Walk Worthy: Chosen | Ephesians 1:1-8a, 13-14

Sermon Manuscript

Holy God, soften our hearts that we might hear from You. Father, we hear your call upon us. Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice. Spirit, illumine our hearts that we might experience your grace and respond in faith. Amen. 

Almost three years ago, on Easter, I received my call to Pastoral Ministry. I've told this story before. I was in my church that I had served for many years and that had become my church home in Texas. I went up to the beautifully decorated altar to take our Easter picture with our little baby Ellie. As I turned to face the camera of whoever had graciously offered to take our picture, I was rushed with memories of service to that church. In the past, I said that it was almost like a vision. I'd never had a vision before to compare it to. But the more I reflect on that moment and tell the story, the more I realize that probably was a vision. It’s as if every moment of ministry I had ever had in that place came rushing back to me. It was more than nostalgia. It was like experiencing all those moments again. And then I clearly heard these words: “this is what you were meant to do.” 

From there, I began pursuing pastoral ministry, which is a long journey that I have told in the past and I won't be retelling now. Though I am happy to share it with anyone if you'd like to talk about it one on one. But three years later, I am experiencing those words that I heard. Obviously, I am not at the church in Texas anymore, but I am experiencing the call that God had on my life to be a pastor. I now live what I was meant to do. 

Most pastors you talk to have some kind of call story or they suddenly realize that God was calling them into pastoral ministry. Some people like me were overwhelmed by the call but pretty quickly said yes. Other people heard the call and did their best impression of Jonah, and ran as far as they could. Eventually, much like Jonah, God caught up with them.  

I hear of other people in other vocations talking about their calling. They might say, “I am not meant for an office, I am meant to be an author.” They might say, “I’m not meant for traditional work, I am meant to be an artist. And those people generally acknowledge that even though there are challenges in their life that they perhaps wouldn't have if they were in traditional jobs, they recognized that this is what they are meant to do and they are happy with the decision to pursue it. 

I don't know if you've ever had a sense of call. I don't know if you ever had a sense of, “this is what I was meant to do” either from divine calling or an internal sense of certainty. But what I do know is that you all are called. God has placed a call on all your lives. You're going to be surprised to hear this, but you are all called to be ministers. It's even in our Book of Doctrine and Discipline! Let me read it to you. This is from paragraph 404. “God has entrusted his work in this world to the whole people of God. All Christians are called through their baptism to be in ministry to others, both as individuals and as a part of the church, using the gifts and graces with which they have been equipped by the Holy Spirit.” It goes on to say, “With other heirs of the Protestant Reformation, we embrace the notion of “the priesthood of all believers” and we call upon both laity and clergy to work together in a partnership of servanthood. As suggested in Ephesians 4:12-13, Christ has not given to pastors the task of doing the ministry by themselves, but of equipping those in the church for such works of service, so that “the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.””  

It goes onto share what this looks like, but I think I’ve made my point. You are called to ministry. If you didn’t know that, now you do. If you’re panicking cause you know you certainly don’t want to be in vocational ministry, take a breath. That’s not what I’m telling you. Paragraph 404 of the Book of Doctrine and Discipline is entitled the “Ministry of the Laity.” This ministry is for all people, including those who are ordained but not limited to them. Perhaps God is calling some of you to pastoral ministry, but that's not really what I'm talking about at the moment. Today we are going to learn what it means to be called. We’ll see that we were chosen by the Father for His good work. 

Today starts an eight week series of the book of Ephesians. The series is called Walk Worthy. This is from Ephesians 4:1 which states, “Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received.” This verse is the key verse for the whole book. In fact, this verse is something of a hinge. The Book of Ephesian can easily be divided into two halves. First we have Ephesians 1-3 and then we have Ephesians 4-6. The two halves complement each other. Ephesians 4:1 is right in the middle of these two parts. It's the hinge of the book. The first half of Ephesians tells us about the gospel message of Jesus. We’re going to talk about that today. And then the second part of the book is about how we live that out. What does it look like to be the body of Christ? How do we treat each other? How does the body of Christ move amongst themselves and in the world? And so Ephesians 4:1 is a hinge and our theme for this study. Paul tells us to walk worthy of the call we have received.  

We're going to learn about that call today. What exactly is it that we are being called to walk worthy of? Because before we can learn what it means to walk as someone called by God, we need to learn why it's even something that is worthy of our time. We need to know what exactly it is that we are walking worthy of. And that's what we will talk about today.  

Before we really dive into studying the scripture, I want to acknowledge that Ephesians is dense. It is packed full of rich theology and sometimes it's hard to read and understand. This is probably why one of my Greek classes in seminary was exclusively devoted to Ephesians. Not only did we use the book to help us learn Greek, but in many ways, the Greek helped us to learn the book as well. So I just want to acknowledge that I know this stuff is thick and it can be hard to understand. Do your best to bear with me. I post my sermon manuscripts and usually a recording on my website, so if you get lost and want to listen again, you can check that out too. But let me be clear: I love this book. It’s going to be a great study. I'm going to do my best to be repetitive to help with comprehension here, so please bear with me over the next few weeks as I use repetition to try to help us understand. So let’s dive in and learn what it is we are called to walk worthy of. 

After Paul’s words of greeting, he says that God chose us before the foundation of the world. There's more to be said here, but take a moment for that to sink in. In our Genesis study last year, we learned that God's plan of salvation was already in the works from the time of Abraham. But Ephesians says that before Genesis 1, even before creation, God chose us.  

So the next time you don't feel special, the next time that you think your life doesn't matter, remember that the Eternal God knew you and had a plan to save you from before creation began. Before you existed, God loved you. God knew you.

So what did God choose you for? He chose you to be holy and blameless in love. He chose you to be adopted as his child through His Son, Jesus. And why did he do this? Because he wanted to lavish grace on us. Don’t let anyone tell you and don’t tell yourself that you’re not loved. God has loved you and wants to lavish love on you. Even before you existed, God loved you and wanted to make you part of his family. That could preach all by itself! God loves you. He wants to lavish love through grace on you! How amazing is that? God loves you. 

Theologically, there are different camps for what it means to be chosen, set apart, or predestined by God. The seminary I went to taught that in sin all were destined for separation from God. And that God and his grace set aside some to receive salvation. So they would interpret this as God set aside those elect out of all those who were to be separated from him. So those who are elect versus not elect cannot change. 

This is not what we believe as Wesleyans or Methodists. We believe that God truly chose every single person in the world. God chose Billy Graham as much as he chose a death row inmate. God chose all of us to receive his salvation and to receive the grace that he desired to lavish upon us. God chose us all. Everyone was meant to be elect. God desired for all people to be saved from separation from him. 

But we don't believe in universalism, which is a belief that everyone is saved. We believe God gave us a responsibility. God chose us, and we must choose him back. Ephesians 2:8 says, “you are saved by grace through faith and this is not of yourself. It is God's gift, not from works.” So we are indeed saved entirely by God's grace. You cannot save yourself. God set us aside from the beginning to receive this grace and salvation. While we cannot earn this grace, we do have the responsibility to accept it. We must respond to his grace with faith. That's what Ephesians 2:8 tells us. We must respond in faith. 

So what we've said is that God set each of us aside from the very beginning. Before any of us existed, before there was even an earth, God set us aside. He chose us in love. And God's love for us is given through his grace and through the sacrifice of Jesus. We can't earn it, it's a free gift of God. But we must accept it in order to fully experience it. 

At the beginning of this sermon I said that we are called to walk worthy and that today we're going to learn what it means to be chosen. That's what it means. But what does it mean to participate in something that God has given us entirely for free through grace? To answer that we need to talk about the Trinity. And I'm sure you're all looking at your watches now going “how long is she going to be talking about theology? I'm hungry.” Me too. Hang in there. It'll be worth it. 

So let's talk about the Trinity. The Trinity is one God. This one God is made up of three persons. These persons are the Father, the Son who is Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. These first couple of chapters in Ephesians are some of the foundational material for our development of that theology.  

People who don't understand the Trinity sometimes think that God the Father is some kind of mean or abusive father. They think that he sent his innocent son down to die for undeserving people. Here's what actually happened. All of the Trinity wanted to save you. The Father is the one who chose you from the beginning, but it was the will of the whole Godhead to save you. And all three members have a part to play. The section of scripture that we read today tells us that the Father chose us before the foundation of the world. And then it says that we were adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. Some of the verses we did not read today are about how that worked. They describe how Jesus died on the cross and then was resurrected. And then it goes to say that we died with Jesus. I know you're looking at yourself now going, “I don't feel dead!” I'm talking about a spiritual death here. We are born in a sinful state where we are spiritually dead. The only reason we can even choose to follow God is because of what we call Prevenient Grace. This is the grace that goes before us and enlivens us just enough to be able to say yes in faith. So just as we were dead in our sins so Jesus also died. And just as Jesus rose from the dead so also we rose. Jesus died because we are sinful, and we are being made sinless because of Jesus. So we were chosen by the Father and we are saved through the Son. The Son was willing to save us in love just as the Father. All persons of the Trinity have one will.  

We have one more person to talk about. That's the Holy Spirit. The version that we read said that the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance. The down payment. What an interesting way to describe the Holy Spirit. I believe that almost all of us have bought a house before. So you know that it's important to have a down payment. The first time we bought a house we were all excited and nervous. It was the end of 2020 when interest rates were so low. We figured it was the perfect time to buy. We were so relieved when we got through our due diligence. And then we passed inspection, we cleared underwriting, and we finally got to closing. One of the things I found fascinating about the paperwork to close on the house was that you agreed to take good care of the house. I was not expecting that in there. I figured you bought the house and then it is what it is. I've certainly seen plenty of houses where the homeowners did not live up to that end of the deal. But it makes sense. You are giving the bank a down payment, and then the bank is giving you the rest of the money. They expect you to take care of the house that they essentially bought for you until you can finish paying it off. So how interesting that the Holy Spirit is called a down payment. In this case, though, we bring nothing to the table. Jonathan Edwards said, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” And so God brings the down payment to our closing so to speak. He brings the down payment for our salvation. The Holy Spirit is a guarantee that God is going to finish what he promised. 

I don't mean to insinuate that God doesn't know what he's doing, but I'm not sure God's very good at economics. What kind of bank provides the down payment and the rest of the loan totally for free? It’s as if you and I come to the table with a terrible credit score and no money in the bank and just say to God, “yes I would like a gift of a free house.” God gives it to you. So I don’t think God understands economics very well.  

It's as if God has his own kingdom economy for us. God chose us. Jesus saved us. The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our salvation. This work of the Trinity suggests a strange economy. So welcome to Kingdom Economics 101, class. This is going to be a strange lesson. What is our vocation in this kingdom of God? Our vocation is to have hope and faith in Jesus. That's it. Hope and faith. And what do we get for our work of hope and faith in Jesus? Well God was already giving us a lot of grace before we even started working in his economy, but we get even more grace for working for him! And then as we are working our hearts away in hope and faith in Jesus, God gives us the Holy Spirit as a down payment. The Holy Spirit is a promise that we're going to get even more goodness from God! So we just have hope and faith, and God lavishes grace upon us. And now that we have all this grace, which is the currency of the Kingdom of God, what do we do with that? How do we invest it?  

Here's what we do: we walk worthy. We don't squander this free gift of God. Even though it is free to us, it was deeply costly to God. God gave everything to give us salvation for free. It is said that freedom isn't free. And that's certainly true of our salvation. God witnessed the death of his Son, Jesus experienced the worst of the world, and the Spirit comes into hearts that stink from recently being dead in sin. Perhaps God doesn't understand economics, but he sure knows how to lavish love on us. 

And I didn't make up this kingdom economic thing by the way. It's all right hearing the text. In these chapters, grace is regularly equated with riches. It says that God's glorious grace is lavished on us. It says the riches of his grace was poured on us. The Holy Spirit is called the down payment of the wealth of our glorious inheritance. It says that God is rich in mercy. We’re saved by grace. It says that we are saved by grace through faith which is a gift from God. And I love this last one it says in Ephesians 2:7 that “we are saved by the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” 

I’ve never heard of an economy like this before. Certainly, people have tried to give out money to make the world a better place, but it doesn't really work with us here on Earth. But the Kingdom of God is like no kingdom here on Earth. It is one where God pours out his love on us and in return he just asks us to walk worthy. 

So that's the lesson today. That's what we are going to learn how to walk worthy of. God lavishes his grace upon us in ways that almost don't make sense. And yet it's our turn to do our job in that kingdom. Our job is to have faith in Jesus, lean into his hope, and share this good news with others. In other words, walk worthy. 

Normally I have some very specific applications for you. I don't have that today. I trust that God is speaking to you now. Perhaps you need to remember that you were chosen and you were loved. Perhaps you need to remember that God has poured out his grace on you. I don't know what it is you needed to hear today, but God does. As we close in prayer, just thank him for his grace. And then let God speak to you in return. 

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for saving us. Thank you for choosing us before the foundation of the world. I thank you that even in our sinfulness, you still love us. Even though we don't deserve it, you lavish the riches of your love upon us. I thank you that the economy of your kingdom makes no sense to us. I thank you that your grace covers us. Help us to feel and experience your grace today and know that we are truly and deeply loved and chosen by you. Amen.