04/14/2024
Before you lay your head on your pillow tonight, whisper to yourself: "I am God's beloved child." No one can take away this identity you have in Christ. It is God's gracious gift. This was the focus of the sermon today. Please find it attached.
April 14, 2024
Practice Resurrection: Human Beings not Human Doings
Rev. Carrie Benton
Easter Season Ephesians 1:3-23, 2:1-10
Mountain Lakes
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Weekly Sermon Series Reprisal—Practice Resurrection1
This Easter season, the season of Resurrection, we are focusing on the practice
of resurrection. Practicing resurrection is our way of life in Christ. It’s the
metaphor that Eugene Peterson uses to describe the process of our growing
up in Christ. Practicing resurrection is all about the transformative way we
develop maturity in and through Christ. We practice resurrection by living
into our identity in Christ. The reality of our resurrection life in Christ is what
we see and experience in our baptism: we have been “made alive together in
Christ” (Eph. 2:5), as Paul puts it in the letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians is
our biblical test for the season. The apostle Paul and Pastor Peterson will
guide us this season as companions on our growing-up-in-Christ journey.
1 Again, from the poem by Wendell Berry: “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”
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Introduction
We often ask kids: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We’re really
asking what kind of career or job they want to have. It’s an innocent enough
question. This is what our society focuses on – what we do in order to make a
living. It’s how we try to get to know someone, know what they’re about. For
a lot of people, though, it’s also how we measure ourselves in the world.
Whether or not we see ourselves as important or significant – by what we do.
It's why, when we meet someone and are trying to do the small talk thing we
usually ask: “What do you do? What keeps you busy?” They’re the kind of
questions we use to try and orient ourselves in relationship with others –
questions about what we do. But, these are wrong first questions. They’re
important questions, don’t get me wrong. But this isn’t where we should start.
We start with who we are, simply by virtue of being human in this world, with
flesh and bone and spirit, with heart and mind and soul. Christ came into the
world enfleshed. Incarnation. This is how Christ is still present to us –
enfleshed in the bodies of one another, enfleshed in the church. Who we are
in Christ as human beings is primary. What we do as followers of Christ is
secondary – it flows from who we are. So this is where we start.
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Move1—Identity in Christ (Our Being Human)
As human beings, it is important to remember who we are, that is, who we are
in Christ. Our identity in Christ must be first and foremost in our heart, mind,
spirit, and body. This is what Paul is after in this first part of the letter:
• Blessed in Christ (1:3)
• Chosen in Christ (1:4)
• Destined for adoption through Christ (1:5)
• Grace bestowed on us in the Beloved (i.e. in Christ) (1:6)
• The riches of grace lavished on us in Christ (1:7-8)
• Mystery made known to us in Christ (1:9)
• All things gathered up in Christ (1:10)
This is our identity – this is who we are. We must own this, claim this, rest in
this. Our whole being – everything about who we are and what we do – is in
Christ. We make our home and live our lives in Christ. And it’s all grace. All
gift. Then, and only then, comes the doing, what Paul calls the “good works.”
But first, before any of the doing, we have to be reminded again and again who
we are in Christ. Paul says it at least seven different ways so that we don’t
miss what God is after. Paul says it seven different ways in case we forget. In
Christ we are: blessed, destined, chosen, and gathered up. In and through
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Christ, God’s mystery is made known to us and God’s grace is bestowed and
lavished upon us. I cannot stress how important it is for us to hold tightly on
to our identity in Christ, friends. The world is constantly trying to tell us who
we are by what we do or don’t do, how we measure up or not to the world’s
standards, or our boss’s standards, or the school board’s, or the clubs’,
committees’, associations’ or societies’ we’re part of. But none of these reveal
the truth of who we are in Christ. We are beloved children of God, blessed,
chosen, destined, gathered up – that is intimately connected to all things – in
Christ. God’s blessed mystery is made known to us. The gifts of God’s grace
have been bestowed, lavished, poured out upon us. This is who we are. I
cannot stress enough how we need to get this into every part of our being!
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Move 2—Then Comes the Doing (Good Works)
Throughout our lives we will need the constant reminder of who we are
because the world that we live in – and this is anywhere in the world – tries to
reduce us to what we do: those tasks, duties, jobs, and responsibilities; those
missions, projects, and assignments; those functions, performances, and
activities. You get the idea. We can get lost in all the doing – it happens quite
easily, actually – because we confuse all the doing with being. The question is
not what will you be when you grow up, but who are you, who are you
becoming in Christ? Any doing we engage in needs to flow from our being, our
identity in Christ. Paul is crystal clear about this.
Move 3—Not for Our Glory
Paul does also want us to understand that we are “created in Christ for good
works” (2:10). Yes! And how we do what we do will be characterized by who
we are. So we need to examine our motivations, our impulses, and
compulsions. This is one way we practice resurrection. Are we engaging in
activities and good works out of vain ambition? Are we getting our sense of
worth and value in the world from the things we do or from our association
with a particular job title? We pause, confess, and commit to transformation.
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We commit to growing up in Christ. We commit to reconnecting with who we
are and focus less on any attachment to what we do our what we did. God is
the one who receives the glory for everything we do because of who we are,
who God is making us to be, in the Risen Christ.
Move 4—Grace is the Water We Swim In
Paul puts it this way: “By grace we have been saved—we have been raised up
with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that
in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace we have been saved through
faith, and this is not our own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of
works, so that no one may boast” (2:6-9). Who you are is beloved child of God.
Since before the foundation of the world, God has known you, loved you, and
claimed you as beloved child, son, daughter. Before you do anything, before
the world tries to impose it’s standards and stereotypes upon you – first and
foremost you are God’s beloved. This is the state of being God invites us to
rest in, find our home in. And this is all grace. This is all God’s gift. Grace is
the very water we swim in. Grace is the very air we breathe. Grace surrounds
and embraces us. Grace reminds us who we are.
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Invitation to Discipleship—Growing Up in Christ
This week, in our practice of resurrection, let us first focus on our identity, on
who we are. Friends, we are human beings, not human doings. Our being in
Christ defines our humanity. Our belovedness in the Beloved is the source
from which all our doing comes. Each morning when you wake up – say “I am
God’s beloved child.” Each day as you go about your activities – be aware of
the truth and proclaim it: “I am God’s beloved child.” Each night as you lay
your head on your pillow, say it again, “I am God’s beloved child.”
And secondly, let us also examine what’s behind and underneath all the
activities that we’re doing. What’s our motivation? Why are we doing what
we’re doing? If we’re doing a particular activity or part of a certain club or
committee so that people will think highly of us, we’ve missed the boat. If we
work really hard so that we’ll have some sort of status, prestige, or power in
our community, then we’ve gotten it all wrong. If we think our only value
comes by what we do or produce, we are locked up by a lie. God wants to
break us free from that with the blessing of grace. God wants us to rest in the
freedom of our belovedness. We are so much more to God—we have worth
and value because of who we are in the Risen Christ Jesus.
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Prayer of Hope (Paul’s Prayer)
My prayer of hope today is simply to echo Paul: “I have heard of your faith in
the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not
cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, 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, so that, with the eyes of your heart
enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you,
what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is
the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the
working of his great power” (1:15-19). Thanks be to God. Amen.
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