The Eyes of Your Heart

 

Sunday, November 23^rd, 2008

Christ the King Sunday (last of the liturgical year)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Ephesians 1:15-23

Theme: Seeing Christ as God has made him – Lord over all

 

 “¹⁵I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 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, ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. ²⁰God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²²And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

 

What is it going to take for us to truly live as though Jesus is indeed Lord of all? 

 

We speak of it on at least a weekly basis, some more, some less.  We think about it about as often.  Usually less. 

 

But do we truly live out the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives?  Do we really act as though Jesus Christ is, in fact, LORD of our everyday existence? 

 

Speaking for myself, I confess, ‘not in a consistent manner’. 

 

It’s not that we don’t intend that to be the case, it’s that we don’t live in the full meaning of what calling Christ “Lord” actually means to and for us.

 

In the first century of the Common Era, to call someone Lord actually meant something.  There was an immediacy to the title that became apparent the moment trouble arose. 

 

It is something that we as citizens of the United States living in the 21^st century are largely unfamiliar with.  We might have occasion to see it displayed in the actions of security details assigned to any given major political leader.  We have images burned into our memory of secret service agent Timothy McCarthy getting hit by a bullet that was intended for President Ronald Reagan at the end of March, 1981.  He placed his body between the assailant and his charge, the President of the United States. 

 

While that is an example of serving an earthly “Lord”, we can get our heads around the idea of what it means to simply HAVE a Lord.  In an egalitarian society, one that for the majority of it’s citizens holds to the truth that we are all, whomever we are, equal, the concept of having someone over us for whom we would submit to anything FOR is truthfully, a foreign concept.  It rubs against the grain of our national constitutional conscience that affirms that ‘all men are created equal’ to think in terms of there being someone – ANYONE – for whom we would give up such ‘rights’ as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.       

 

And yet, that is precisely the call of Christ on our lives.  In writing to the Ephesians, Paul was propounding the Lordship of Christ in its fullest sense.  Not simply inward in the manner in which it affected each individual who chooses to CALL Jesus Lord, but OUTWARDLY as well – in the long-term view of history. 

 

There is a given-ness in the passage with regards to Christ’s position in the universe.  Where the passage seems familiar is in Paul’s statement about praying for the Ephesians.  Where it becomes less familiar is where he DOESN’T stop there … he keeps going, and evolves in a few lines a view of Christ that underscores his glory and his power and his position as Lord.  Paul leaves no doubt as to how we are to view Christ, how we are to relate to Christ, and by implication, how we are to submit to Christ if we are to follow him.

 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Today is the last Sunday of the Liturgical year – the church year – next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent, and the first Sunday of the new Church year. 

 

We are familiar with the traditional New Year’s Resolutions that are associated with January 1^st of each year.  I would invite us all to contemplate and then to MAKE a TRUE commitment in the incoming year to be as consistent as possible, to be as intentional as possible, to be as humble and courageous as possible, to be unafraid to claim Jesus as Lord of our lives, to choose when we must and when we might hesitate to make those decisions and make them FOR Christ. 

 

To give you an example would be to limit the scope of what it means to make Christ our Lord.  I can name things, but please don’t take this list as comprehensive; the words that come out of our mouths, the thoughts that we allow our minds to entertain, the images we permit into our minds, the attitudes of uncaring, of hatred, of bitterness and outright cruelty, the desires to acquire more and more at the expense of our fellow human beings, to disregard the wellbeing of a brother or a sister in favor of our own, the quest for prestige and acclaim in the eyes of the world at the expense of our standing as a child of God. 

 

Can you see how all these are examples of denying the Lordship of Christ on our lives?  When we choose our desires, our will, our benefit over another’s, we are in fact denying Christ an opportunity to work on us as he is working through us, and we negate the claim that we sing or pray about having him as Lord. 

 

My prayer for us all is that in the coming year – both the ecclesiastical and the secular ones – we will live a consistent ethic of being under the Lordship of the one who taught us that to truly live meant to die to ourselves, and that in order to gain the world we must lose it first.     

      

Let’s pray.