Eph 1:8b-10 | "The Fullness of Christ"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Good morning and welcome.

If you have a Bible or a device, I encourage you to make your way to Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

We are going to pick up where we left off last Sunday.

We discovered the fullness of forgiveness.

And this morning I'd like to pick up in verse 8, the middle of verse 8 of Ephesians chapter 1, with the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

And as you are making your way to Ephesians 1, I'm going to be making my way to Revelation 21.

Revelation 21.

Because in that passage of Revelation, you recognize that Revelation is the end of the book.

And if you know anything about the end of the book, you know that Revelation has 22 chapters.

So chapter 21 is very near the end of the book.

Here's what the Apostle John was commanded to write.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Why?

Because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

And death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

And he said to John, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.

Amen.

The Christmas story is obvious too.

Most church attenders at a Christmas service like this, regardless of the reason for attending.

You know that we gather together to worship the one born in Bethlehem, the creator of the stars, heralded by those very same stars of heaven.

That truth never changes.

In the same way a series of Christmas messages never changes.

From year to year to year to year, the truth doesn't change.

It's the same glorious truth that we proclaim year in and year out about God becoming man in order to die.

What God did within the realm of time and history will not rot away.

Our challenge, though, is to keep it fresh.

Not to make it new.

It's that same old story, but to keep it fresh, to think about it in new, life-changing, giving ways.

That's our desire this morning as we consider the fullness of Christ within the fullness of time.

You see that in Ephesians chapter 1, beginning in verse 8, where the Apostle Paul says in the middle of that verse that God, in all of his wisdom and in all of his insight, made known to us the mystery of his will.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

What's the mystery of his will?

That according to his purpose, he would set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him.

Things in heaven and things on earth.

2020 will forever be known as the year of COVID-19.

But it might as well be known as the lost year.

So many have lost so much.

From financial and job losses to lives stolen by that invisible, viral enemy, even to the loss of time itself.

So much has been lost.

Few, if any, have remained untouched.

But what have we learned?

What have we learned over the last what do we have left?

Three hundred and fifty-five or so days.

What have we learned?

We've learned to blame others.

We've learned to avoid other people.

We've learned to fear.

We've learned that danger lurks everywhere.

But that's not all.

We've learned that the divine curse that was hurled upon the universe because of one single act in the Garden of Eden must be undone.

The death with which God cursed his creation when it rebelled against his word must be undone.

As Puritan John Owen put it, death itself must die.

But that's not all, is it?

Did you know that God kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden was an act of grace?

It was an act of grace.

See, God Himself said that if they stayed in the Garden of Eden, they would have eaten of the tree of life and lived forever in sin-cursed bodies in a sin-cursed world.

Living forever under the condemnation of God, living forever under the judgment of God.

But God graciously caused them to go out of the garden to die so that they would not live forever under the curse of sin.

So if death itself dies, then it's only as if we were restored to Eden to live forever without bringing us back into a loving relationship with the one who made us.

If death dies, we live forever.

But unless God removes his judgment against our sin and removes the curse against his creation, it only gets worse for us.

Because life without death, but still in debt to sin is like an unending 2020.

Somehow, somehow, everything is made right only if we can go back to Genesis chapter 2 before the fruit is eaten in chapter 3.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

There, death is dead.

God's curse is undone, sin is no more, and God is all in all.

And ever since that moment, we've tried desperately at times.

We know all about the human efforts to bring that return to God's perfection, to fruition.

We know all about Babel.

We know all about God saying, Go, disperse, have dominion over the earth, multiply.

And they said, Yeah, no, thanks, God.

We'd rather stay together and gather together and make a city and build a tower and make a name for ourselves.

We know how that turned out.

We know that God gave Israel his own law.

Written by the hand of God, brought down from the mountain by Moses.

That didn't turn out so well.

We know about the various world conquerors, the world rulers seeking to bring the world into their dominion and to their authority.

We know about the various kinds of governments and social constructs.

None of them have ultimately ever succeeded, and none will, because they're all simply band-aids to the problem.

See, when people try to fix the problems begun in the Garden of Eden, they merely succeed in varying degrees to varying lengths of time to minimize the symptoms.

The proposed solution to 2020 is a vaccine.

But God has a better solution to the problem that has plagued the world from the beginning.

Here then is the singular truth of that never-changing Christmas story that we want to see this season.

God has a plan for the fullness of time.

A plan that God Himself will bring to completion that will be filled up, that will be fulfilled in one person.

The Lord Jesus Christ, when God undoes all that sin has wrought, and he finally brings his people into a new kind of Eden, where sin and death are unknown and all is fulfilled in Christ, these words are faithful and true.

So how do we get there?

That's what's answered for us in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Where God, in all of his wisdom and insight, made known the mystery of his will.

That according to his purpose, he would set all things together in Christ, in his son.

Now we we we saw last week how verse 3 through verse 14 are all this one gigantic run-on sentence by the Apostle Paul describing everything that God the Father has done for his people in Christ.

Over and over and over again we see those words in Christ, in him, with him, through him.

It begins in eternity past, the very beginnings of time, before those beginnings of time, where God's electing grace in eternity past chose us, and it continues all the way to God's conclusion by bringing us together into his glory in our eternal inheritance with Christ.

It's as if in these 11 verses we have all of the story of Scripture from Genesis chapter 1 to Revelation chapter 22, all together right here.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention Revelation 22 · chapter mention

We have all of God's wisdom and insight.

And we've touched on some of these things last Sunday and already this morning.

We've seen reminders of all that God has done for us in Christ.

Look at them again.

Just look at your Bible in verse 3 through verse 14 and see these things that we have in Christ and with Christ.

He is the source of all of our spiritual blessings.

We do not have a single spiritual blessing apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the basis of our sonship in Christ.

He is the foundation of our adoption.

He is the fountain of our blessing.

He is the payment for our redemption.

He is the blood for our forgiveness.

He is the Son with whom we will inherit.

He is the object of our faith.

All of this in these 11 verses, it's stated again in the next chapter, in chapter 2, although a little bit differently, if you want to look at that.

In chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, the apostle Paul wrote, And you, that is all of you listening, as that letter was written for the very first time and read for the very first time in the church in Ephesus.

He says, All of you, all of you who are in church, you were dead.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins.

All those things in which you once walked, following the natural course of the world, following actually the prince of the power of the air.

That spirit, he says, that's now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of not just our bodies, but also of our minds.

He says, You were all like children of wrath, just like the rest of mankind, there were no difference there, but God.

But God being rich in mercy.

Because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together.

How?

With Christ.

Because it's only by grace that you've been taken out of that deadness into life with Christ.

Raised up with him, seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Why?

Why would God do all of that?

So that, here's the reason: so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Notice the eschatology of Ephesians.

In chapter 1, verse 4, we have before the foundation of the world.

In chapter 2, verse 7, we have in the coming ages in Christ Jesus.

This is the work of God in less than two chapters of undoing everything from Genesis 3 on.

It's bringing everything to a new kind of Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

That's why we see in the last chapter of the book in Revelation 22, verse 3, no longer will there be anything accursed.

Revelation 22:3

Because it's been undone.

No more.

But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

Why?

Because God has filled up everything in Christ who will be the fullness of God all in all.

Friends, 2020 has not derailed God's plan.

COVID-19 has not unseated your God.

All of our losses have not altered his intention.

His intention is to bring everything to its completion in Christ Jesus in the fullness of time.

Notice that we see that God has a purpose.

What is his purpose?

To unite all things in him.

Four facets of the fullness of Christ.

First, it's the pleasure of the Father for Jesus to fill up everything.

Says, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.

If you're using a different translation, I use the English Standard Version, your translation, instead of saying according to his purpose, it might say according to his good will or his kind intention.

It's actually a little more accurate translation because this word, wording that the Apostle Paul uses here indicates a delight in God.

That there is something that brings happiness, delight, joy to him.

What is it that brings him joy?

His son.

His son is what brings him joy, according to his kind intention, his individual delight, which he set forth in Christ Jesus.

What does the New Testament tell us when we hear the voice of God speaking about Jesus?

We see it twice.

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

This plan that God set in place was pleasing to God.

It brought him great delight.

It was something that he did, that he set in place.

And this is speaking about God's happiness, not ours.

It's his purpose that he set and planned, not ours.

Martin Luther wrote of this, saying, the love of God does not find but creates that which is pleasing to him.

God doesn't go looking around for something that gives him the nice warm fuzzies.

He says, if I want to find something in which I delight, I'm going to make it myself.

And what did God make?

He made a plan for the fullness of time.

Something that would bring delight to him.

And that truth can have a powerful effect on us.

Our joy in God's plan is not found in our particular circumstances.

It's not found in our individual situations in life.

It's not found in the state of our world.

It's found in God's happiness.

We will experience joy and peace and satisfaction and contentment most fully when we delight in what delights God.

And here, his delight is specifically in the establishment of a plan that pleases him.

Why does it please him?

Because its foundation is found in Christ.

Making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his delight, which he set forth in Christ.

As a plan.

There's a plan.

There's an order, there's a structure that God delights in.

And it's in his son.

The word for plan here is one that's probably best translated stewardship.

It refers to the proper orderly management of a household, or we might say in our world today, of a of a business.

Managing a business in an orderly, structured, proper kind of way.

In ancient times it was not uncommon at all for a family to have a steward that was responsible for managing everything about the household.

Everything from making sure that the groceries got into the house to paying the bills that the kids got to school.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a steward?

Yeah.

Perhaps the best biblical picture is in Genesis 39.

That passage where Joseph was tempted by his master's wife.

And Joseph said to her, My master has no concern about anything in this house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.

Joseph said, I've been proven trustworthy, and my master has given everything in this house into my responsibility.

I'm his steward.

He had distinguished himself as a responsible, trustworthy steward.

Now, here in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is referring to God's plan over time and in time as a stewardship of the fullness of time.

That refers to the way in which God has arranged and ordered the working of human history in order to fulfill his delight.

Think about that.

God has an ordered arrangement for human history.

That means.

2020 was part of his ordered arrangement.

If you believe the news or social media, our world is in chaos.

Our own nation is in a bit of turmoil, especially politically.

But we must understand, we must come to grips with, we must live and rest in the place as God's children that everything that we see is part of our good Father's delightful plan.

Imagine the chaos that would exist if God had not sovereignly ordered history.

See, the child of God can rest securely in his father's purpose and plan because he has ordered history.

The world is not spiraling out of control.

Instead, it's fulfilling God's purpose in every detail to the delight of God and his son.

The Father's ordered, structured, delighting purpose is pleasing to him because it's centered in his son.

God has centered his eternal plan in Christ.

But take note of what that does not mean.

Does not mean that God has forgotten you.

It does not mean that God does not know of your life, of your situation, of your circumstances.

He knows every single hair on your head, whether there's a lot of them or a few of them.

He knows all of your days.

He knows all of your hours.

He knows all of your minutes.

He knows all of your seconds.

He knows every millisecond.

He has not forgotten you.

Because he centered everything in his son.

It means that God's purpose is not centered on creation.

It's not centered on us.

It's not even centered on angels, Hebrews chapter 1 tells us.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

No, it's it's centered in himself, in his son.

It's bound up in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.

And until we cease our self-centered focus in making life all about us, we will never see the true joy of Christmas and never recognize the purpose that God has set in Christmas.

It's founded in his son because that's where he finds delight.

But it's also there as a fulfillment of the plan of time.

As a plan for the fullness of time.

Now we know already in this passage that this plan for the fullness of time was at one point a mystery, right?

Verse 9, making known to us the mystery of his will.

Now, as the first reader and first hearers of this letter would have heard it in a church in Ephesus 2,000 years ago, that would have made perfect sense to them.

They would have instantly understood the implied connection to the mystery religions of the time.

There were an unknown number of private religious groups and cults that dominated the Greek and Roman landscape.

Many of those cults required specific sets of rituals for their members to follow.

There were established initiation rites, there were expected financial contributions, and only after following a certain set of rituals was an individual initiated into the mystery religion.

Once accepted, once they got past those initiation rites, they were sworn to secrecy so that none of the rituals, none of the doctrines, none of the patterns of the sex were made public.

That's why the participants in those religions were called mistai.

They held the mysteries of the religion.

They had gained access to the mysteries of the group.

Some of those cults even had multiple levels that you could graduate to, one after another.

For example, the god Mithra had a mystery religion that had seven levels.

We don't really have an exact parallel today, but we could probably make an argument that there are some connections in the way the Masonic Lodge and the Order of the Eastern Star operates.

There are some parallels perhaps to Mormonism and Christian science.

But that's not at all what God's talking about here.

God's mystery was previously hidden, but is now made known.

For example, in Romans chapter 16, the Apostle Paul climaxes at the end of this book by saying, Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel through the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed.

Romans 16 · chapter mention

Notice the difference between God's mystery and a mystery cult.

God's mystery is no longer a secret.

Or maybe more accurately, it's a known secret.

It was once wrapped up and kept hidden.

But now it's been unwrapped and been revealed so everyone can know.

But we really don't grasp the fullness of that until we put it in our context of Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

You see, the revelation of God's mystery is connected all the way back to verse 3 with God's eternal choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world so that we would be predestined for adoption as sons.

See, a person wanting to know the mysteries of any particular group would have to endure the initiation process and pay all of the costs related to that initiation.

But God has said, no, there's no such initiation in my faith.

There's no initiation cost in this religion because my own son has paid the price for you with his own blood.

That's the revelation of the mystery.

And it was a plan that was established an eternity past before the foundation of the world.

It's a plan that fulfills the will of God.

It's a plan that will be brought to completion in Christ.

It was a plan that was fulfilled in time, and it began in earnest on a dark night in Bethlehem with a special announcement to some shepherds.

God has a plan that will be filled up in his son because it is bringing him great delight.

Here's the fourth aspect.

Christ holds, and he will hold, all things together.

This plan is for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

Doesn't that sound like Revelation 21 to you?

John saw a new heaven and a new earth in which God was all in all.

But for this understanding, we need to look instead, not at Revelation, but at Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Because it's there that we find some clarification to what God is talking about in Ephesians 1.

There's a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him.

Well, there's a sense in which all things are already united in Christ.

Because in Colossians 1:17 it says, And he, speaking of the Lord Jesus, he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:17

Everything is as it now is, because Christ is holding all things together.

Even as an infant in Bethlehem, he was holding all things together.

The one who formed all of creation with his fingertips, Psalms says.

Right?

Since Genesis chapter 3, not all things have been together.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Yes, Christ Jesus holds all things together, but within that holding of all things together, it's as if every single atom in this world has been cursed by sin and is now running, fleeing away from Christ, holding it together.

Sin rebels against everything that God does.

Since Genesis 3, there is there is this rebellion, there is this running, there is this fleeing away from God.

That's why we have in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 20 a need for reconciliation.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Through him, through Christ, he will reconcile to himself all things, whether things in heaven or things on earth, making peace.

How?

By the blood of his cross.

See, the Father's plan, friends, is eschatological.

That means it has a future sense.

When the fullness of time was reached, the Father's pleasing, foundational, uniting plan was initiated with semi-angelic visits to Mary and Joseph.

It was continued with a trip to that little town of Bethlehem and the great choir of angels awakening a flock of sheep and some unsuspecting shepherds in the middle of Ephraim.

And one day, one day, that plan, because it is held together by Christ, will be brought to fullness in Christ.

Not in the glory of creation.

Not in the technological advancements of society, but in the one to whom the Magi offered their kingly gifts.

Here's the glory of Christmas.

Not that Jacob's ladder is all of a sudden back in the fields around Bethlehem, and angels are ascending and descending between heaven and earth and announcing God's good pleasure.

The glory of Christmas is not in God Himself descending to be with His people, while that is exceedingly significant.

The glory of Christmas is that God is actively uniting all things in that baby wrapped up and lying in a food trough.

The glory of Christmas is that God's trustworthy and true word is on display, wrapped up in swaddling cloths.

The faithfulness in which we can all trust and will continue in will unite all things in the Son who was born in David's city.

You see, God's revealed will is to restore this sin-cursed world in Christ.

It's not going to take you very long after this service to realize how broken this world is.

Maybe you'll see a bit of news.

And you realize that this world is just incredibly broken.

God created it very good.

He created it with perfect order.

But now it's in complete disorder because of sin.

In fact, if we go to the end of the book of Ephesians in chapter 6, it shows us that God's good world has been hijacked by evil forces, bringing death and destruction to God's good order.

But God's rich, lavishing grace has determined, has planned to order everything so that it is summed up, so that it is brought together, it is united, it is filled up in his son.

It will not remain broken and out of order.

Instead, he has commanded, he has ordained, he has purposed, he has planned that it will be united in one whom we call Emmanuel.

Then, then in that fullness of time, everyone who has trustingly waited on him throughout all of that brokenness and who has trusted in him, then we will see the fullness of Christ our Savior.

We, like Mary, may not see or or understand all of the little details and the connections of God's plan.

We may not be able to make sense of it in our finite minds.

We may not be able to grasp how all of the struggles of life fit into the puzzle of the fullness of time.

But like Mary, we can rejoice in God our Savior, knowing that He who is mighty has done great things for us.

We can proclaim his holy name by making much of Jesus, the one in whom all things will be united.

You see, by making much of Jesus, we exalt God's delightful plan.

By making much of Jesus, we exalt God's kind intention.

By making much of Jesus, we exalt God's timing.

And by making much of Jesus, we exalt God's Son, in whom He will fill up everything and bring it to completion.

Lord Jesus, may that day be soon.

Lord, sometimes it feels as though we, your people, cannot take much more of this broken world.

So we need this reminder that you will fill up all things.

Time, forgiveness, redemption.

You will fill up your purpose and your plan to restore your world in the fullness of time.

May we trust in that.

May we rest in that work, knowing that your purpose and your plan is delightful because it rests in your Son.

May we this season forever proclaim that you, the one who is mighty, has done great things.

You are doing great things, and you will complete all of your great things in the glory of your Son.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.