Jesus Christ: The Sum of All Gods

Ephesians 1:7-12

When I started planning this series on Ephesians nearly a year ago, the idea for the title came relatively quickly - “Right Living In a World Gone Wrong.” To me, it catches the major emphasis of Paul, expressed clearly in chapter 4, verse 1, where he says, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

If there was every any doubt that we live in a world gone wrong, it has been dispelled by the images this week out of New Orleans. In the midst of perhaps the greatest crisis our nation has ever witnessed, we have seen the utter breakdown of human decency and have watched as chaos and anarchy have swept over the city. I can understand a father doing whatever he needs to do to get water to his dying children, but when wild packs of human wolves roam the streets, stealing televisions and furniture, and when men are assaulting women in refugee centers, and ambulance drivers refuse to go into the city out of fear for their lives, and rescue helicopters are shot at from the streets – we are seeing the worst of human existence.

I don’t believe these are random, exceptional acts. I believe that in many people today, there is a thin veneer of civility that covers over an underlying violence and ruthlessness that becomes apparent when that veneer is cracked. Look at the incredible violence in Milwaukee this year – the record murder rate, the unspeakable cruelty that hangs over the neighborhoods of that city. Do any of us doubt for a moment that if a similar catastrophe would hit our neighboring big city, the violence we have seen in New Orleans would be repeated here? Not for a minute!

So what’s the cure? What can we do to turn the tide of human decay?

Last week we talked about understanding who we are in Christ – and it is important – but the issue we are talking about today goes far beyond self esteem. We’ve spent millions of dollars and gone to extreme lengths to try to make people feel good about themselves, and all we’ve done is create a society of people who feel that the world owes them everything on a platter. And besides that, even a person who feels really good about himself is not assured of living a right life.

Back In 1988, there was a guy who was dominating the sport of Baseball. His name was Orel Hershiser. In that one season, he was named the National League Championship Series and World Series MVP, Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, Unanimous National League Cy Young Award recipient and Gold Glove Winner, Sporting News Major League Player of the Year, and the Associated Press Professional Athlete of the Year in all sports.

Hershiser was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and they had just won the World Series. Orel had been named the Most Valuable Player. During one of the games in the series, he was shown in the dugout just before the 9th inning started. He was leaning against the wall. And his lips were moving.

A week later, when he was a guest on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson asked him what he had been saying. "I wasn’t saying anything," Orel responded. "Well, then, tell us what you were doing." Finally Orel replied, "I was singing." Johnny said, "You were singing? I didn’t know you were a singer. Come on, let’s here it!" And Orel said, "Nah. I don’t want to." And the audience clapped and said, "Yeah! Let’s hear it! Wooooh!!!!"

Finally, Orel Hershiser started to sing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise him above Ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost! Amen!"

Johnny Carson was speechless! The whole audience was dead silent. Then one person stood up and started clapping. And soon, the whole audience joined in applause.

In that moment, Hershiser was stating that he might be the MVP of the World Series, The Cy Young winner, and the professional athlete of the year, but he recognized who was really important in his life. Paul does the same here in Ephesians chapter 1.

Last week we looked at this giant run-on sentence that lasts from verse 3-14, which is about the amazing blessings we have in Christ. We said that the Christian has his sufficiency in Christ – Paul tells us that we have been blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

We are further shown that as a believer in Jesus, I have my significance in Christ, too. Followers of Jesus are identified as “saints,” people who have been set apart before God – separated from the world to live a life that is described as “holy and blameless” in verse 4.

Paul goes on to say that they have been “chosen by God, before the creation of the world.” It is a mind-blowing truth that God knows you, and that He has an eternal purpose for you – and that He chose you, before he ever said, “Let there be light,” He knew you, and He chose you.

More than that, God has chosen you and me for a purpose. He chose us to be adopted as His children, to be holy and blameless in his sight, “For the praise of His glory.”

Last week we asked, “Who Do You Think You Are?” A clear understanding of the beauty of these truths is necessary if the believer is to experience life the way God intends it to be lived. Jesus wants His people to experience an abundant life in the here and now, and this can be done only with a proper perspective of one’s standing before God. Man, when the wheels are coming off your wagon, and the world seems to be pressing in, all you have to do is remind yourself of who you are, and remember that God has chosen you as His child, and it changes the way you look at things!

We also saw that if we have placed our faith in Jesus, we have our security in Him. We have an inhereitance that has been promised by God Himself, and we have been given a down payment on that future inheritance – it is the Holy Spirit who lives within us. We will live for all eternity with God – but for now He lives by the Holy Spirit with us.

Much is heard today about self-esteem, but our self esteem is actually GOD ESTEEM – because our value comes from the fact that He loves us, that He has chosen us, and that He will never abandon us! And while it is important for us to have a healthy view of ourselves and a right estimation of who we are in Christ, it is even more important for them to have a right estimation of who Jesus Christ is.

Orel Herhiser was on top of the world in 1988 – but in the middle of that euphoria, at the height of who he was, he was caught up in realizing who Jesus is! Knowing who WE are in Christ means nothing if we don’t have an adequate understanding of Who HE is!

This can be clearly seen in Paul’s writing here in Ephesians chapter one. Last week I mentioned to you that in the original Greek verses 3 – 14 are one great-big-long-run-on sentence – it is an explosion of worship from the heart of Paul, who is bubbling over with excitement about the amazing value that God has placed on each of us, and the incredible nature of this God who loves us so!

I pointed out that three times in this one sentence Paul says, “to the praise of His glory!” It is all about Him! Sure, He has chosen us, and adopted us as His children, and made us to be holy and blameless in His sight, and made us His inheritance – but it’s not about us – it’s about HIM! Each of us should find ourselves singing when we consider what God has done! “Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him all creatures here below! Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts! Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!”

But if repeating “To the Praise of His Glory” three times is significant, then how about this – Paul repeats the phrase “in Christ” 27 times in this letter, and 10 times in this one sentence! As I read this great expression of worship from the pen of Paul, I am drawn toward one section in particular that seems to be the high point – it’s found in verses 9 and 10. It reads,

And He (God the Father) made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

The Message puts it this way,

He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

I like the way the Message puts it, and a few other translations that I looked at this week as well, because it uses a phrase that accurately captures the original Greek – the phrase “summed up in Him.” The NIV and the King James translate it “bring all things together in Him,” but the phrase Paul used was actually a word used for an arithmetic equation. When we are taught to add up a series of numbers, we list them out, do the work, and put the total at the bottom of the column. Even our Excel spreadsheets do this for us on the computer in that manner. The Greeks had a practice of adding up a column of numbers and putting the sum, or the total, at the top of the column. You got the answer first, then had the raw data below it. Either way, the idea is that the total was the combined value of the parts.

The phrase in the Greek also came to be used for the closing statements at the end of a speech or address – it wrapped things up in a summary that brought all the various parts together in one concise statement. The Greek word is only used one other place in the New Testament, in Romans 13:9, where Paul says that the entire Old Testament Law can be “summed up” in one commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In our modern language we call a statement that encapsulates a thought or presentation a “SUMmary.” It’s the total of all that is expressed.

Winston Churchill once said, "You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together - what do you get? The sum of their fears."

Paul’s point is this – Jesus Christ is the “Sum of all Gods.” Every other attempt to reconcile humanity with eternity falls short of the ultimate plan of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Our world is full of confusion over how to please God – watch this short video clip…

[Video clip showing teenagers asked “How do you get to heaven?” Answers all center on the best efforts of self to please God.]

Those answers reflect man’s best efforts to please God. Every religion on earth is like that. In Islam, Allah is a god whose favor is earned by acts of sacrifice and denial. In Buddhism and many eastern religions, there is no god at all, simply a melting away of reality into an “impersonal unity of being.” As we deny ourselves, and refuse all human desire, we become pure and impersonal. The Hindu religion has thousands of gods, but focus on a few who they worship to help them come into harmony with a cosmic unifying force. In animism, people believe that every object has a soul or spirit, and they do what they can to placate those spirits in order to keep them from becoming angry with them.

All around the globe, humanity is involved in a quest to unite to God – there is in every human being what French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal called, a “God-shaped vacuum.” That we seek to fill. And yet if you take every one of those efforts, and all the religious exercises of humanity, and listed them all up, the one place where they all come together is in the ultimate plan of God – Jesus Christ. In fact, Pascal’s full statement was,

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.

The trouble with those other religious pathways is that they all seek to reach God – to somehow impress Him, please Him, or to by extreme personal effort become part of Him – and each of those religious practices go to amazing lengths to try to achieve their goal.

The difference is this – while other efforts are a measure of how far we can reach toward the divine – in God’s plan, as revealed in Jesus Christ, we see the divine reaching to us. Paul does not talk about how wide, and how long, and how high and how deep are the efforts of man to reach God, but rather, “how wide, and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ…”

The sum of all those efforts of man simply aren’t enough to add up to God’s standards! And yet in one amazing plan, God Himself reached out to us. Again, verses 10 reads,

He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

Colossians 1:6 tells us that all things were created in Christ. The Bible tells us that through sin death, destruction and disorder were unleashed on creation, and Paul tells us here that in Christ, it is all brought back into place. The “mystery of God’s plan” is revealed in Jesus. We can’t reach God, and His plan all along has been to reach down to us, and He did so by sending His own Son, Jesus Christ, into the world.

Folks, we gather here today as “Christians!” We are here because of what God did in Christ! We are here to celebrate and worship the living, resurrected Son of God who has won victory over the chaos of this world, defeated death and the grave, and bridged the gap between God and humanity. All our efforts, no matter how noble, how humble or how self-denying, do not add up to what it takes to impress God. The equation simply does not balance. We come up short.

The sum of all gods is Jesus. The sum of all our efforts is found in Jesus Christ. It’s not an answer we can come up with, it’s an answer that is supplied by God Himself.

If the sum of your efforts has come up short – take the answer that is supplied by God…trust in Jesus Christ to bring you into right relationship with Him.

Prayer.