16th Sunday after Trinity + Ephesians 3:13-21 + September 11, 2016
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15
Hymn # 522 When in the Hour of Utmost NeedReadings
Collect for Trinity XVI
Lord, we pray Thee that Thy grace may always go before and follow after us and make us continually given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Sermon on the Epistle Lesson
Grace
and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) St.
Paul writes to the congregation in Ephesus to comfort them in their affliction.
At the moment their particular affliction is the status of Paul himself. As
Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians he sits imprisoned in Rome. This is
why he writes, “Therefore I ask that you
do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” Having
your preacher sit in an imperial prison is not necessarily a good thing. Having
THE Teacher of the Gentiles in custody would only bring shame upon the
Ephesians who had gladly heard Paul and accepted his teaching. The world had
judged Paul as a criminal and a seditionist. The world will always do its best
to silence true preachers. This is what happened to the Prophets of old.
Jeremiah thrown into a cistern. Isaiah sawn in two. John the Baptist imprisoned
and beheaded. Christ crucified. Stephen stoned to death. The world was simply
operated according to its standard M.O., putting Paul in chains and eventually,
under the abrasive hand of Emperor Nero, martyring him. The world assumed Paul
was a disgraced leader and that is certainly what the Ephesians would have felt
as their heard news of Paul’s imprisonment in the capital of the empire. That
is how tongues would have wagged about Paul, seeking to destroy his credibility
since they had not been able to destroy his gospel. Paul, always teaching and
pastoring his flocks, even while imprisoned, consoles them, “do not lose heart at my tribulations for
you, which is your glory.” With this Paul reminds them to look at all
life’s situations, even the direst, through the eyes of faith in the promises
of Christ rather than through the eyes of the sinful flesh.
2) This
is important for Christians in every age to learn, for one of the fruits of the
gospel is the hatred of the world and suffering because of it. At the end of
his first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas “returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening
the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith, saying, "We
must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Paul, like the Lord Jesus Christ, never promised a life of ease to his
Christians. He did not sugarcoat the truth by telling people that the Christian
truth would make life easier. He lived a life of hardship because of the gospel
and he taught the flocks under his care to expect the same treatment from the
world, since the world, secular society, and human cultures cannot tolerate Christ.
“Do not lose heart,” he says. “Do
not be discouraged because I sit in an imperial prison. Do not fall away on
account of my trials, for they are given to you as proof of the truth of the
gospel, so that you may firmly believe and not doubt. This trial of Paul’s is
for the strengthening of the Ephesian’s faith, for that is the purpose of
trials and hardships in the life of the Christian. This is because faith is not
a substance that you can possess, so that once you possess it you can lock it
away for safe keeping. Faith is confidence, a heartfelt trust, a boldness of
heart that no matter what the world does, no matter how Satan rages, and no
matter how much the sinful flesh torments you, faith is that which still clings
to Christ’s Word. Paul does not want their faith to wave and grow cold because
of his situation, or from any future situation.
3) This is the reason for his prayer in today’s Epistle
lesson, which is really a marvelous prayer to think that St. Paul wanted this
for Christians. He prays that God the Father “would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be
strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may
be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and
depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Paul is very wordy here as he
always is, but the point of his prayer, that for which He asks, is quite
simple: that God the Father strengthen the Ephesians with might through the
Spirit in the inner man. He prays that God would strengthen their inner man
through the Holy Spirit so that their inner man is mighty against the assaults
of the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh. He prays for such strengthening
because his gospel has shown the Ephesians that their own strength is nothing
when it comes to fighting sin, enduring temptation, and overcome the thoughts
and patterns of this world. St. Paul knows the Ephesians are weak according the
inner man, so he prays that the Holy Spirit might strengthen that inner man,
which will in turn lead them to comprehend the ineffable depth of the love that
Christ has for them.
4) When Paul writes about the inner man, he is
speaking of the new man which Christ raises to life in us through the Gospel.
He says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
This happens in Holy Baptism, for he writes in Romans 6:4 that “we were
buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of
life. In Baptism Christ washed you of your sin inherited from Adam. In Holy
Baptism the name of the Triune God was placed upon your forehead and your heard
through water and the Word, and you because the new creation. Holy Baptism is a
resurrection not of the body but of the spirit, whereby you are regenerated,
born again, or born from above, so all who have been baptized in the name of
the Triune God have faith in their hearts and are the new man. Luther
attributes this to Holy Baptism in the Small Catechism, “What does such baptizing
with water signify? It
signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance,
be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily
come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity
forever.” You are united with Christ in His death by Holy Baptism. You
participate in the crucifixion and resurrection so that your old sinful self,
the Old Adam, the Old Man, are put off, buried, and gone, so that the new man,
the inner man, the man that lives by faith in Christ might rise daily to live
before God in Christ’s righteousness and purity.
5)
Paul prays that that which was accomplished for the Ephesians in Holy Baptism
might be strengthened so that it not falter in temptation nor shrink as it considers
sufferings and hardships. The outer man, the Old Adam, the sinful flesh, still
clings to us in this life and does all it can to suppress the inner man as
well. It is not only the spiritual temptations of the Satan and the hardships
the world brings about that try to weaken the Christian’s resolve. Paul prays
that the inner man be strengthened with might according to the Holy Spirit so
that the inner man, the man of faith in Christ, might struggle against and
overcome the old Adam with his sinful desires. Paul tells the Corinthians
something similar in 2 Corinthians 4:8-11, “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -- always carrying
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may
be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for
Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Though
the Old Adam, our sinful nature, daily press us, perplex us, persecute us, and
strike us, the Christian daily fights against him and puts him to death through
repentance and faith. That is how the death of Jesus is manifest in our own
bodies, through the putting to death of our sinful desires.
6) Paul goes
on to say, “Therefore we do not lose
heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2
Corinthians 4:16). Though the outer life, the life of the sinful flesh, hard press
us and try to lead us into sin in thought, word, and deed, our inward man is
being daily strengthened and renewed by the Word. Paul prays that the
Holy Spirit would strengthen the Ephesians in the inner man, and he teaches
elsewhere the Holy Spirit only works through the Word, for “faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). The Holy Spirit
cannot strengthen the inner man of those who neglect the Word, despise the
Word, or refuse to hear the Word after their baptisms, for the Word is His
instrument for increasing the inner man, strengthening his confidence in
Christ’s promises, and emboldening him to confidently live a life of faith
towards God and fervent love toward neighbor. The Holy Spirit cannot, and will
not strengthen anyone’s faith and inner man apart from the Word of God, through
preaching and His visible Word of the sacraments. This is why the Ephesians
were to treasure the Word of God and the preaching of Paul whom God had sent,
regardless of his worldly circumstances and outward persecutions and hardships.
7) What Paul prays for the Ephesians is the desire
of the Triune God for all Christians. Your Lord wants to strengthen your inner
man, the new life given to you in Holy Baptism, through the preaching of His
Word and through receiving His sacraments according to His institution. He does
not want you to lose heart at what you see with your eyes, nor does He want you
to be deceived when the church suffers hardship or when you undergo personal
trial, so that you imagine you have lost His favor. He wants to strengthen your
inner man, your faith, through His Word, so that you may be begin to comprehend
the width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ, so that
your faith may be strengthened for the trials that lie ahead in the week to
come. You cannot endure temptation by your own strength, for you have none. You
cannot endure the world’s persecutions by your own resolve, for the only
resolve you have is that which is given by God. But praise be Christ, for He
desires to strengthen you, to embolden you, and to fortify you in all His
promises. To that end He gives you the Holy Spirit to strengthen your inner
man, so you might suppress the Old Adam with its lusts and desires, and let the
new man of faith come forth. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes
all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds by faith in Christ Jesus.
Amen.