FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 6, number 35, August 30, 2007

. . .to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, Ephesians 3:6.

All You Need Is In Jesus

On our recent mission trip to Kampala, Uganda, our team spent two days in a slum called Kiefimbira, teaching a Bible Club for children and distributing clothing to many mothers and grandmothers there. Originally we counted twenty-five women at our meeting and put the clothing in that number of piles. By the time we began distribution, however, the number had doubled. We cut the piles as much as we could but still many women did not receive any clothing for themselves or their children. This was a vivid illustration to us. We can never satisfy all the temporal and physical needs of the poor. This is not to say that we should not show mercy and compassion to those in physical need. What was remarkable about this incident is how content these women seemed to be with a gift of little or nothing. It seems that they have come to understand something we need to learn-our needs are not primarily physical or temporal. Instead they are eternal and spiritual.

Paul puts forth a remarkable three-fold declaration of the standing of the Ephesian brethren, former pagans, in this verse before us today. He declares that they are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Paul is in the midst of a parenthetical statement, verses 2-13, where he is reiterating the remarkable truth that the middle wall of separation between Jew and Gentile is abolished through the death of Christ. What does Paul mean by fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise? He means that these Gentiles are on equal footing with Jewish believers who had far more privileges than they. They are beneficiaries of the riches of God’s eternal salvation, Ephesians 1:3-14, being made heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. See also Galatians 3:29, Romans 8:17. When Paul declares them to be fellow members of the body he uses a word never used elsewhere in the Greek New Testament. Furthermore, the word cannot be found in secular Greek writings of the day, meaning Paul probably coined the word himself. The idea is one Paul develops in other places (see I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 2:16) and it means that all believers in Christ, regardless of their nationality or ethnic or economic status, are in the spiritual body of Christ, that we are united to Him, that we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, to borrow a phrase from John Calvin. Finally Paul says that we are fellow partakers of the promise. What promise? The prophetic word of Genesis 3:15, Genesis 12:1-3, Psalm 2, Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6, 7, Jeremiah 31, among many others, is fulfilled in the first advent of Jesus Christ who, in the fullness of time, was born of a woman, born under the law, in order that He may redeem us from the works of the law, Galatians 4:4-6. In other words, the Gentiles are partakers of the promise of Christ, just as the Jewish believers are.

Okay, that’s the gist of the text, but what difference does this make in how we live? It drives home the glorious truth that all you need is in Jesus Christ. Therefore can you not put away the folly of lesser things? You think your greatest need is physical, financial, social, emotional, psychological, material, or temporal. You reason, "If only I had a better job, more money, a better spouse, children who obeyed me, then I know I would be content." You know you are thinking this way when these things take first place in your life and you know this is happening by observing how much they dominate your thoughts, emotions, words, time, and actions. I know you work forty to sixty hours weekly, but I suggest you can still put in these hours and not live for the temporal and material. You are buying into the temporal as the most important when you acquire wealth as an end in itself. Why are you working? Why are you saving and investing money? Be honest with yourself? Is it for your own comfort? Is it for your children? Is it for pleasure? There is nothing wrong with acquiring wealth, but the question is- why?

Your greatest need is spiritual and eternal, being in right relationship with God, knowing your sins are forgiven, knowing that He loves you and will take you to heaven when you die. This need can only be met in Jesus Christ. That’s the whole point of Paul’s declaration in verse 6. Does this sound bigoted? What about all the religions of the world- Islam, Hinduism, Animism? The greatest sickness, being estranged from God, requires the greatest remedy. You were enemies of God. You hated God. You hated His attributes, things like His inexhaustible love, immutable goodness, unsearchable wisdom, unfathomable grace, unmitigated transcendence. You hated His law, His word. And you hated His people. This was true of you prior to your conversion. And you did so because you were dead in your sins. You were willing to thank people for kind deeds done for you, but you failed to thank God for His bountiful blessings to you. You were enamored with people of position and power, yet you failed to acknowledge or love the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Such folly, but God was rich in mercy to you, opening your eyes to your sin and spiritual poverty, showing you Jesus, giving you faith to repent and believe His gospel. The fact is- all you need is in Jesus.

Can you not, therefore, put away the folly of lesser things? Paul says in Philippians 3:18, 19 that the earthly minded are enemies of the cross of Christ, that their end is destruction, that their god is their appetite, who glory in their shame. But if you are in Christ Jesus, if you are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body of Christ, if you are fellow partakers of the promise, then you are heavenly minded. Your citizenship is in heaven where you eagerly wait for the Savior, who will turn the body of your humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of His power to subject all things to Himself.

I suggest our wealth and modernity are doing a number on us, seducing us to believe that our greatest needs are physical or temporal. God has done the Ugandans in Kiefimbira a huge favor. By depriving them of stuff, they are forced to run to Jesus for refuge. They have no other place to go. Your wealth gives you options which wage war on your soul. Your task is much more difficult that the people in Kiefimbira. You must suffer the hardship of worldly wealth. What is the remedy? Guard your heart and mind? What dominates your thinking, speech, time, emotions? What is the objective of wealth acquisition? Allow the Holy Spirit to show you improper priorities and repent in humility. Look at godly people, how they hold their stuff loosely. And look at Jesus, who though He was rich became poor for your sake. You will battle this until you die, but the battle is worth fighting. All you need is in Jesus.

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.

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