According to His Purpose

The Second Sunday of Christmas
St. John's Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA
Ephesians 1:3-14

“According to His Purpose”

Happy New Year!  How did you end up spending the night as the clock ticked over into 2010?  New Year’s Eve is one of the big party nights of the year: people celebrate the occasion with gatherings large and small, recalling the old and ringing in the new all around the world.  If you attended one such New Year’s Eve party, how did you hear about it?  Did a friend simply let you know it was going to happen?  Did you receive a fancy, formal invitation in the mail?  Maybe you received multiple invitations, or had friends celebrating in different locations.  Which party do you go to?  Did you even want to go out?  Maybe a quiet evening at home watching the celebrations in Times Square on TV seemed like enough of a party for you!

But now the new year has arrived, regardless of how you did or did not welcome its coming.  As you’re looking ahead in these first few days of 2010, do you think that this will really be a new year?  We see promise in the potential of a new year, a new decade, where the path of the future seems so open to us.  But without direction, we can wind up standing still; the year ahead might just end up looking like years past.  Where are you heading in 2010?  What will be your purpose for living?    Today, as we come together around God’s Word, let’s see what God has in His plan for us in this new year.

Imagine for a moment that you have just received an invitation to an epic New Year’s Eve party.  It’s a word-of-mouth kind of thing, nothing that you can buy your way in to.  The guests are going to be “A-list” types from all over, but you’ll be able to get in because you’re a friend of the party planner, the one who invited you.  It’s going to be legendary!  Of course, you’re going to go – how could you not?  I suppose you could always turn down your friend’s invitation, but why would you?  You want to be at this celebration.

That invitation is God’s invitation to us.  God has chosen you, and He has a purpose for you even now – that’s what the apostle Paul is pointing out in his greeting to the believers in Ephesus.  They have been predestined for adoption as God’s children, to be guests at the great celebration around His throne.  Now, that word “predestined” might cause some confusion and concern.  How can you know if God has really predestined you, chosen you, to be His guest?   Have you heard His invitation?  If so, then you are invited.  Our God, who has created time itself, reaches down across all the ages to call people to be His sons and daughters, to be redeemed through Jesus.  Everyone who hears the call of the good news of God’s self-giving love that once came as a baby, born in Bethlehem, has received His invitation.  There are some people – many, sadly – who have heard but rejected the invitation.  And God has invited you in the Christ of Christmas, as Paul writes, according to the purpose of His will.

But what is the purpose of God’s will, His purpose for you and me, for our lives in this new year?  His purpose for us is what it has been even for the Ephesians: to redeem us, to pay to free us from the imprisonment and purposelessness of sin, so that we might live to the praise of His glory.  And what is God’s glory but His love for us, shown in Christ Jesus?  God’s glory is His self-giving love.  We have been chosen to live to laud His love.  We might not use the word “laud” all that much, but it really speaks to our purpose as Christians: we praise, we extol, we tell-out God’s grace.  And why?  Looking back on the past year, you and I can see evidence that we have not been “A-list” people that would deserve God’s invitation.  Even so, He still calls us enjoy His grace.  This is what we celebrate!  We can ring in this new year with joy and thanksgiving, because God has and does set us free from the sins of our past.  He unites us as His children, giving us the riches of His grace, all the blessings that we enjoy even though we do not deserve them.  Because of our hope in Christ, we can live to laud God’s love, both now in 2010 and in eternity.

As you head into the new year, never forget that you have been chosen by God according to His purpose.  Sealed by the Holy Spirit, you can look to God for direction as, together, we live to laud His love.  In all of our many vocations – parent, child, friend, citizen, student, athlete, or spectator, for example – each of us can live 2010 as self-giving, not selfish, people.  Some of the troubles of the past might still be hanging on to your present, and even what seems to be the foreseeable future.  Things like disease, financial hardship, or loneliness (to name just a few) might have you wondering how you might live to the praise of God’s glory, or even why.  We can and do face trouble and adversity in this world – some of it as a result of our own choices and actions, and much beyond our control.  It is in those times of struggle that we especially need the message of this Christmas season.  Not only does God have a purpose for us as His people, He has comes to be with us.  He does not abandon us; instead, He abides.  He abides with us during cancer and pandemic flu.  He abides with us during unemployment and economic downturns.  He abides with us, even in death.  Because of God’s love for us in Christ, you and I can have confidence that we need not face this or any new year all on our own.

God has called us to be His people, and He has come to be our God.  As His people, we now have a year of opportunity ahead of us.   According to His purpose, you and I have been given a direction for 2010 as we laud God’s abiding love in Jesus through our words and by our actions.  We will be extending God’s “word-of-mouth” invitation to new acquaintances and lifelong friends alike when we live out our identity as God’s forgiven and forgiving people, welcoming them into the family that we share by God’s grace.

Before the foundation of the world, God chose you in Christ.  You have been invited to live to laud His love.  Welcome to a new year in God’s grace!

Amen.