Ephesians 3:13-21

How does anyone summarize the super-spectacular? Paul outlines the unquantifiable and corporate aspects of the gift of God’s grace announced so astoundingly in the gospel. He writes of and to a remarkable family that fulfills a remarkable purpose of eternal significance and he intimates also the location of the divine power that administers the manifold wisdom of God in the manifestation of the unsearchable riches of Christ in our approach to the Lord and our infinitely deep established companionship with him. Paul writes triumphantly to the people of God who by grace know him as Father. This is not a relationship of nature but of divine adoption and all the adopted ones are encouraged, through the Lord’s prayer, to call upon God as “our Father”. The Lord’s prayer is “the family prayer”, a way of access for the sons and daughters of the covenant. In him, Jesus our Lord, “we may approach God with freedom and confidence”.
     Every believer is included within the church. We are to live, worship and extol Christ “together with all the saints”. We have, and should have, our personal relationship with Christ, but we identify and witness with with “the church” and we need to attain the healthy balance between the individual attachment to Christ, real and precious as it is, and our corporate connection with him through which the purpose of God in the world, and the shaming of the alien powers in opposition to the Lord, is effectually realized. Our modern emphasis on individualism [my way, my interests, my rights and importance] is bad ecclesiology [theology of the church]. God’s resources, his glorious riches, are provided in the family, of which many contemporary believers are deprived. Paul’s address certainly has relevance to the individual, but here Paul is speaking principally of the divine endowments bestowed upon the company and communion of God’s chosen ones. We are all obligated and indebted to the welfare of the family and to be complicit, co-operative, contributive towards its endeavors. This connection is not an extra to our Christian life but the summit of our fellowship in Christ. It is the body that serves him; not disconnected, isolated members who stand aloof. There are divine blessings especially reserved for the communion of saints, and special callings to function within that community of believers. We are to widen our concern way beyond ourselves. There are opportunities and restraints to exercise among the people of God - its assembly or congregation and expanded outreach. Like Paul, our preferred posture is to kneel before the Father as the Lord’s little ones - the least of all God’s people.
     Paul’s prayer on behalf of the church is replete with superlatives in relation to the glorious riches that God may lavish upon his dear ones united in him. The dimensions of grace are immeasurable and the direction of grace is emphatically and specifically internal. God’s supreme work on behalf of humankind is, as one person has opined, “an inside job”: To “strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” God’s aim is to penetrate to the inmost point of our personality; the exact, absolute center of our ourselves which even we cannot locate or comprehend. The crypt, or most hidden secret place as the New Testament Greek tells us [ Luke 11:33 - “a place where it will be hidden”]. The ultimate reality in Christian experience is Christ taking up residence in our hearts. Anything less than this, i.e. ritual, worship, action, profession, proclamation is futile. True Christianity is the life of God in the soul of man [Henry Scougal]. 
     The power of the Spirit is to indwell the people of God in unison as one entity and operate through it by common faith. Rooted and established in the shared love of God believers are enabled to grasp the every-direction infinitude of the love of the Lord Jesus, as to how limitlessly high, deep, wide and long the love of Christ is, and as much as it is known in sublimest bliss it far surpasses exhaustive knowledge, so much so that the people of God might search its endlessness and only begin to be filled to capacity with all the measure of all the fullness of God that is ever increasing, yet set firmly set in the inner life of the redeemed. We come to know the immeasurable goodness of God through its efficacious donation in our past, its dominion over our lives in the present, and our prospective enjoyment of it in the world without end.
     To be filled with the fullness of God is full of development for us as the favored children of the Father, the brethren of Christ, and those in constant fellowship with the Spirit. The excellence of Christ exceeds our holiest and strongest desires and outweighs our most cherished expectations.
     Paul’s assurance is truth and promise in its most extravagantly actual form and expression: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine - the phenomenal features of divine deeds, wonders beyond compare, and the extraordinary future of the whole church in the kingdom of God are incredible to our minuscule minds. Why should our confidence in the Lord wane and our petitions before him falter? According to his power - God is omnipotent and his strength irresistible. How can we question his ability? - that is at work within us - from regeneration, to the struggle of our competing natures, old and new, to those things we venture unselfishly to his glory. Why should we tire and lose heart? His glory, distinct from worldly glory, will be shown in the changing fortunes of the church in the history of the church in every generation. And the story told of Christ’s salvation, power, protection and victory in the church will resound through all eternity. 

THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 2023
The Collect and Lectionary
Guard your Church, O Lord, with your perpetual mercy; and because in our frailty we cannot stand without your support, keep us always from all that may harm us; and lead us to all that is profitable for our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The O.T. Lesson: Joshua 24:14-25. Psalm 92:1-6. The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18. The Gospel: Matthew 6:24-34.

Joshua
Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods of your forefathers, worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day who you will serve, whether the gods of your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Then the people answered, ”Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from the land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.

Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.” On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.

​
Matthew 6:24, 33
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.”


WHO WILL YOU SERVE?
Both Joshua and Yeshua [Jesus] pose this question to us, and it is the most important question of greatest consequence ever to be addressed to us - each one of us without exception. The rousing provocation is to seriously consider our foremost yielding and loyalty in life - God or a substitute allegiance. For the Israelites the alternative put to them was “other gods”. For those encountering the claims of Jesus Christ the option of serving Mammon [money and all the benefits it is perceived to provide materially and socially].

In our sincere preference for God competing allurements have to be overcome that have a great appeal for our fallen and sinful nature. Israel’s vow in its first iteration was glib and hypocritical. Joshua knew the hearts of his people well: “You are not able to serve the Lord.”

Their perverse proclivities were predictable to Joshua’s sharp spiritual insight. Attraction to foreign gods was already among them and their brash profession of loyalty to Israel’s Savior, spoken in fake recitation of God’s goodness toward them was a witness to hearts that were already false. Joshua was intimately familiar with these unreliable [rebellious] folk. Genuine followers were among them, undoubtedly. But rarely are large crowds completely converted and conscious of spiritual reality. Sometimes the divine verdict upon the people of God has to be expressed in terms like these: “What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears [Hosea 6:4]. Approaches and responses to the Lord can be uniformly vocal but so apathetic. Our God deserves our full devotion but that will never occur until we crossover into his kingdom of perfection. Israel’s incapacity is ours also. Only divine enabling can cause us to comply with the Lord’s beneficial commands. Our idolatries, wickedness and weaknesses need to be conquered by his expulsive power and he must reign in our subdued hearts.

There is only one true and deserving Master but our loyalties remain divided through our indwelling sin. The conflict is ongoing [Romans 7:7ff, Galatians 5: 16-18]. The preaching of perfectionism in Christian experience is an injurious phenomenon to tortured souls and conflicted consciences. The desire of the true believer is to please one Master only and totally, and that is the leaning of the heart born from above. In the choice that we have between God and our selfish heart, enslaved to Satan, is as clear as love to the Lord and loathing of the devil. God is pure excellence and Satan is entirely obnoxious. The Triune God attracts our love, honor and affectionate admiration. The evil one is justly despised and we constantly petition God for protection from him. Satan’s kingdom is murky, dark, cruel and full of hate, deceit and violence. It ranges across the entirety of mankind and oppresses and depresses the soul of humanity, inflicting injury and injustices everywhere. Yet fallen man is still charmed by its enticements and transient pleasures. Our interior darkness and irresistible lusts keep us captive to its magical mastery of our depraved imaginations and consequent unbearable miseries. Satan, our foul and tyrannical artisan of our bondage, causes us to bludgeon, flog and beat up ourselves. Sinners are inwardly unhappy and distracted souls careering from one personal catastrophe to another, as our celebrity classes frequently illustrate, for they have the freedom and finances to live to self-gratifying excess - the natural way of all flesh.

For the regenerate folk of God, the righteousness of God is their pursuit and delight - his holy character and ways of truth and wisdom issuing in goodness, reliability and love towards his redeemed evermore. What deprivation the choice of the wrong master brings. What irksome and painful service we render to the evil one. What dire rewards we are given by him in his miserly, menacing and mean ways. The result of his control is unimaginably horrific and destructive in terms of eternity. But how safe, blessed, blissful, sublime and serene is the outcome of serving and living with God, because God in himself is the source and sum of all goodness, and in knowing him we receive and possess the gracious donation of himself and all that he is. Who will you serve?

1 Corinthians 5:1-5, 2 Corinthians 1:23 - 2:11

Collect for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Almighty and everlasting God, grant that by your help we grow in faith, hope and love; and, so that we may obtain what you promise, make us also to love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm. vv23-24

Paul elucidates a key principle of ministry: A return to Corinth would have warranted severe disciplinary language from the apostle. The reaction may have been too disastrous. Those entrusted with authority in the Church of God do not revel in presiding over issues of strife within its borders. Paul thought it best to spare the rod. Harsh words would exacerbate the situation in the Corinthian church and arouse his enemies there to a pitch of denunciation and division, and turmoil would have been the result. Turmoil gives rise to loose talk and painful exchanges of anger.

However, there was no diminution in Paul’s pastoral love for those ever-difficult people. He sets the example for ministers of the gospel. He has no intention to lord it over the people of God and score points. Sometimes it is “hands off and prayer on”, and reliant patience invested in the work of the Spirit. Dependence upon the Holy Spirit is the essential basis of all ministry and church order. This is true and sound “charismaticism”. The true objective is collaborative joy and this is fostered by amiable cultivation of personal faith without intense directive intrusion into personal lives. Pressurized pastoral control and interference can stifle the Holy Spirit’s individual nurturing and development. Faith cannot be forced or imposed and folk need room to grow beneficially and not through bluster. “So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did so that when I came I should not be distressed by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you. [2:1-4]. The maxim is love exuding joy in the life of the people of God. Leadership [a dubious word in Christian circles] is not lordship or gratification of ambition and power, but lowly restraint of any tendency to assert oneself over others with a heavy hand.

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes. [2-11].

The implication is that someone in the Christian community at Corinth has committed an offense that somehow has a bearing upon Paul, but it also affects the rest of the fellowship. The majority of the membership arrived at a measure of punishment that seems to have brought about a mood of repentance in the spirit of the offender. Paul is satisfied with the outcome and concurs with the forgiveness extended to the penitent who is markedly contrite for the wrong he has done. But he may be in danger of being consumed with guilt as he reflects upon the seriousness of his error and lapse into despair. Paul counsels that this possibility must not happen. Christian discipline is motivated by remedial concern. Recovery of the sinner and restoration of fellowship is the aim of any punishment that has been justly meted out. Discipline is not colored by spite but spiritual concern for the wellbeing of a brother or sister in Christ. It is to be corrective and healing and not permanently harmful and constantly recalled to embarrassing attention.

Paul’s attitude to the offender is remarkably compassionate: Forgiveness and comfort is to be poured into his desolate and ashamed soul. He must not be permitted to fade away into isolation, desolation and neglect. Strongly reaffirm him as a loved one. Moral irregularity of any kind will not be foreign to any gathering or group of professed believers. It does not present occasion for lordly disdain and hasty bitterness but protection and care for the purity of the congregation in the face of evil and the fear of contagion and confusion of conscience. Cleansing and reconciliation are the desires accompanying chastisement. For those who administer the unhappy duty of discipline there is an interior trembling at the sinful proclivities that inhabit us all, that might just surface, but for the grace of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Elders are not headhunters, but rather spiritual surgeons of practical and godly necessity. The wisdom and discernment of the Spirit must prevail in every circumstance of ordering the life of the Christian family.

Paul reminds us that our relationships with each other are in the sight of Christ, and so, too, are our estimations of each other. Are they as fair and charitable as they ought to be? Are inclinations as supportive as they need to be in the vicissitudes of life [BCP, “changes and chances”]. Our openness and candor before the Lord Jesus Christ is preventive of Satan outwitting us by his mischievous and malicious schemes, especially through our unchecked impulses to settle a matter. The enemy is always hovering  and hoping to twist and tweak matters to his evil advantage among the Lord’s people and that is why our Litany seeks from God our protection and deliverance from him so emphatically:

    Spare us, good Lord, from all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation.
    Good Lord, deliver us from fornication, and all other deadly sin; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
    We beseech thee...  finally to beat down Satan under our feet.

Satanic schemes are aways lurking near us, rancor is always brewing, and we are not to live in naive unawareness. Preserving moral order and decency of behavior is a duty for overseers in the church, but it does not depend fundamentally on human acumen or ethical propriety. These will play a part. However, procedural method, verdict and ultimate action will be referred to the motion of the Holy Spirit sought in prayer as the sovereign influence of the Spirit in the minds of the parish representatives and his indication of the effect of discipline upon the person responsible for the presence of grief. There can be a tendency to condemn from a perspective of moral superiority and a self-righteous disgust.

Just as we see how Paul deals with an immoral brother [1 Cor 5] whose callous conscience and stubbornness in evil warrants expulsion from the fellowship, so the conditions of such a decision is delineated in his rebuke to the reckless Corinthians who tolerate [from a desire to be deemed charitably broadminded] such a scandalous example of serious immorality among their company and wantonly fail to evict him from the circle of believers, besmirching the reputation of Christ, and polluting the life of the congregation, endangering its holiness of life and preference of custom before men. This is a situation where any element of human meanness or vengefulness should not occur. It is a solemn scenario of sanctified purgation and concern for the ultimate salvation of the offender through handing “this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.” This is the resort to tough mercy and drastic transformation, and a Spirit inspired bid for deliverance.

The eldership is to convene deliberately and explicitly “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The power of the Lord Jesus is to be present and appealed to, and the man is to be handed over in this way to an expulsion exercised it would seem by the Spirit of Christ, not a committee of vengeful human beings, but those exhibiting, in concert with the congregation the righteous character of Christ for the purity of his bride. [e.g. the majority of family members, says Paul, agree with the punishment cf 2 Cor 2:6] There is to be no salivating at the slaughter, [the prospect of discipline does seem to excite certain types of personality who exist emotionally from drama to drama in church affairs] but the sternest expression of love for the sinner in dire peril. Christ is there, [do we realize?] observing everything. But David Broughton Knox offers a further observations that clear away the possibility of unkind, biased and sharp tempers given free rein in confidential proceedings.

First DBK observes that the congregation is to exercise discipline by corporate prayer. The instruments of banishment are word, prayer and the Spirit. Paul envisages the people gathered and carefully prepared together as a church, humbly to make the correct decision, God being present with them in spirit, and their Lord Jesus being present in his power. It is Christ who takes the sinner out of the congregation, Knox affirms. God takes away [the verb is passive in 1 Cor:5v2]. Reliance is placed squarely upon him as is directed in the original language i.e. that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you.

Knox observes that modern Christians misunderstand the situation by thinking of it in terms of formal excommunication, “as though Paul were writing for an ecclesiastical situation centuries later… The congregation is Christ’s congregation. He is its Lord, that is, its judge”, and there is a strong leaning upon the work of the Spirit in the action of the church, and possibly in the mind of the recalcitrant sinner, who may be led to conclude that he does not fit into the fellowship he has so woundingly grieved and so he leaves. “The final step is to withdraw personal fellowship from church members who continue to act sinfully after admonition [Titus 3:10, 2 Thessalonians 3:6], having first talked the matter out with the whole congregation [Matthew 18:17]. Each Christian is to withdraw his personal fellowship from those who name the name of Christ, but who will not reform their lives. He is not even to invite such to a meal [1 Corinthians 5:11]. Secular relationships may continue but no personal fellowship is to be extended to them.”

In the stepping aside from the notion of an “ecclesiastical declaration” to the mournful mind of the congregation which is conditioned by the word, prayer, and influence of the Spirit, the dynamic is altered to a tenor of godly family concern for the integrity of the fellowship and the chastening of an errant member toward the outcome, under God, that he may gain and be confident of his sure salvation. There is no spite involved but the pastoral operation of the Spirit who retrieves, we pray, the sinner from the sad lapse that imperils the soul. The tone of discipline must express components that are punitive and pastoral in necessary measure so that in the decision of the majority in may be said, “Christ has taken away the sinner out of the congregation”.