Ephesians 1:9

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Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:9. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.

Ephesians 1:9

“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will , according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ.”

God has given us knowledge of His will and purpose in Christ.

Knowledge was important to the Greeks and to many in that culture. People still say to this day, “Knowledge is power.”

This applies not just to the human realm but also to the spiritual realm.

The early church faced multiple threats to its theology from groups collectively called Gnostics to whom knowledge was eternal life. There were many Gnostic sects which blended elements of various religious systems, but they had a common thread. The basic belief was that the physical world is evil and the heavens are pure, and we can only be redeemed by secret knowledge (gnosis) which allows us to ascend by a series of intermediaries of which Christ is just one. This knowledge is hidden from ordinary people (mystery), but this teacher or this group will lead you to knowledge and enlightenment.

Paul cuts down that line of thinking by saying God has made known to us these hidden mysteries and His plan and purpose in the person of Christ. We don’t need any more knowledge, wisdom or insight because Christ Himself is the revelation.

The mystery of God’s will is something that Paul writes about quite often. The word mystery means there is something that was in the past secret and unknowable about salvation, but this has now been revealed. The Jewish people had some understanding, but the revelation they had was not complete.

Now in Christ we have the full revelation, the unveiling of the mystery, the explanation of God’s purpose that was hidden for so long.

In Christ we have knowledge; the explanation and description of who God is and how we can be put right with Him.

There is no need for other knowledge, the Gnostic “knowledge”, because we have Christ to show us. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Whoever sees Him sees the Father. Whoever follows Jesus as Lord is granted entry into God’s Kingdom.

In Christ we have full wisdom. The Greeks pursued philosophy which is literally the love of wisdom. Wisdom would give them mastery of themselves and their destiny.

The problem with philosophy is that every team comes up with different answers. One team would say that you must deny the fleshly desires and live a frugal life. Another team would say that the best life is one in which we enjoy every good thing. Yet another team would say that wisdom comes when we learn to patiently endure all things in life whether good or bad.

Jesus’ message is all wisdom. “The Kingdom of God is here. Turn away from your sins and follow me.” This wisdom not only orders our earthly life, but guarantees eternal life to all who will follow Him.

In Christ we have true insight- the word here actually means a frame of reference. Christ sets all of our thinking right. He is the centre of our world-view. Since this is actually God’s perspective, that means that all of our thoughts about ourselves, about God, and about other people now line up with those of the Creator. We have a true world-view, a correct frame of reference, a clear lens through which to view the world around us.

In the past everything was “mystery”, hidden from us and unable to be discerned except through a lens that was distorted and out of focus. Now, in Christ, we see all things clearly.

All of this is according to God’s purpose set forth in Christ. There is a Kingdom that is world-wide in scope, bringing every person under its reign. Jews and Gentiles are to be united in their worship of the Lord and in their work for Him. One race swearing allegiance to Christ.

Christ’s purpose was not just to save some individuals, important as that is, but to bring all things in unity under Him, and then at the end to present it all to the Father.

Key points in this verse:

  • God has given us all revelation in Christ.
  • There is no need for secret knowledge to gain salvation
  • Christ is all we need.
  • There is a huge plan that is coming to fruition in Christ,

Reflection on John 1:35-44

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The Brick Testament

Scripture
Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”).

Observation
Two of John’s disciples meet Jesus, and John declares that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The disciples follow Him and remain with Him. One of these disciples is Andrew, who goes off to find his brother, Simon, telling him, “We have found the Messiah.”

The next day, Jesus goes off to Galilee, where He meets Philip and tells him, “Come and follow me.”

Application
There are many ways in which people find Jesus. One of them is when trusted teachers, perhaps a pastor or other father in the faith, explains that Jesus is the “Lamb of God” for us.

Another way is to be introduced to Jesus by a friend or relative. They may not have all the answers, but they know Jesus is the Messiah. In their excitement they share the Good News about Jesus,

Some people find Jesus through a direct call from Him to “Come and follow me.”

Over and over we read in John’s gospel of people testifying to their experience of Jesus, and many people come to faith as a result.

When we think of evangelism it can seem to be a daunting task. What if I say the wrong thing? What if they don’t want to listen? What if they ask questions I can’t answer?

All we have to say is “Come and find Jesus the Messiah.”

Jesus’ message was also very simple. “The kingdom of God is here. Turn away from your sins and follow me.”

We don’t need classes to do this; we just need to do it!

Prayer
Lord, many people have come to faith through a simple invitation. Help me to be like Andrew and tell people, “I have found the Messiah.” Please show me the people you are already working on, and give me boldness to speak for you. Amen.

Reflection on John 1:19-34

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Scripture

Then John gave this testimony, “I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have baptised him, except that the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.”

Observation

The Jewish leaders send some priests and Levites to find out if John is the Messiah. He denies bring the one.

Then Jesus comes by, and John testifies that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John says that he saw the Holy Spirit descend and remain on Jesus, and the Lord had told him that Jesus is the baptiser in the Holy Spirit.

Application

Jesus is both the Lamb of God and the baptiser In the Holy Spirit,

The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. He has died to bring atonement- forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

Jesus is also the baptiser in the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes it possible for us to walk in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) are available to every believer. We can minister to others in the same power that Christ had. Even the Old Testament prophets had nothing like the power that is available to every ordinary follower of Jesus.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) are also available to every believer. The fruit produces in us the character of Christ, It is the outward, visible sign of the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in us.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a one-off event, but a daily filling, a daily relationship. As the power and grace of the Spirit pour into us, they are meant to overflow into the lives of the people around us, enabling us to be faithful witnesses of Christ.

Prayer

Holy Spirit fall afresh on me. Let me be so filled with you that everywhere I go, people are touched by your presence. Amen.

Solar Roads Epic Fail

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Remember the hype a few years ago about “solar roads”? These were roads with embedded solar panels that would generate enough power to save the planet. It seems that, as any engineer can tell you, the real world is a much tougher place than a lab. Things get dirty and wear out so that you $6 million dollars investment in 1 km of road in a cloudy part of France might not be terribly effective.

From Jo Nova

Solar road is $6m epic disaster — 4% capacity, broken and so noisy speed-limits were cut

Solar Road, Normandy, France, photo.

Solar Road, Normandy, France   |  Credit: KumKum

Would you like to drive slower, add to noise pollution and waste money? Then solar roads are for you:

The world’s first solar road has turned out to be a colossal failure…

Ruqayyah Moynihan and Lidia Montes, Business Insider

  • Two years after the world’s first solar road — the Normandy road in France — was set up, it’s turned out to be a colossal failure, according to a report by Le Monde.
  • The road has deteriorated to a terrible state, it isn’t producing anywhere near the amount of energy it had previously pledged to, and the traffic it has brought with it is causing noise problems.

The original aim was to produce 790 kWh each day, a quantity that could illuminate a population of between 3,000 and 5,000 inhabitants. But the rate produced stands at only about 50% of the original predicted estimates.

Even rotting leaves and thunderstorms appear to pose a risk in terms of damage to the surface of the road. What’s more, the road is very noisy, which is why the traffic limit had to be lowered to 70 kmh.

Despite costing up to roughly $6.1 million, the solar road became operational in 2016.

The 1km road is in Tourouvre-au-Perch, Normandy, France made by Colas.

Leaves fall on the road, then cars grind the leaves on the beautiful polymer surface. The road isn’t angled towards the sun, gets brutally hot, and both reduce efficiency. If the top polymer layer was thicker and tougher, less solar energy would get through. Planting trees beside the road would cool it, but the shade…

Who likes trees anyhow? Not the Greens.

 Getting 50% worse than expected every year:

Anna Versai, Technowize, Aug 19th, 2019

The stretch of the road in Tourouvre-au-Perch, Normandy, France was meant to produce about 150,000 kWh a year, which is enough to provide light to up to 5,000 people, every day. Instead, it made less than 80,000 in 2018, and fewer than 40,000 by July 2019.

Meant to power lights for a city of 5000 people:

Translating the Le Monde article, for €5 million in public funds they now generate € 1,450 worth of electricity per year and falling.

Financed by public funds of € 5 million and supported by Colas (Bouygues Group), the subsidiary Wattway aimed to provide the equivalent of the annual consumption of public lighting in a city. of 5,000 inhabitants.

The general director of services of the departmental council of the Orne made his accounts: “The revenue from the sale of electricity produced by the road should bring us 10 500 euros per year, details Gilles Morvan. In 2017, we received 4,550 euros. In 2018, 3,100 euros, and for the first quarter of 2019, we are at 1,450 euros. “

Not much sun there to start with? From Science Alert:

There proved to be several problems with this goal. The first was that Normandy is not historically known as a sunny area. At the time, the region’s capital city of Caen only got 44 days of strong sunshine a year, and not much has changed since. Storms have wrecked havoc with the systems, blowing circuits. But even if the weather was in order, it appears the panels weren’t built to capture them efficiently.

There’s 40 smaller roads like this?

For its part, Colas has admitted the project is a bust. “Our system is not mature for inter-urban traffic,” Etienne Gaudin, Colas’ chief executive of Wattway, told Le Monde. The company also operates 40 similar solar roads, smaller than the one in Normandy.

A solar bike path in the Netherlands works better:

In the Netherlands, a solar bike path has been declared a success. Dubbed the SolaRoad, the bike path is exactly what its name suggests. The electricity generated by SolaRoad is used for various purposes such as traffic management systems, public lighting, households, and electric mobility.

At the beginning of the trial, an energy yield of between 50 and 70 kWh/m2/year was expected. SolaRoad exceeded expectations by yielding 73  kWh/m2/year (first version, built in 2014) and 93 kWh/m2/year (second, improved version, built in 2016).

There were hiccups despite its impressive results. Due to poor weather conditions, a top layer of the solar bike path came off, and a major path had to be shut down.

The French solar road has a capacity factor of 4%

And this was a year ago. Probably that capacity factor is now 2%.

Dylan Ryan, The Conversion, Sept 2018

One of the first solar roads to be installed is in Tourouvre-au-Perche, France. This has a maximum power output of 420 kW, covers 2,800 m² and cost €5m to install. This implies a cost of €11,905 (£10,624) per installed kW.

While the road is supposed to generate 800 kilowatt hours per day (kWh/day), some recently released data indicates a yield closer to 409 kWh/day, or 150,000 kWh/yr. For an idea of how much this is, the average UK home uses around 10 kWh/day. The road’s capacity factor – which measures the efficiency of the technology by dividing its average power output by its potential maximum power output – is just 4%.

In contrast, the Cestas solar plant near Bordeaux, which features rows of solar panels carefully angled towards the sun, has a maximum power output of 300,000 kW and a capacity factor of 14%. And at a cost of €360m (£321m), or €1,200 (£1,070) per installed kW, one-tenth the cost of our solar roadway, it generates three times more power.

Dylan Ryan is a lecturer in Mechanical & Energy Engineering at Edinburgh Napier University.

In Idaho a solar road had an 83% failure rate:

Andrew Follet, Daily Caller, October 2016

Despite massive internet hype, the prototype of the solar “road” can’t be driven on, hasn’t generate any electricity and 75 percent of the panels were broken before they were even installed. Of the panels installed to make a “solar footpath,” 18 of the 30 were dead on arrival due to a manufacturing failure. A short rain shower caused another four panels to fail, and only five panels appear to be presently functional. The prototype appears to be plagued by drainage issues, poor manufacturing controls and fundamental design flaws.

Can’t power a whole microwave oven, April 2017

The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day.

Non-toxic Masculinity

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There were a lot of heroes in Sydney this week- all of them men.

What feminists and others who blather about “toxic masculinity” or how men can “do better”- whatever that means- fail to recognise is that in an emergency, it is men who get together to protect the community.

It is men who used what was at hand (a milk crate and a chair!) to arrest a deranged man and hold him until the police arrived.

It is usually men who run into burning houses to rescue neighbours and men who grab people out of burning cars.

Yes there are women in the police and fire services who do amazing jobs and are equally brave.

But when somebody goes off their head in a women’s safe space, you had better hope there is a man nearby.

Ephesians 1:8

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Ephesians 1:8

Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:8. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.

“that he lavished on us in all wisdom and understanding”

God has “lavished” His grace upon us. The word “lavish” always makes me think of a child pouring outrageous amounts of topping on her ice cream. It is generous, abundant, and over-indulgent.

God does not give us just enough grace to live this life and then scrape into heaven by the skin of our teeth. His grace is lavished upon us – abundantly, pressed down and running over.

God pours out His grace, which is His love, mercy and provision of supernatural ability. With God there is always more than enough.

The feast in heaven is a wedding feast, a celebration with an abundance of food, drink and dancing. There is joy in God’s Kingdom because God lavishes His grace.

No holding back! It is all full on with God’s grace.

The awesome power of the world’s great waterfalls illustrate this. The water at Niagara Falls in America or Victoria Falls in Africa goes on for ever. It is limitless in its volume, and it falls with power over the edge of a mountain.

My local equivalent is called “Dripping Rock” where water flows after rain, and even in drought there is still a drip of water.

We often think of God’s grace as like Dripping Rock- a scarce quantity doled out to those who are good. But God’s grace is Niagara, where you get a good soaking even if you don’t deserve it because that is the nature of grace.

This grace is lavished in all wisdom and understanding. It is not a foolish act, although it may seem so.

God loves all people, even those who are set against Him. He wants them to be reconciled to Him so He pours Himself- His grace, love and mercy- into them. He knows that if we can only see His heart of love, some will turn to Him. That is not an expense it is an investment.

We were once alienated from God by our guilt and fear of judgement. He sent Jesus to pay the price of our sins and to declare an amnesty. Our sins are forgiven. Now we can come to Him not as Judge but as Father.

Who would have thought of such a plan but God who is Wisdom? He gave us a way back to Him, a plan for salvation, a way of reconciliation.

Wisdom is the ability to find the best way in life’s decisions. Whenever we make choices, we choose between options which either build us and others up or else pull others and ourselves down. Wisdom allows us to see consequences of choices, and to prefer the best for others as well as ourselves.

Understanding is the ability to take hold of information and see why. There is a difference between a child who memorises a series of movements and one who dances. There is a difference between a person who memorises a mathematical proof and one who sees why it is important.

The Lord lavishes grace upon us with wisdom and understanding. He sees the thirst in our souls for Him, and He gives Himself to us.

Key points from this verse:

  • There is no limit to God’s grace
  • God holds nothing back from us
  • God lavishes His grace with wisdom and understanding

Another One Bites The Dust

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Marty Sampson, a well respected Hillsong musician recently announced in social media that he has either lost or is losing his faith. The original posts have been deleted, so it’s hard to find the exact message.

I’m not here to condemn anyone, but there is a long list of ministry fatalities in Hillsong and other mega churches.

I suspect that most mega churches are great leadership raising machines that spit out amazing people, but it seems the fatalities are also amazing. My observation from attending years of Hillsong conferences was that there is a huge amount of pressure put on people to perform to a high level of excellence. Some thrive, and others crash and burn.

Looking through Scripture I don’t see that model being promoted anywhere. There is pressure, but the pressure is from persecution rather than from driven leadership.

In fact, Jesus demonstrates a very laid back approach. Jesus made this very laid back invitation

Matthew 11:28-30 
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I feel that the church in many places has lost track of something important: our primary task is to love God and love people. If only we can love extravagantly, then many of the issues that come from burnout, disappointment and unrealistic expectations could be headed off.

I have been reflecting a lot on the parable of the lost son. It seems to me that Jesus is trying to show us a God who loves us abundantly (prodigally) despite our poor performance. If only we can get our heads around that kind of love and start living from that place.

The trouble with love is that it takes time to pursue. Loving God is more than a 5 minute devotional. Loving people means investing ourselves into them, and that takes time, empathy and sometimes money. In our culture, time is too precious a commodity that we are reluctant to give it away.

This isn’t just a city phenomenon. Country people can often feel pressured by long commutes or the pressures of surviving in drought.

Churches must develop a culture of love, investing in solid relationships that strengthen over decades. We have found cell church is an effective way of doing this- combining large group and small group worship. The advantage of cell church is that people are weekly encouraging each other to go deeper in their walk with the Lord and to share the gospel in little ways as a part of normal discipleship.

If any of the big name falling away christians were to turn up in our church, we would encourage them into a cell group and help them to find their way back to Jesus. We would find ways of loving them until they can see Jesus again. It isn’t a formula or a process, just what Jesus calls the church to do.

Reflection on John 1:1-18

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Scripture

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Observation

In the beginning was the Word who was with God and was God. The Word made everything, and His life is the light that shines in the darkness.

The Word came into the world, but the world rejected Him. He came to His own people, but they rejected Him. But to all who receive Him, He gives the right to become children of God.

Application

Jesus is the Word of God who brings eternal life. He gives us the right to become children of God.

In the beginning, we were created in the image of God. Human beings are meant to be like God in character and in motivation. Sin has defaced that image, so that, far from being God’s children, we are like rebels living as if we control our own destiny.

We were created to be God’s children, but we have run away from home and rejected our Father’s blessing.

Everyone who receives Jesus the Word and believes in His name now has the right to be called a child of God. This is restoration of our birth right.

John says that we must believe in the name of Jesus. This means we must trust in Jesus, own Him as Lord and follow in His path. It is not as simple as saying a prayer. It is wholesale dedication to serving Jesus, recognising that nothing else will save us.

We were drowning in the middle of the ocean, but a life vest floats past us. The only way to be saved is to receive that life vest and believe that it can hold us safely in the water.

Everyone who receives Christ, who makes Him their Lord, will be saved. Everyone who trusts in Him is adopted into God’s family. To be saved is to come home to the place of safety, warmth and love.

Prayer

Thank you Jesus for dying for me. Thank you for this awesome promise that if I give my heart to you, you will make me a part of your family. What a promise! Amen.

Today’s Sermon

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The sermon for August 11th 2019 is now available on the New Life web-site.

In this sermon, Margaret Bates talks about how her experiences of God’s directions have influnced her appreciation for God’s presence.

Click here to listen in your browser, here to download the mp3.

Click here for information about how to download our sermons through podcasting.