that somehow everything is different? Given the tragic and unexpected events that happened this past week, were you struck by the fact that you were alive in a new year? I was.
On this first Sunday of the new year, we affirm a radical conviction: that we are here for a purpose; we are alive for a reason. We affirm that the time we are given is not for crossing the days off our calendars or for me to finally replace my 2003 Day Timer with the 2004 one; it is for knowing why we are made and why we must live joyously for that purpose.
Christian Calendar
You might not know this but we have been into a new year since November 30, 2003 when we celebrated the first Sunday in Advent. The church or Christian calendar started when we began to wait for the coming of the Christ. For those of us who preaches from the lectionary texts, November 30th was the beginning of Year C. For 24 Sundays since Pentecost, our sanctuary paraments were green representing our Christian maturity and growth and then on November 30, we changed the paraments to purple to symbolize the royalty of the coming of the Christ Child. That’s the reason why it’s surreal for me to think about another new year when we have been in one for the past 5 weeks!
The reason why we feel different on these dawning days of a new year is not that January 1st means that we hang up new calendars on the wall, but that we have heard and experienced God’s love in the coming of Christ for the past five weeks. We feel privileged to be alive because we are alive in Christ. The wind of God’s spirit is rustling within us. Everything is fresh and new so we lift up our hearts and voices in praise. Even in the midst of shock and grief, we lift up our hearts and voices in praise!
No doubt, last year’s concerns are still present with us. Some of us are wondering about our health and what the new year might bring. Some of us have school on our minds; others of us are thinking about our children, or our parents, or our work. Some of us are wondering what our church will be like in the new year.
So naturally, we make some New Year’s resolutions in the hope to get off to a good start. Get more exercise, eat more vegetables, work harder but come home earlier, spend more time with the kids, go out more often with your sweetheart, set aside more times for ourselves, and so on. Going into the new year, we feel we should have some resolutions about something.
But the Scripture this morning says, “Wait.” Before we start listing all the things you are going to do, listen to what God has done. Before you start listing all of the things you are going to do, wait, be aware of the miracle that you are alive. Begin with praise. Before anything else we are challenged to make praise our priority. There is nothing more important than this.
Praising God
In Ephesians, Paul writes about the blessings that we have received from God based on his grace and mercy. We did nothing to deserve these immeasurable gifts so we give praise to God. We praise God for adopting us as his children (vs. 5). We praise God for redemption through Christ’s blood, the Beloved (vs.7). We praise God because in our inheritance, we have purpose for our lives (vs.11). We praise God for the truth of the gospel (vs. 13). We praise God for his plan of gathering all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth so that whatever might shock us in the new year, God is there.
We are tempted to think that we must do something to receive God’s blessings. There is much to do; our 2004 calendars are already full. But we need to remember that God has already done it, that we need only lay claim to our calling—that we are alive for a purpose. We are alive to give God praise.
Praise is not like the things we are used to. It is not something we accomplish by working harder; it’s not something we finish and check off a list. Praise changes our focus, turning our attention toward God. It opens the windows of our hearts and allows us to see God’s spirit come into our lives and gently shake us to see God’s love and truth. Paul said in Ephesians 1:17,
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know
him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what
is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable
greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of
his great power.”
When the “eyes of our hearts” are opened, we will praise God for all the blessings that God has given to us. Our lives in praise would turn toward him instead of on ourselves. The eyes in our hearts will see that God’s grace does not depend on our merits. We haven’t done anything to earn God’s grace and love.
And that’s the reason why Christmas is such a special time of the year for us. For all of us, we often marvel at the works of our own hands. From i-pods to the latest Mars landrover, we say with Little Jack Horner, “What a good boy am I.” Sometimes we are in awe when we see the birth of a baby or a spectacular view of nature that may move us to revere God. But few things, however, move us to speechless amazement as the reception of a gift that comes precisely when it is needed the most.
There’s a story of a young needy man who came to church in need of some help. The church gave him a gift of $100. And when he was brought in front of the congregation, he was unable to speak. If a person can be made speechless by a hundred dollars, how much in awe all of us should stand in receiving God’s rich gift at Christmas.
All of us are needy and only God can give the gift we need most. Christmas is God’s idea, not ours. God has a plan and we are included in it as his adopted children. It’s like a set of parents adopting a son that neither the adoptive parents nor the child expected, but they eventually found in one another a redeeming love and kindness. The boy later explained, “I wouldn’t have chosen them to live with, but they chose me, and it was greater than I could ever have imagined.” God chose us even when we are not willing to choose God. We praise God for bestowing on us all the rights and privileges of being a member of God’s family. All of this is God’s idea, not ours and nothing that we have done to deserve it.
Chosen for a Purpose
Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3,
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, just as he
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and
blameless before him in love.”
Knowing that God has chosen us for a purpose, what is it? We are alive in this new year for a purpose. First, we are to give praise to God for blessings that we didn’t earn. Your presence here this morning is a first step in the beginning of this new year to praise God. In so doing, your attention would turn toward God instead of yourself.
Secondly, as adopted children lavished with gifts and riches, we have responsibilities in our response in faith. Out of our appreciation and praise for God’s grace, the consequence is our faith expressed in action in the world.
On Tuesday, the church calendar celebrates Epiphany, the traditional twelve days after the birth of Jesus in the coming of the magi from the East. You would remember that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the time of King Herod. When Herod heard a child was born to be king of the Jews, he was frightened that his throne would in time be threatened. Lying to the Magi that he wanted to pay homage to this new king, he sent the Magi on their way so that Herod might come later to kill the baby. After they found Mary and Joseph and the baby and praised him with their gifts, the Magi had a dream warning them to not return to Herod. It says that they left for their own country, “by another road.”
The challenge for us as we begin in the new year is to know that following Christ results in paths that are at times, dangerous and difficult. We were not created simply to exist year after year with the simple purpose of watching time pass by. We were not created to keep the status quo and suddenly wake up to the reality that time has passed us up. We were not made alive in 2004 thinking that we are to do something to earn God’s love and mercy.
We are here aware of the miracle that we are alive in 2004 for a purpose. There will be times for us to go by another road. Our future paths may be dangerous and difficult as it was for the Magi. But our goal in life today is to praise God for his immeasurable gifts and blessings and in return, we may need to take another road in the name of Christ.
Since the mid 1980s, a Pennsylvania financial services firm has calculated the cost of actually giving the gifts to a true love in the popular song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” With inflation and consumer price index in mind, this year’s price tag is an increase of 19% over last year to an eye-popping cost of $65,264! Today is the eleventh day so the eleven pipers piping costs $1,982.40 according to a local musician’s union. For us to take another road in our faith is to stand over against the prevailing culture by reminding us that although the Christmas shopping days are over, we still have 361 more days in 2004 to praise God in our lives.
The reason why we are alive today is to give praise to God and with our eyes in our hearts enlightened, we are to be a blessing in the new year.
Let us pray.
God of grace and love, thank you for the gift of Christmas in Jesus, our Savior. We praise you and ask that you help us to focus our lives on you in this new year. Enlightened the eyes in our hearts to see your mercy and empower us to praise you by bearing witness to your truth through the lives that we lead. In praise and glory, we pray in your holy name. Amen.