I’d like you all to close your eyes and try to recall a time or a moment in your life that was so glorious you just couldn’t keep it to yourself.  Then imagine yourself describing it to others.  The re-telling arouses in you the joy and excitement of that moment, to the extent that you barely stop to take a breath.  You’re suddenly aware you’re speaking in long sentences; you hear yourself saying, “….. and then ….. after that, they ….. and then I ….. and ….. and”.   You’re there again, re-living the moment, eager to share it. 

Now slowly open your eyes and bring yourself back into this moment. 

The passage we heard from the letter to the Ephesians is like that.  (Chapter 1, verses 3 to 14).  It’s a translation of one sentence written in Greek!  It’s a sentence that is written in the same vein.  It is full of the same excited energy.  It is an outpouring of thanks and praise to a generous God whose grace and mercy knows no bounds.

Here is someone who wants to communicate how great God is and how loving he is towards us.  He tells us that we are, for some reason, very important to God.  For some reason, despite all our weaknesses and foibles, God is bowled over by us.  That’s the message he wants us to hear.  Being excited by God and God’s work in our lives does not, dare I say, in our culture, come naturally. 

If you’ve heard me speak of my recent visit to Kenya, you’ll have heard me talk about the natural warmth and hospitality of the Kenyan people.    The Christians I met there spontaneously give thanks to God at all times and in all circumstances. 

Many Kenyans live on the edge not knowing where the next meal is coming from or what the next day will bring.  So everything they have and everyone they meet is considered to be a blessing.  Every item of food or drink, every person or group of people is offered to God in thanksgiving prayer.  Their vibrant Christian faith masks the depth of their poverty.  We were humbled and blessed. 

Today’s Ephesians passage says: “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance ….. so that we ….. who have set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory, ….. and believing in him, are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.”

In our context, then, we might ask ourselves: “Do we need to give ourselves space to step off whatever treadmill we’re on, to appreciate how much God loves us and gives us; and that he has a purpose for our lives?” 

 “How does God’s purpose work in our lives?” is therefore the next question.   

Paul tells us that God is overwhelmingly on our side.  Maybe this is more important than the particular choices we make about job, marriage, where we live and so on.  As we seek to live in the knowledge that God is at work in the world and in our lives, maybe we can sit more loosely with the question of what is God’s will.  We can relax, knowing that God is guiding, encouraging, and creating, and it could be that the particulars are not as important as the destination. 

We can imagine life as a series of decisions.  At any given moment we have a number of choices open to us.  Some are obviously wrong, some are good, perhaps one is the most godly – the choice that takes us on the path God weaves through his creation.  Whichever choice we make doesn’t take us irretrievably down one path because at the next decision stop there are more choices and they still include the godliest choice available to us.  So, at any given moment in our life, we can go God’s way or another, but God’s path, God’s purposes are never closed to us. 

Often we speak of our walk with Christ as a journey and I can certainly relate to that sense of arriving at decision stops during mine.  About 14 years ago now, I recall being made redundant.  It was a difficult period, job-hunting, seeking for the first time in my life to discern what God wanted.  If he was such a great God with good purposes, why had he allowed me to become jobless?  That was my question.  I challenged him and asked him to give me some direction, some guidance.  Some sort of sign to make my future clear.  The answer was slow in coming.  I had to knock on quite a few doors before I found the right one.  That period taught me not only to have patience and faith, but also trust in God that he knows what he is doing!  To trust that if I continually seek his will he will reveal his purposes and lead me in the right direction. 

From eternity to eternity God works all things according to His perfect plan.  All history, all people, all that exists in heaven and on earth are included in his purpose. 

Today’s Epistle also places Jesus Christ firmly at the centre of God’s purposes.  The risen Christ who confounded the powers of violence, degradation and injustice is the one we are called to place at the centre of all our endeavours, in order to live in the fullness of God’s will, to his praise and glory. 

When we claim our Christian inheritance and set our hope on Christ, we become his advertising billboards.  This is one way of imagining how we are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.  If we can practice a countenance of praise and thanksgiving to God for our many blessings, the people we meet along the way will also be blessed.  It will communicate to them how great God is and how loving he is towards them and us.  In our encounters with others, by valuing them in the present moment, we can communicate to them how very important they are to God. 

Our desire to do this is reflected in our vision statement for St John’s, recently agreed by the PCC, which begins

“In the light of God’s Call, and our situation here, our vision is to respond to God’s love and live our lives in ways that will attract people to Christ.”

Believing this is the basis of God’s purpose for calling us to work together in Epping, our vision statement then says

“As an inclusive, encouraging and listening Church we value all who share our fellowship and seek to nurture, teach and nourish people so that guided by the Spirit, we may seek new ways of being Church.”

And with God’s blessing

“We will develop the ministry of all and, using the gifts we have been given and the building we have inherited, we will create new opportunities for serving our community and so proclaim Christ and His Kingdom.”

In the coming days and weeks we will be seeking practical ways of enacting this vision.  God has called each of us here for a purpose.  If you’ve not thought about this in these terms, why not pray about it and ask him, what has he purposed for you?       

I began by asking you to recall a glorious moment in your life that you couldn’t wait to share with someone else.  I’d like to close by asking you to imagine St Paul writing to the believers in Epping: 

“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.”  “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 towards redemption as God’s own people to the praise of his glory.” 

Now there’s good reason to get excited by God and his work in our lives! 

Amen.