Sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14 delievered to St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church 07/12

John was a man I met while serving as a chaplain at a homeless shelter. It seems like all my sermons start that way but believe me serving there had a profound effect on my life. John was a huge man standing 6 foot six and weighing about 250 lbs. His hands were bigger then my whole head and I have a big head. John was a black man from the streets of Chicago. Now it didn’t matter to me if John was black, white, green, purple, or even poke-a-dotted but to him I was a white man and therefore could not be trusted. He wore a jacket with the words, “Gangster for Life” embroidered on the back. He put up this persona of a very angry man who demanded respect and demanded to be feared.
John came to Des Moines in an unusual and scary way. He was involved in drugs and gang violence in Chicago and a rival gang had committed an act of aggression against his group. The rival members, who had committed this act of aggression, fled to hide in Des Moines and John was set to Des Moines to take them out. John was a hit man. When he shared this with me I wasn’t excited about making him angry.
However John is a child of God and had been redeemed through the blood of Christ as verse 7 in our reading in Ephesians tells us today. The idea of being claimed by Christ for the Kingdom of Heaven came to John as he was traveling to Des Moines and he had a change of heart; he decided to give his intended victims a pass and he was now hiding in the mission from his own people.
John was assigned to my case load and I trusted that God wasn’t looking for me to leave this earth just yet, so I engaged him in a conversation about his faith. He knew a great deal about the Bible and the finished work of Christ on the cross. He knew of the inheritance that he had received in Christ that Ephesians 1:11 speaks of. I couldn’t understand how he had fallen into a life of drugs, crime, and gangsters and I certainly couldn’t see how this gangster could change his devotion from his gang to his God so quickly. But as our Ephesians text for today says in verse 4-5, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” John wasn’t going to stay a “Gangster for Life” as his jacket professed for God and chosen John, in Christ, before the creation of the world to be Holy and blameless in His sight.
In the Old testament God chose Abraham to be the Father of the coming nation of Israel Genesis 12:1-3
1 The LORD had said to Abram,
"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
God also chose Jacob over Esau when they were in the womb, Genesis 25:23
The LORD said to her,
"Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger."
He chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Exodus 3:10
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
God chose King Saul and King David by having Samuel anoint them, 1 Samuel 1:19
When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the LORD said to him, "This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people."
1 Samuel 16:1
The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king."
1 Samuel 16:12-13
12 So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one."13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
He chose Jeremiah as prophet, Jeremiah 1:4-5
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
Jesus, God in the flesh, chose twelve disciples and later St. Paul who was known as Saul at the time.
Our God is a God who chooses His people. Now this can be a scary thought. Martin Luther devoted an entire work to this subject entitled “The Bondage of the Will.” How does one know if they are one of God’s elect or chosen? How does one become elected or chosen? In Romans St. Paul address these questions, Romans 10:14-15
14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
Further in Romans 10:17 he says
17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
How does God choose? Well, God sends a preacher with the Word of Christ on their lips and in their hearts. A Word meant just for you. How does one know if they are chosen? Why you have heard God’s preacher concerning the Word of Christ and you have received the Holy Spirit through this Word. The Spirit then created faith within you and you believed in Christ the one sent by God. Those who believe are chosen.
John had received his preacher long before I knew him. He was raised in a Christian home and his mother had taken him to church often. The Holy Spirit was at work inside of John almost his whole life. Why then did he turn to drugs, crime, and gang violence? Well, as Paul Harvey used to say, now the rest of the story.
John and I became friends. He reminded me daily that he could not believe that a short, fat, balding, white guy would be one with which he could talk about faith and share his deepest pain. I asked John if he would enter the S.T.E.P. program at the shelter. S.T.E.P. stands for Spiritual Training and Evaluation Program. This is a 30 day program where participants are given Biblical lessons to read and learn. They are breathalyzed every time they enter the building and they stay in a separate 20 bed dorm away from the other 100 beds. After 30 days they are drug tested and transferred to Hope Ministries’ other men’s shelter outside of town, called The Door of Faith where they spend the next 18 -24 months in a recovery program. The night John was to be drug tested he showed up in my office, high, begging me to look the other way while poured clean urine that he had purchased in to the test receptacle. He claimed to have been clean all thirty days and had only fallen into temptation that day. I tried to convince him to talk to the pastor in charge of the S.T.E.P. program and tell him the truth and ask for mercy and grace. But it was to no avail. John then disappeared. Before he left that night I gave him a rock with the inscription of a cross on it and told him to stand firm on his faith. I didn’t see John for almost 6 months.
I had just arrived at the shelter for the evening shift to a ringing phone in my office. The desk man said that John was at the door asking to see me. I told the desk man to send him in. John came into my office closed the door and sat in a chair between me and the door. He stared at the floor in what seemed like an hour of silence but was most likely only a moment. I have to admit I was scared for my life and I had not escape from this monstrous sized man. After a few silent prayers for my life I asked John where he had been. Still staring at the floor he recounted the last 6 months of his life. “Well,” he started, “I went back to Chicago to face the music with my gang and I was jumpted out.” Jumpted out is the term used for getting the crap kicked out of you by the whole gang as a way of getting from your obligation to the gang. He continued, “I then found my old girlfriend and stayed with her. She is a drug user and the temptation was too much so I got back into drugs. I went from pot to crack to heroin.” He confessed. “My girlfriend kicked me out and the rest is a blur. But two days ago I woke up in an alley, beat up, tired, and a needle still stuck in my arm. There was a trail of blood from the needle down to a puddle in my hand and in my hand was this.” He held up the rock that I had given him. “And in my other hand was a bus ticket to Des Moines. I’m here now and I want you to do something for me.” I must admit after his last request of me I feared the worst. But this man was one of God’s chosen and the Holy Spirit had been at work inside him and was now taking over his flesh and its desires. He looked me in the eye for the first time since he had been in my office, “Tell me how to completely surrender to Christ,” he pleaded. Then the water works started. I don’t know who was crying more him or me. I was sure that Christ was now present in that office. I was also now sure that this wasn’t the day I was going to die. John entered the S.T.E.P. program and was moved to the Door of Faith. He didn’t stay at the Door however but went to another treatment facility.
Through the grape vine of the homeless John got word back to me that he was one year clean and sober is now working in a large metropolitan area with homeless teens. Why if John was chosen by God before he was born did he have to go through hell to find his calling? Well, like me, it’s his past that gives him the right, the desire and the ability to reach out to those who are still in hell and be their preacher; to be Christ’s vessel to guide the hurting to their inheritance in Christ.
Now as for you all, you are here, most of you every week, listening to the Word of Christ being preached. You all have pasts and you all have stories. Not to mention that you all are chosen in Christ and have a calling to love God and love and serve your neighbor. If you still are in doubt let me clear it up for you; you are all God’s chosen. Is there a John in your life? For your sakes I hope your John isn’t an hit man for a street gang however you all know of someone in need of a preacher. That person lonely and forgotten in a nursing home, the folks who join us here on Thursday night’s coffee house, that neighbor in the hospital, that couple next door who work long hours and have trouble making ends meet with child care, that son, daughter, niece or nephew that you talked to for a while, that homeless person begging for money on the interstate, You fellow office worker who is overwhelmed with life’s demands, that lawyer who helped you write you will or plan your estate, the check out person in the grocery store of gas station; these people are all in need of a preacher and you are all called to preach to them and pray for them. Oh yeah and don’t forget to pray for that seminarian who preaches from time to time at your parish and proclaims the wildest ideas. Believe me I know him and his family and they need your prayers. You have been given the greatest inheritance ever, the righteousness of Christ. And it is yours to give to those you chose. And it should and out of pure joy and gratitude, not out of a sense of duty that you want to give it freely. Leave here today with joy and peace in your hearts knowing that you are God’s chosen and you have the power to choose others. May the peace of Christ be with you all. Amen