Preaching Ephesians in 2020

There may be no better text for preaching in divisive cultural moments than the book of Ephesians. Here, the church sees a picture of what God truly wills (1:1), and it is a picture of all-encompassing unity. Let’s take a look:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Eph. 1:3-10 NIV)

Here is God’s will. This is what the whole human project – what creation – is about. What God wills and will accomplish is the unity of everything. The other word for that, as we see in Eph. 2, is peace. The peace of everything. A cosmic and peaceful unity of everything under Christ is God’s will. Still, the nature of God’s will reminds us that we live in a broken world. Do you remember Humpty Dumpty?

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

What’s the moral of that fairy tale? I don’t know (maybe watch where you leave your eggs?). But I do know this fairy tale is a true picture of our fractured world.

2020 will be a divisive year. Every election year is, and political divides will impact your church. But hundreds of other things will also divide this world and the church in 2020. Everyone on Facebook thinks they know how to put the world back together again, but (surprise surprise) no one knows what they are talking about. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.

But in Eph. 1, God works. God redeems and forgives us from sin by the blood of Christ. That word redeem means to free or liberate. It’s an echo of Exodus, where God’s angel of death passes over the houses of the Israelites marked in blood. Our freedom required blood. Our freedom is the first condition of real uncoerced unity. But God is still working. God is blessing us, choosing us, adopting us, giving us grace, forgiving us, and revealing himself to us.

Now, this is the best part: God isn’t resentful as God goes about this. God loves it. The closer God gets to achieving God’s will, the more pleasure it brings God. Twice in this passage (verses 5 and 9) God’s will is attached to God’s pleasure. Putting things back together does not only get God closer to completing God’s master plan, but it makes God happy. A friend of mine sat me down recently, as his girlfriend of many years broke up with him. They had a future planned together. His job, home, and life was built on that future. Now everything was falling apart. So I told him the story of Humpty Dumpty (which seemed terribly insensitive!). I said it gives God sorrow to see him broken. But it gives God the greatest pleasure to put him back together.

God is not only putting people back together. God is putting everything – all things – back together. Things we see on earth and things we can’t see in heaven. Every time God moves another one of those pieces into place, God is filled with pleasure. And unlike your friends on Facebook, God actually knows what it’s going to take to put our world back together again. The king’s horses and king’s men can’t do it, but the King can!