{"id":10116,"date":"2024-07-08T16:10:37","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T23:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10116"},"modified":"2024-07-08T16:10:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T23:10:39","slug":"before-the-foundation-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10116","title":{"rendered":"Before the foundation of the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ephesians 1:3-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the greatest engineers of all time was Archimedes (287-212 BC). We know that he shouted \u201cEureka!\u201d when he figured out how to weigh things in water, and we know his statement about the lever: \u201cGive me a long enough lever and I will move the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what happened at the end of his life is equally as important. According to the story, he was in the gymnasium in Syracuse in Sicily, during the Siege of Syracuse. At that time, it was a Greek colony. He doing calculations in the sand when the barbarians stormed into the gymnasium. Engrossed in solving his math problem, Archimedes held up his hands and said: \u201cDon\u2019t disturb my circles!\u201d But they didn\u2019t speak Greek and thought he was resisting them, so they killed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is in a way what this text in Ephesians 1:3-14 is about. This is the classical spot, the place where it says: \u201cGod did it; God does it.\u201d It says there in verse 4: \u201c. . . he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.\u201d Well, what does that say in terms of what\u2019s happening around us today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hurricane season, drought and fire season, and oppressive heat from coast to coast. US embassy and military bases around the world are on high terror alert. What is God doing? Where is God in all this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, we have our own troubles, financial problems, health problems, and heartaches in our own lives. Why does he let it happen?  Why does he do it this way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s the old dilemma: Either God does evil, or God isn\u2019t powerful enough to stop it. At funerals people will often say: \u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s will. God took him.\u201d Or: \u201cLife is tough, and you\u2019ve got to be tough to make it. You have to hunker down and endure.\u201d People will also say: \u201cIt\u2019s fate.\u201d There is a lot of fatalism around and thinking that God determines everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you may know, Sam Harris is a prominent, modern atheist. He is even known as one of the \u201cFour Horsemen\u201d of what\u2019s called \u201cthe New Atheism.\u201d (The other three are Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.) Hawkins has promoted the idea that science proves that everything is determined. Everything is predestined, and that\u2019s the way it is. Many secularists have cheered his writings and kind of laughed: \u201cHa! there the Christians got it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s the lure of other religions, too. Hinduism is the oldest religion and the third largest religion in the world today (about one billion Hindus). Hinduism has a circular view of time, that is, in the big picture somewhere every three or four hundred million years everything repeats itself. That means that eventually we\u2019ll all be in this room again, and I\u2019ll be preaching this same sermon. Everything repeats itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s is Buddhism, which says that nothing has any differentiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Islam which says that God\u2019s absolute will is fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it comes to Christianity, we come to the problem of judging. Who is to judge? It comes back to those circles of Archimedes: \u201cPlease don\u2019t disturb my circles!\u201d Who is in charge, and who is not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that Matt 7:1 says: \u201cJudge not that you be not judged,\u201d and some think that is the same as the common religion of our day, which is relativism and tolerance. But that\u2019s not what is meant. People will quote Matthew 7:1 without realizing that in 1 Corinthians 4:3 it says: \u201cWe cannot judge ourselves.\u201d Well, if we are not allowed to judge ourselves, what does that do to our circles!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly we wake up. We cannot even judge ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor can we judge God. Here then in the Book of Job, Job 40:1, the Lord says to Job: \u201cShall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?\u201d Job pulls back, and the Lord says: \u201cGird up your loins like a man, Job, I will question you\u201d (40:7). Then God says to Job: \u201cWill you even put me in the wrong? Would you condemn me that you may be justified?\u201d (Job 40:8). It\u2019s ridiculous to think that we can judge God, but of course that\u2019s what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerhard Forde, longtime professor at Luther Seminary, noted that in late September every fall, after classes had been going for about three weeks, a student or two would come to his office asking to transfer to a different section under another professor because they wanted to have a God who suited them better. They were faultfinders. It\u2019s really the way Voltaire put it: \u201cWe created God in our own image and God returned the compliment.\u201d There is something so ridiculous about this, and yet this is the way it happens then and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In both the Old and New Testaments, confrontations between the Lord Almighty and faultfinders occur frequently. We find it in Job and also in Jeremiah 18:1-6 about the potter and the clay, and in Isaiah 45:9 (paraphrase): \u201cI\u2019m the potter and you are the clay. If the potter decides that this vessel isn\u2019t shaped the way it should be, and he decides to shape it otherwise, what right does the clay have to complain?\u201d Or if the potter says: \u201cI\u2019m going to throw this clay away, and I\u2019ll start over somewhere else new,\u201d this isn\u2019t something where the clay can say: \u201cWait a minute, Lord. I am here to give you advice on how to run the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the way we are: \u201cI\u2019ll help you, Lord. You\u2019re not doing it quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in Isaiah 45:7 it says: \u201cI make weal and create woe.\u201d And in Isaiah 7:15: \u201cI am the God who hides himself.\u201d I am not who you fashion and make me out to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Jeremiah 10:23, it says: \u201cI know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.\u201d That\u2019s very different from our way of thinking and doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the whole of Old Testament religion as we know it, there is that Lordship, the Lord does it his way; he does it for us, in spite of us, and outside of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Testament picks up the potter and the clay in Romans 9:21, and Paul also writes in Galatians 1:15 that he \u201cset me apart before I was born.\u201d He is echoing Jeremiah 1:5: \u201cHe chose me before I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we come to our text for today, this big sentence in Ephesians 1:3-4: \u201c. . . he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.\u201d Before the foundation of the world, he chose. Then it goes on in verse 7 to say \u201cby his blood,\u201d and then in verse 10 it says: \u201c. . . in order that he might unite or put together all things in Jesus Christ,\u201d so there is that way in which God does it outside of us, in spite of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the Bible here? Is it a matter of: \u201cI know a verse, but there is another verse over there\u201d? No, rather take the Gospel of John because that is the Gospel that people often refer to when we come to this question. In John 1:13 it says of the children of God that they are those \u201cwho were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God.\u201d The same thing is said in John 6:44: \u201cNo one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,\u201d and John 6:65: \u201c. . .  no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father,\u201d and John 15:16: \u201cYou did not choose me, but I chose you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is pervasive in Scripture. Then, of course, what happens is that we are free in Christ, as it says in Galatians 5:1: \u201cFor freedom Christ has set you free.\u201d To that we say: \u201cHey, then I\u2019ve got it made because whatever I do gets a pass.\u201d Is that the way it is? No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul takes this up in Romans 3:8, 6:1 and 6:15, where he says: \u201cDoes this mean: \u201clet us sin that grace may abound?\u201d Paul then writes in Romans 6 (paraphrase): \u201cIf you think that, then you don\u2019t get it.\u201d He spells it out in 1 Cor 6:19-20: \u201cYou are not your own; you were bought with a price.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We come back then to Ephesians 1:4: \u201c. . . he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.\u201d It means he adopted you and me as his sons and daughters. As the end of this section says: We have been \u201csealed with the Holy Spirit which is the guarantee of our inheritance\u201d (Ephesians 1:14). In Baptism we are made his heirs. Paul spells this out completely in Romans 8 and Galatians 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are adopted in him, and that makes all the difference.  Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ephesians 1:3-14<\/p>\n

A Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n

One of the greatest engineers of all time was Archimedes (287-212 BC). We know that he shouted \u201cEureka!\u201d when he figured out how to weigh things in water, and we know his statement about the lever: \u201cGive me a long enough lever and I will move the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what happened at the end of his life is equally as important. According to the story, he was in the gymnasium in Syracuse in Sicily, during the Siege of Syracuse. At that time, it was a Greek colony. He doing calculations in the sand when the barbarians stormed into the gymnasium. Engrossed in solving his math problem, Archimedes held up his hands and said: \u201cDon\u2019t disturb my circles!\u201d But they didn\u2019t speak Greek and thought he was resisting them, so they killed him.<\/p>\n

That is in a way what this text in Ephesians 1:3-14 is about. This is the classical spot, the place where it says: \u201cGod did it; God does it.\u201d It says there in verse 4: \u201c. . . he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.\u201d Well, what does that say in terms of what\u2019s happening around us today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10119,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116\/revisions\/10119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}