hope

Introduction to Ephesians: Identity & Grace

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

So my apologies to those of you who have faithfully followed my blog. I took a break because I was preparing to present two lectures on Ephesians to our church’s women’s Bible study. But I hope you’ll also be encouraged by these truths as well. Here’s week 1: introduction to Ephesians …

INTRO: The New Year is often a time for reflection, review, and resolutions. (and hey, it’s still January – so it’s not too late!) I tend to be a reflective person, and so there’s something I love about this transition. What’s often inherent in the “new year promise” is the hope of a new identity. Yes, you can have the body you’ve always wanted, and so new gyms lure you in with promises of new rates and fitness challenges – and the “January crowd” always packs it in. Finances went bad last year? This year offers new promises of sticking to your budget and paying off debt. This is the year to finally put to rest old family feuds; to finally face the “ghosts from your past”; to finally overcome that besetting habit that’s plagued you. And our resolutions reflect our desire to recreate our identities – to make over our selves into the better versions we know we could be.

I, too, enjoy this aspect of a new year. I’ve reflected on the old year; thought about how I want this new year to be different. There’s something hopeful about the freshness of the calendar year. Listen to these resolutions I came up with in 1996 (when I was a junior in high school):

1. To be more diligent in schoolwork-try very hard to complete the work the night before.

2. To go to God first about everything that happens

3. To have a more consistent walk with God – not so many ups and downs

4. To not be a part of a car accident in the next year

5. To exercise at least once a week

6. To have a daily quiet time of 5 minutes or more

7. To be rid of all jealousy

8. To have better family relationships

9. To watch for God’s hand in all that happens in my life and see the good in all situations

And apparently I was still working on some of the same things in 1997 (senior year of high school):

1. To have a daily quiet time with God greater than 15 minutes

2. To exercise 3 times a week [at least I moved up closer to what’s recommended!]

3. To give each day to God by prayer and thank him for each day in the evening

4. To cease complaining

5. To try to complete all homework before Sunday

6. To be uninvolved in a car accident this year [I was only in one, by the way, and that was Dec. ’95]

7. To live each day in full reliance upon my Lord with the hope that He has a wonderful plan for my life and “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20)

These resolutions are not bad in and of themselves. I included some good goals — yet the truth is that I’m still working on much of them! The promises of Ephesians offer something much better than our reflections and resolutions that accompany the New Year. Ephesians speaks directly to the question of identity – offering you the reality of the identity you’ve been given if you are a Christian, or the identity you’re invited into if you’re not yet a Christian.

Who needs Ephesians? All of us do! As you can tell from my new year’s resolutions, I tend to struggle with finding my identity in my own righteousness – my efforts to pray more, read the Bible more, exercise more, even love people more – and I forget grace. I first really read, studied, meditated (and even attempted to memorize) Ephesians the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college. For those of you who have heard my testimony of God’s work in my life, this summer is the one I refer to as “the summer of grace.” I entered this summer an exhausted legalist, trying to perform the works God required of me in my own strength, and I left the summer an energized, free daughter of God, empowered by grace to minister in new ways to the 50 freshmen and sophomore women I was an R.A. to my junior year. I can say that I would not have gotten through that stretching year without the grace of God in Christ described so beautifully in the book of Ephesians.

Where are you?

  • Maybe you, like me, are a legalist worn out from trying to live a holy life and do good. You’ve probably focused on the last half of Ephesians and skimmed over the first half. Yet these last chapters cannot be lived apart from the grace we find in Christ – which is the focus of the first 3 chapters. You need to remember to start at the beginning!
  • Or perhaps you are a Christian who has forgotten what kind of life grace compels you to. The struggle against sin has ceased to be a struggle, because you’ve given in and now find yourself caught in habits you’re ashamed of. You know you’re “saved by grace” anyway, so what’s the big deal? Jesus comes to you through the message of Ephesians to call you into a bigger life – one of obedience and transformation motivated by grace. You’ve been rescued from darkness, so live no longer there.
  • Maybe you are unsure of Jesus and His claims. You wonder what all of this Jesus stuff is all about. You heard about the hope of a Savior to come promised and pointed to through our study in Genesis, but you wonder why you need Him. Or if you really need Him at all. The gospel message is loud and clear throughout Ephesians – describing what grace is and why all of us need it.
  • Perhaps you’re doubting who you are and you are struggling to find your identity. You’re looking in all the typical places: marriage (or independence), children, career, even good deeds, friendship, fitness & health … yet you find that each of these crumbles as soon as you seek to hold onto it and find your life here. You were made for more than this.

This is a letter written to people who also were struggling with identity and reconciliation: Gentile Christians in the region surrounding Ephesus.

  • Ephesus was the 2nd largest and 2nd most important city in the Roman Empire (2nd only to Rome!) – modern day Turkey
  • For Gentiles to be able to be in God’s family was revolutionary. Before Jesus Christ, spots in God’s family were reserved only for Jews. After Jesus, salvation is made available to all who believe, both Jews and Gentiles. The Jews weren’t too happy about that – and this left the Gentiles feeling a bit insecure of their identity.
  • PAUL wrote this letter to as a circular letter, meant for Christians in this entire region, to assure them of their identity as Gentiles in Christ. (like a group email – why there’s not as many personal references like in the parallel book of Colossians, written around the same time)
    • How was Paul qualified? What were his own identity struggles? He was a Jew who was known as “Saul” and who persecuted Christians. God interrupted him en route to Damascus and saved him, calling him now Paul. And then he experienced intense persecution for the rest of his life as he became a missionary – bringing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ’s salvation through Asia, all the way to Rome.
    • Yet he’s writing while imprisoned in Rome – for the very identity of “Christian” that he now writes and reminds them of. Imagine the impact this would have had on the first readers!

So what does Paul write? What will you find here?

  • THEMES:
    • Central message of be who you are – in contrast to who they used to be and how they used to live in the past
    • Your past before Christ, your future in Christ, and how this is to affect your present day-to-day life in Christ
    • Reconciliation: being made right with God and with others – “Only through Christ can all other division be brought to an end.”
    • Truth and beauty of the Triune God (God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit)
    • Grace
    • Challenge/call to exhibit God’s glory and grace through daily life
    • God’s action and His work
    • A high calling empowered by the Spirit
    • A love story written before the beginning of time
    • How to engage in the spiritual battle we’re in
  • STRUCTURE:
    • Intro/greeting; body of the letter; closing
    • Two halves: 1-3 – who God’s made you as a Christian; 4-6: call to live like who you really are
    • Eloquent prayers
    • Truth and promises that are gems of grace to be treasured
    • Practical exhortations
    • Household code
    • Spiritual warfare

It’s very easy with the changes of life, whatever they might include for you in this new year, to forget who you are. Or to feel like you’ve lost a part of who you are. Changes that come with moving are always hard for me and provide an opportunity for me to re-examine where I’ve really been finding my identity – is it in being known by friends, playing a crucial role in a small church plant, being a counselor with a large church counseling center, not getting lost when I drive. The most recent move for us from Philadelphia to Norfolk has been no different! And I’ll admit that although I would say this has been the best, smoothest transition I’ve ever experienced, it has still served to be a bit of an identity-shake-up for me.

And I found myself feeling a bit down in December – generally unmotivated, wondering whether I was really making a difference, missing familiar holiday celebrations with close friends, and questioning what my identity is here in Norfolk.

Yet God met me through the study of Ephesians to remind me that who I truly am has not changed at all over this year, and it won’t change for the next 10 years either. It gave me hope and motivation to pursue what God’s given me to do during this season, not having to make it my life or where I’m finding my meaning (which would make any task unbearable) – and there’s been a true sense of joy where there was a vague sense of discontentment because of the riches that are mine in Christ.

So our prayer for you as you begin to read this book, either for the first time or the 50th time, is that you will be refreshed and revitalized in seeing the beauty of who Christ is for you and who you are in Christ – and it will become a letter that you will keep close to you to return to often.

[you can hear the talk at this link]

Advent meditations week 3: joy

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

Christmas joy as a child seems to come more easily than for us too-often-jaded (and stressed out) adults. I reflected on this in a post 4 years ago. The cynical side of me dismisses that with the explanation that a child’s joy is often an adult’s stress (like all of their gifts they open gleefully on Christmas morning). Or with a reflection on a child’s naive belief compared to an adult’s “innocence lost.” (who doesn’t remember how disillusioning it was to learn the truth about Santa?) But then there’s the part of me that is fighting cynicism and remembers Jesus’ words in Mark 10:15 –

I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

And so perhaps this Christmas, we need to learn from the children around us and enter into true Christmas joy. Pure delight and awe and enthusiasm for this season. For Christians, we have every reason to rejoice at what is celebrated – God becoming man – and this week’s Advent readings reminded me of this hopeful mystery.

It began in a strange place: Habakkuk 3, but with a chapter that closes in verses that have given me joy in the midst of some of the darkest and saddest seasons –

17Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

What this seems to mean is that God is his strength. Not his “herds” or “vines” or “fields” or “fig trees.” (I’m thinking “money” or “career” or “marriage” or “friendships” or anything else I think will give me strength only promised by God.) When all of that is stripped away, he still has joy because he has God. And because God has come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and now dwells in the hearts of all who believe, there is the promise that God will never leave me. And so neither will joy.

Joy is guaranteed by the coming of the “Helper” – the Holy Spirit who will reveal all things and who guarantees that we will see Jesus again and be filled with joy. (John 16:5-28) I get a taste of this future joy now as I pray in my Father’s name and watch him answer prayer. As well as when I listen to and read God’s Word – when God works its effect on me, I will “go out in joy”  and “be led forth in peace” because that is the purpose for which he gives His Word. (Isaiah 55:9-13)

Psalm 66, 96, Isaiah 12, and 1 Peter 1:3-9 expand on the concept of Christmas joy by giving reason after reason to “shout for joy to God, all the earth …” (Psalm 66:1). It’s a joy at the gifts we’ve received, not unlike children on Christmas morning. The difference is that these are gifts that have been guaranteed to last forever and which will impart a joy to carry us even through the trials of life. And perhaps that trial includes Christmas this year – the promise is that there is yet a joy to be found and celebrated.

Advent meditations: week 1 – hope

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

Each week of Advent, I will be posting meditations based on that week’s theme of Advent readings. I would love for you to join in as well! Let us together celebrate Christ who brings hope, peace, joy, and love.

First of all – hope. We began with these beautiful verses in Isaiah 40:1-5. A few phrases that stood out to me:

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to [her] and cry to her that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned …” [English Standard Version]

What does it mean for her warfare to end? Christ is coming: He is bringing peace and reconciliation — and that will flow from a redeemed relationship with God. (Though different than they imagined – not an end to political warfare.) Lord, remind me that my warfare has ended. I have nothing to prove or to win or to defend … You are my peace and my identity.

And then to notice what hope feels like, we read Psalm 42.

“But each day the Lord pour his unfailing love upon me,

and through each night I sing his songs,

praying to God who gives me life.” [New Living Translation]

Hope means thirsting, panting for God – the living God. In the midst of feeling downcast, I hope in God (despite the turmoil of my emotions). Hope is to praise God as my salvation; it is to remember HIS steadfast love. It includes crying for relief from the enemy’s oppression — not wanting to believe the enemy’s taunts of “where is your God?” Summary: In the midst of feeling downcast, there is hope to be found in God — if I remember to look upon Him!

How does Romans 8:18-27 add to our definition of hope? We see that not only we ourselves, but also all creation is hoping and even groaning for full redemption that Jesus Christ will bring. We wait eagerly; hoping for what we don’t yet see; waiting for it with patience (and the Spirit helps us in waiting, believing, patience, hope). Hope transforms present suffering into future glory. The Spirit intercedes for us while we wait and hope and groan. “Wait/waiting” is used twice; “groaning” is repeated three times; “hope” is repeated six times. And who are the subjects of all of this waiting/hoping/groaning? Creation (repeated 5 times); the Spirit/God (repeated 8 times); and WE are (repeated 12 times). This Advent passage makes it clear that even after Christ’s first incarnation, we are still hoping for his second (and final) coming – for the end of suffering and the revealing of glory.

Isaiah 11:1-11 paints the picture of that for which we hope. When the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, all hurt and destruction is banished. And to know the Lord fully means that we will not destroy others or his creation. Who will bring this hope and life-giving knowledge? “A shoot from Jesse” on whom will rest the Spirit of the Lord: of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. One clothed with righteousness and faithfulness. And the “remnant” [those who have hoped in Him] will be recovered from the ends of the earth [raised to new life].

Hebrews 6:13-20 shows an example of this hope in action.

“And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.”

This is quite different than the way I wait! Lord, help me to have in view your promises and for those to be sweet enough to me that I will patiently wait, even against all odds. That because I’ve fled for refuge to You, the God who promises (and doesn’t lie), that I would have strong encouragement to hold fast to hope. That I, too, will go where our forerunner, Jesus Christ, has gone.

I close this week’s meditations with a thought from Psalm 33: I am to hope in the steadfast love of God — to turn to Him in distress and to trust that God sees and will deliver. And then to have a glad heart as I see Him do this — to say with the Psalmist,

“Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”

Isaiah 35 is tomorrow’s meditation … so I will let you add your meditations for that.

hope found in a geneaology: Genesis 4:17 – 5:32

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

I will admit that when I found out that my second week of teaching women’s Bible study at Trinity was going to be a geneaology (from Cain/Seth through Noah), I instinctively thought – “What will I find here?!” Yet it is amazing to see that there are gems of hope and the gospel “even” in a geneaology (another word for a family tree as listed in the Bible). May you be as encouraged (and surprised) as I was at what we can find here:

(1) Even in what seems to be a godless family (Cain – murdered his brother Abel), there will be evidence of God’s common grace – the hope that we all bear the indelible stamp of God’s image upon us. AND SO, we have much to learn from one another – Christian or not. I was reading a book this week where I found the following quote – what testimony to the God-consciousness all humanity possesses!

“I am in a silent war against an enemy as pernicious and omnipresent as evil. Evil? I don’t believe in evil any more than I believe in God. But at the same time I know this: only Satan himself could have designed a disease that has self-deception as a symptom, so that its victims deny they are afflicted, and will not seek treatment, and will vilify those on the outside who see what’s happening. [the author writes about his son’s drug addiction] “

(2) Enoch vividly demonstrates the hope of walking with God and resurrection life as its reward. Seven generations from Adam, we read this terse statement about Enoch – which breaks the pattern throughout the rest of the chapter of living, having children, and dying:

And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. [Genesis 5:22-24, italics added]

Hebrews 11 expands on this commentary:

5By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Walking with God – an image of personal relationship – and then not experiencing death – a foreshadowing of the hope of resurrection life that Jesus Christ would bring to all who believe in him.

(3) As Lamech names his son, Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands,” there is introduced to this story of humanity the hope of relief from the curse of sin and death. It is clear from Noah’s life that the relief he brought was probably not the relief pictured by his father and hoped for by humanity. And yet through God preserving a family from the destruction of the flood, there is a foreshadowing of how God will save those who believe in the gospel and grace of Jesus Christ from the destruction and death/separation of his wrath. Jesus Christ is the ultimate hope and he alone will completely fulfill this hopeful prophecy spoken by a father over his son.

Who knew a geneaology could hold so much hope?!

true hope in a troubled time

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

As an American in tune with the news of the day (and often the hour thanks to news radio), I find it inescapable to realize that life as we’ve known it is undergoing a drastic change. People are losing their assets, their jobs, their homes, and with all of it their hope.  Or are they?

It seems as if we as a culture are experiencing the reality that hope cannot be stored in money. It’s a truth we try not to live by as Americans who are wealthy by the world’s standards. We buy what we do not need with money we do not have. And at some point, the security promised by money and material possessions evaporates. Yet that fits with ancient wisdom. Listen to this, penned centuries ago by a Biblical writer: “Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!” And see if this doesn’t sound like it was written just for us today: “There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver. Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost.” Both are from the book of Ecclesiastes, found in the Old Testament (chapter 5, verses 10, 13, 14).

The question before us today is similar to the one that confronted the philosopher of Ecclesiastes. What is worth living for and hoping in? Our American answer for troubled times is quite different than that of Ecclesiastes. It’s as if we’ve shifted our hope from Wall Street to the White House. The new President will be our savior. He will bolster the economy with his proposed tax cuts (and raises), reform healthcare in the U.S. either through a tax credit or by offering a universal plan, bail out bad mortgages, bring peace to the Middle East. Really? All of that power will be held by one man?

I beg to differ. I think our hopes are misguided if we think either Obama or McCain can do all that’s promised. On November 4th, I will be going to the polls to cast my vote as a responsible citizen, but I have a hope that transcends the outcome of the election (one way or the other). God is King over all, and His Kingdom is one that can’t be shaken (regardless of how much my earthly kingdom is shaken). It will be realized one day.

I don’t know when, but I am hoping because I see evidence of that Kingdom already breaking in on earth. My life has been changed by Jesus Christ. And it is being changed by Jesus Christ. I am not yet what I will be, but there are glimpses and hints. Seth and I don’t fight as often or as tenaciously as we did in our first year of marriage. I give in more often (and so does he). I don’t say everything that pops into my head. I think before speaking (amazing concept, I know). When I inevitably screw up, I am slightly quicker to ask forgiveness from him. And I could go on. If I am being changed, and I see others’ lives who are being changed in similar ways through a relationship with Christ. Through Cresheim Valley Church and my job as a counselor at Chelten Baptist Church, I am part of communities of people whose lives are being transformed (and I get to watch and sometimes be part of that!). There is hope that transcends our shaky economy and uncertain politics.

And the writer of Ecclesiastes agrees. He sums it up as follows: “That’s the whole story. Here’s my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.” (chapter 12, verse 13)