God’s Mighty Power
Ephesians 1:15-23[1]
I’ve said many times recently that it’s a difficult time to
be the church. It seems like the pandemic and everything we went through changed
so many things. One of the great challenges we face is the diminished influence
we seem to have in our communities. People of all ages view Sunday as “fun
day,” not the “Lord’s Day.” And as such a great many people who once regularly
attended worship are spending their Sundays doing everything but coming to
church. It can leave those of us who are here feeling inadequate, weak, and
wondering where we’ve failed. It makes us question whether we’re doing anything
right. It may even cause us to doubt whether it’s “worth it” to continue to
devote our time and energy to the church at all.
Believe it or not, church attendance is not at its lowest
point in history. It’s not even at the lowest point in the history of this
country. Church attendance in this country was at its lowest point by percentage
of the population in the early 1800’s. I’m not entirely sure why that was the
case. It was a time when the world was turning from “superstition” to reason.
I’m sure that played a role. But the simple truth was that the people in that
time didn’t think the church was an important part of their lives. The fact of
the matter is that it was even worse during the Middle Ages. Most people
literally only went to church on Easter Sunday. That was the case for centuries.
It wasn’t until the changes leading up to and following the Reformation 500
years ago that people began attending worship more regularly. It makes me
wonder how those who continued to worship at that time kept going in the face
of such overwhelming odds!
The church to which Paul was writing his letters, like our
lesson from Ephesians for today, was facing overwhelming odds. Although they
looked to the same scriptures and worshipped the same one true God as the
Jewish people, they were opposed and harassed by many of the Jewish religious
leaders. And they faced the same opposition from their own former friends,
neighbors, and family from all the different people groups that made up the
church. Because they no longer worshipped the “gods” their communities worshipped,
they were harassed, attacked, and even expelled from their lives. And although
the Romans were in charge, they could care less about what they considered an
offshoot sect of the Jewish religion.
It was in that setting that the Apostle Paul wrote
Ephesians. He begins this letter with long expression of his thanks to God for
all that God had done in their lives to bring them to faith in Jesus, and to
change them into a people who would love and serve God. God’s grace had already
been at work in their lives through the message of the Gospel and through the
power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In our lesson for today, he shifts to a
prayer for the church. There is a sense in which Paul could say that he knew
they already had everything they needed in Christ to live fully into their
commitment to following him. At the same time, I think Paul knew the struggles
they faced, and so he prayed for this church, just like he prayed for all the
churches he had encountered.
The gist of his prayer was that they would be able to
continue to live out their faith confidently in the face of all they had to
overcome. The focus of his prayer was that they would know “the confident hope”
God had given them through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:18). As we saw last week, the
hope that the Psalmist held out for the people of Israel in hard times was that
their help came from the one who made all the heavens and the earth. If he had
the power to create all things, then he had the power to help them. This week,
we hear the Apostle Paul encouraging the believers of his day that, despite the
hardships they faced, their hope was in the one who raised Jesus Christ from
the dead and seated him at his right hand, “far above any ruler or authority or
power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world
to come” (Eph 1:21, NLT).
We may take that for granted because we’ve heard it many
times—perhaps all our lives. But Paul doesn’t want us to take it for granted at
all. In fact, he “piles up” words to describe God’s mighty power in raising
Jesus from the dead. The reason for that is because Paul calls us to take a
step beyond trusting the God who created all the heavens and the earth. He calls
us to trust in the God who has the power to overcome everything that opposes
his purposes in this world, as well as everything that threatens to harm us in
any way. And he demonstrated that power once and for all by raising Jesus from
the dead and giving him the “name that is above every name.”
Although we may not always see it visibly, the promise is
that God’s mighty power is working right now to change all things and all
people. And he is doing that precisely by what he is doing in and through the
church. Paul could compare what God is doing in and through us to what God did
when he raised Jesus from the dead. With the same power God exerted when he
raised Jesus from the dead, he is working in and through each and every one of
us right now! When we doubt whether what we’re doing is making any difference,
we can look to the empty cross and remember this promise! The empty cross is a
visible reminder to us that Christ is not ruling over all things from afar, but
in and through the church! In fact, Paul celebrates the victory of Christ’s
reign over all things as if it is something that has already been accomplished.[2] You may
have noticed that today is “Christ the King” Sunday. It is the day in the
church calendar when we celebrate the wonderful promise that Christ is reigning
in and through us to make all things new. In a very real sense, every Sunday is
a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, which points us to the final
victory through God’s mighty power in and through Jesus Christ.
That may not make much sense when you look at things. Life
seems to go on just as it always has. Those who are willing to stop at nothing
to gain wealth and power are still getting away with it. Those who use violence
to control and oppress others are still wreaking havoc in people’s lives. And
it can seem like our gathering here to sing the songs of the faith, and hear
the Scriptures read, and pray the prayers that have been prayed for centuries
isn’t making much difference. But the mystery of Christ’s reign in and through
his body, the church, is that God’s mighty power is at work in all of it, right
here and right now. Everything that we do in this church, even that which may
seem “ordinary” and “insignificant,” is a part of that hope. The risen Christ
who reigns at God’s right hand over all things is working even now, though it
may seem frustratingly hidden and subtle. Though all has not yet come to the
place where “every knee” bows and “every tongue” confesses Jesus Christ as
Lord, everything we do here today, and as a church, is a part of what he is
doing in and through us to reach that final goal.[3] May we continue to serve Christ faithfully in that confident hope!
[1] ©2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/26/2023 for Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 23: Paul offers
the “assurance that there is no part of the created order which is capable of
effectively and finally thwarting the divine purpose, since Christ the head of
the universe has already been installed in place.” Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The
Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible, XI:384-85
[3] Cf. A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary 42, 79-81.
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