“… AS YOU COME TO KNOW HIM”
Rev. James Clubine
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
John 17:1-11
Text: Ephesians 1:17 17I pray that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and
revelation as you come to know him,
John 17:3 3And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Introduction
Estate planning.. Dan was a
single guy living at home with his father and working in the family business. He stood to inherit sizable fortune when his now
somewhat ill father died, so he decided he needed a wife with which to share his fortune.
One evening at an investment meeting he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Her natural beauty took his breath away. 'I may look like just an ordinary man,' he said
to her, 'but in just a few years, my father will die, and I'll inherit 20 million
dollars.' Impressed, the woman obtained his business card. And you know, just three weeks
later, she became his stepmother. (It gives new meaning to the concept of ‘estate
planning’.)
One of the
things that will classify a story as good humour is that it is a caricature of reality. And in this business of inheritances, the truth of
what people will actually do or have done is always stranger than the most imaginative
fiction, wouldn’t you say?
I invite you
to consider another concept of estate planning.
The good news of the gospel is that God has planned for a glorious
estate in Christ Jesus. In the Apostle Paul’s
prayer for the church at Ephesus he asks God to help believers grasp ‘what are the
riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.’
Do you ever worry that we spend way more energy contemplating how or when we
are going to get our hands on ‘the riches or lack thereof of the perceived
inheritance among our family members’ rather than ‘the riches of Christ’s
glorious inheritance among the saints’?
Why is it
that we chase so hard trying to grip in our hands on that which we cannot keep and treat
with such disinterest grasping an inheritance which we can never lose? We seem over invested in the belief that economic
affluence is the solution to our problems and will somehow afford us the luxury of finding
meaning in life rather than the belief that affluence with respect to the riches in Christ
will make life worth living. Is the value of
human life merely the measure of how much ‘life’ one can afford? This is what economic affluence reduces human life
to. The gospel reveals a much more glorious
picture of the meaning of human life which is to be found in the riches of a far more
glorious inheritance.
And even
though I know that, I find that the things of economic affluence appears so much more
tangible and easier to get my hands on – they appear oh so reliable! Is that not the
spiritual struggle that we Christians find in a world where we are surrounded by so much? The more we have the greater the temptation for the
dulling of energy for the spiritual life in Christ and we end up wondering how it is that
we can have so much and yet can be so unhappy.
There are a
number of prayers in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the churches and this one we read
from, to the church at Ephesus, is typical of the themes that Paul petitions God for on
behalf of the church. I believe that these
prayers reveal what the Apostle believes is of utmost importance for the lives of these
believers. The heart of this prayer revolves
around the Apostle’s belief that the thing these believers need the most is to grow
in their relationship with God. “17I pray that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.”
These first
century churches were populated with people across the spectrum of Roman society but the
larger portion of church members were from those disenfranchised from the privileges of
Roman citizenship. Slavery was the fuel of the economic engine of the empire. In percentages to the total population it was a
relatively small group that had the status of free citizenship – most lived in
varying degrees of indenture.
It is worth
noting what Paul does not pray for on behalf of these people – he does not pray for
full or fulfilling employment, the fall of the Roman Empire, success in academics studies,
happy marriages, growing prosperity, restful vacations.
I am not implying that Paul would not want any of these things for these
people who lived in underprivileged circumstances.
What I think
we see is what Paul believes is of utmost importance and can be experienced in any
circumstance – a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. Nothing will meet the needs of human life like
knowing God – Paul is absolutely convinced of this.
The riches of the glorious inheritance are not a future promise only but the
implication is they can be known now in real time in our lives. To be sure the fullness of this inheritance is what
we look forward to – but it begins now.
I would
offer you the reflection that he is following the pattern of a saying of Jesus – seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you
as well. It is important to note here that at
the heart of Jesus’ preaching was that the kingdom of God is near. As the Apostles interpret his teaching, Christ now
stands at the centre of their preaching. They
understood that what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God was the he, Jesus, was bringing God
near to them and since that is who they believe Jesus to be, God come on the flesh, Christ
now stands at the centre of their teaching. This
is to say, relationship with God stands at the heart of the kingdom of God.
If we take a
moment to listen in on Jesus’ prayer for the disciples – and by implication all
who would seek to follow him – this theme of relationship with God is at the heart of
his prayer for them. Jesus is anticipating his
life given for us on the cross and the result will be that he will have authority to give
eternal life to all whom the Father has given him. Listen
to how he defines eternal life: 3And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Knowing God
and Jesus Christ is the way in which we experience eternal life – again, not only a
future promise but also now, today.
This word translated ‘know’ as it is used by
Jesus and by Paul has a rich and full meaning. It
implies more that knowing about God, while certainly including this meaning. It implies that the intellect is engaged yet looks
beyond this to include relationship and communion – it is to be engaged in the
fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
If you are going to get to know some other human being
in this full sense of the word ‘know’ you likely need some intellectual
knowledge about them – name, address, phone number, etc. But if all you do is compile intellectual
information about them it is not likely to lead to knowing them – it might even be
viewed as a weird obsession. You need to meet
them, talk with them, do things together, reveal yourself – this is what this word
‘know’ implies.
This is the kind of knowing that Jesus and Paul envision
– you can know God in this way. You can
actually experience his real presence in the here and now.
And this brings me to the point I want to emphasize with you about the
ascension of Jesus.
Each year the Sunday before Pentecost we read the story
of Jesus’ ascension to heaven and while the story has great theological significance
according to the Apostles and New Testament writers, my experience of church life is that
the resurrection gets way more attention. It
is almost as if after the splendors of the resurrection the ascension seems a bit of a
non-event and, further, we may feel as if Jesus leaves the disciples behind to fend for
themselves in the world. We may wonder wouldn’t
it be easier to believe in Jesus if he simply kept on making these post-resurrection
appearances to people.
The point I want to raise with you about the ascension
today is that, theologically speaking, the New Testament presents it as good news for us. Jesus himself said that it would be better for us
that things be arranged this way. Furthermore,
the gospel declares that Jesus’ ascension – or we might say his withdrawal from
this realm to the realm of heaven just out of our sight – rather than being a barrier
to knowing him is the very reason we can know him. It
is for the very purpose of facilitating relationship with him. Jesus withdraws to a place
of his own so that he might be everywhere present so we can know God.
Franklin Roosevelt once said; “I doubt if there is
a problem – political or economic – that will not melt before the fire of a
spiritual awakening”. I cannot tell you
how high my heart would leap with joy to hear that sentiment expressed by a Prime Minister
in Canada. As talk of God has been expunged
from correct political speech it has had the effect of acting as if the only real
solutions to our challenges as a nation are either political or economic or some
combination of the two.
Across the political spectrum the solutions vary from
economically free markets to strategies of wealth redistribution to controlled markets and
forced redistribution. While the solutions are
very different the belief is the same – the solution to human ills is affluence (the
only question is who gets how much and who gets to decide how much). I am not saying that political and economic
structures are unimportant – I am saying that the message we need to hear from Canada’s
political class is that Canadians should make it a priority to go to their houses of
worship and pray.
One of the challenges of affluence is the way in which
the more stuff we have we discover that the more our stuff has of us. Take our technologies for example – they are
fabulous when they are running but a little glitch can chew up huge chunks of time to get
them fixed. I have to think that as people if
we spend more of our energies in relationship with God we will want for fewer things and
find our lives overall much freer.
The splendor of the promise of future glory through
faith in Jesus Christ is truly beyond our imagination – but this glory is not just
future. As a pastor I have to say I do not
know of a single human difficulty that is not improved by relationship with God. Not that we should want relationship with Jesus for
our problems’ sake but it is often our problems that brings finally to want to know
Jesus. This is a great relationship to be in
for its own sake – he is the best friend you could possibly have.
This past week a story appeared in one of our national
newspapers under the title; Rwanda: Rising from the Abyss.
It chronicled the story of women gathering together to recount their
horrific stories of rape and torture. One
woman named Rose Burizihiza said; “Speaking out is my cure, I started to pray to God
saying, ‘God let me survive this.’ God did it and I survived. “I changed my prayer to ‘God give me the
courage to speak out about what I have seen, and tell the whole world of the badness of my
experience.’
As I read those stories I wondered what I would have to
say pastorally to such persons. I think that
to point them to relationship with the One who also suffered such humiliation and has
risen to glory is the One in whom they will find help to heal the inner wounds. No one can heal the broken spirit like our Saviour.
I wonder as well if I am so surrounded by the presence
of Christ that I take it for granted or am not cognoscente of Jesus’ presence. In the course of my work I spend a significant
amount of time by myself – it is simply the nature of the work of writing and study. Even so, I never have a sense that I am alone
– I wonder if this is not the comfort of the very presence of Christ when I am more
prone to conclude I like being with myself because I’m a pretty nice guy to be with. How often have we benefited by his presence and we
accorded the source of the benefit to something or someone else?
IN Philip Yancy’s book, Prayer, Does it Make Any Difference?, he tells the
story of a rabbi who taught that experience of God can never be planned or achieved. They
are spontaneous moments of grace, almost accidental.
His student asked, “Rabbi, if God-realization is
just accidental, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?
The rabbi replies, ‘To be as accident-prone as
possible.”
17I pray that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him,
John 17:3 3And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
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