Anchored in the Spirit

September 26, 2007

Ephesians 1:3-14

“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. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 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 of the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”

Have you ever seen a preacher get in the pulpit and say “I have a sermon prepared but the Spirit has moved me to talk about something else”? I feel like I am about to do that to you now simply because what I have to say about this passage seems to have little resemblance to the words themselves. Maybe in reading this passage you feel like you are reading one seriously long run-on sentence. If you do, this could be your lucky day! You may be qualified to be a Greek scholar! For you see, you would have hit on the fact that in Greek this is actually one sentence over 12 verses! It is broken up into three sections that each end with the phrase, “to the praise of his glory.” Each of the sections can be broken down into three sections that speak to a journey of sorts.

The journey begins even before we can render any kind of praise. It begins with God choosing us to be a holy and blameless people who are connected to God in love. God has called to us first!

The journey continues with Christ. Because of what Christ has done for us, we are free to choose God. We can know ourselves as sinners and our lives as unmanageable, but we can also know God’s grace and forgiveness and we have the right to claim that thanks to Christ.

The final phase of the journey exists with the Holy Spirit. It is the gift of the Spirit that allows us to live out this relationship with God in love through grace on a day to day basis. It is this gift that empowers us to be the church.

These are nice Sunday School sort of thoughts. Do you know what I mean? At the outset, they seem like the thoughts you would get in Sunday School that, at least as children and maybe as adults, you could leave at the door when you left. The language used in this scripture is lofty and filled with theological terms but what does it really mean for your life and for mine?

I’ve always wanted to learn to sail and in sailing you have learn every part of the boat but you also have to learn about anchors. An anchor works by resisting the forces of the thing to which it is attached. In other words, no matter how the waves may force a boat, the anchor resists those forces to hold the boat in place. Ultimately, that is what this scripture is about in my view. God has chosen us. We, as the church (as Christians), claim to have chosen God and the Holy Spirit has been given to us as our anchor. The spirit is that thing that when we invest in it, when we attach ourselves to it, enables us to remain stationary when the waves and winds of life want to force us in other directions.

I have had so many people tell me through the years that they appreciate the intellectual more than the spiritual; that they aren’t touchy feely people but are thinkers. Often it is a point of pride for them and that makes me sad because I know that they are failing to understand what it is to be spiritual.

A spiritual person is an intellectual person. They are not mutually exclusive things. A spiritual person is a thinker and may also be a feeler. A spiritual person is one who is seeking to be holy and blameless before God. This is, according to the writer of Ephesians is what God intended for us all to be. All we need to do to be holy and blameless before God is to anchor ourselves in the Spirit of God.

The writer of Ephesians has mapped out a simple path to living a spiritual life—a life that God intended for each of us. So are we doing it? Are we living holy and blameless lives before God? Are we anchored in the Spirit? These are questions we must answer for ourselves. Nonetheless, may we be found—anchored! Amen.