Minister: Marv Vose

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Operation Ephesians—Semper Fi!
Ephesians 3: 14-19 (The Message)

            Not long ago, I went into a pharmacy.  Have you noticed that pharmacies now have everything?  Medicine and groceries and electronics and printer cartridge refills and photographs.  Well, I had a question about photographs, so I started talking to this one gentleman.  I had forgotten than I had a Marine Corp lapel pin on, but he noticed and we started talking about the Corps.  You know how it goes.  He tells some of his stories and I told some of mine and in between I got my questions answered. When I left, I said, “Semper Fi.”  That’s short for Semper Fidelis which means “always faithful.”  It’s the motto of the Marine Corps.  He understood what I meant.  It’s a way of saying that we are a part of the same brotherhood.  Always faithful.  Always loyal. 

            That same motto could be used to describe one of the dimensions of God.  God’s love for each of us is always reliable.  God is always faithful.  I had a friend who said it this way.  He said, “God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it!”  I kind of like that way of saying it.  “God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it!”  It emphasizes the nature of God’s love.  It isn’t based on anything we have done in the past.  It’s not conditioned on anything we might do it the future.  It isn’t about us.  It is all about God!  It is all about the nature of God!  Always faithful.

            W don’t make God’s love happen.  That’s all done by God.  But we can accept it or reject it.  We can welcome it or restrict it.  We can be like the little boy who grimaces at his Mom’s kiss and tries to wiggle away or we can welcome the affection with open arms.  This is the way Paul talked about it in our scripture for today.  He says, “I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit…that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.”     We can open the door wide and invite him in or we can slam the door shut and bolt and bar it!  Our choice.

            Did you notice that little qualifier?  Paul is praying for the folks in Ephesus.  This is what he prays.  “I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you…” (Emphasis added)  Did you notice that?  It has always puzzled me.  Why do we need to be strong for Christ’s love to become real to us?  Shouldn’t that be easy?  Why do we need to be strong? 

            You might wonder if it is just the translation.  Or maybe Paul wasn’t really that serious about what he was saying.  But if you look at say the New International Version, it is just as clear and just as insistent.  This is what that translation says.  “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”  Then it goes on to say, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power …to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…”  It seems clear that Paul really intended to say that.  If we are going to comprehend and accept this incredible love of God, we had better be internally strong and powerful!

            In fact, Paul is really passionate about this prayer!  The normal way for a Jew to pray is standing.  If you were to go to the Western Wall in Jerusalem today and observe the Jews praying, they will stand, hold their prayer books in front of them and gently sway forwards and back.  But Paul says he goes down on his knees.  But the language is such that what he is really saying is that he prostrates himself before God in a passionate entreaty of God!  He is really intent on this prayer and God’s answer!  This is important! 

Sometimes I wonder if Paul is still praying that same prayer today.  Do you suppose he is still praying that prayer for me and for you?


But why do we need power and strength to be able to apprehend and accept the love of God?  This time I decided to follow the question and so I prayed and pondered and read the scripture over and over again.


I started to think about the Old Testament understanding of God.  They knew God was powerful beyond their understanding and to have a relationship with that powerful God was very risky.  That’s why Elijah hid in the cleft of a rock and when God passed by he covered his face and only looked at the back of God after God had passed by.  That’s why only Moses would approach God on the mountain top and speak to him there and the rest of the population would stay behind.  And if you were the priest chosen to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple, they would tie a rope around your ankle just in case the presence of God struck you dead, because no one was going in there to get you!


But the New Testament is all about approachability.  God became flesh in Jesus.  He became like one of us.  Even in this passage, Paul talks about opening the door and inviting Jesus in. But we need power and strength.

I think I know part of the answer.  I can’t get inside Paul’s mind and know for sure, but this is what came out of my prayer and study.  Here’s what I believe.  You need to be strong in your inner person, because that knowledge of the magnitude of God’s love will, sooner or later, break your heart.  What do you think of that?  Probably not what you expected is it? 


Sounds like a screwy answer, doesn’t it?  It just doesn’t sound right.  After all, God’s love is good!  We all love to be cared about.  How in the world could something that good and precious break our heart!?


It’s like the story Norman Neaves told of a father and his daughter.  Norman Neaves a pastor in Oklahoma City was telling his congregation about a young father and his daughter who were on a "get-away" cruise.  His wife--the little girl’s mother--had just died.  And this was a time to begin to heal.  They were huddled together on deck one day when the little girl asked, "Daddy, does God love us as much as Mommy did?'


At first, the dad didn't know what to say.  But he knew he had to answer the question.  So he pointed out across the water to the most distant horizon and he said, "Honey, God's love reaches farther than you can see in that direction."  Then turning around, he said, "And God's love reaches farther than you can see in that direction, too."  And then the dad looked up at the sky and said, "And God's love is higher than the sky, too."  Finally he pointed down at the ocean and said, "And it's deeper than the ocean as well." 

            The little girl thought about that for a moment and then she said one of those "darndest things."  She said, "Oh, just think, Daddy.  We're right here in the middle of it all!" 

            That’s what we expect from God’s love—comfort and assurance and peace.  We don’t have to be strong or powerful for that!

            And yet, sooner or later, there is an element of brokenness and heartache in authentic caring.  Somehow those two get mingled together.


Morton Kelsey wrote a book entitled Caring.  He tells of a friends Christmas letter that meant so much to him.  It went like this. “We can only find the full splendor of God as we come to know what love is concretely, in our own lives.  Yet most of us are afraid to love and there are good reasons why we are afraid.  “With love there are no defenses, and we may be hurt deeply, again and again and again.  And then, as we truly love, the power and majesty and splendor of God come upon us, and this is not always gentle or easy to take.”  “From many sources we are told that the mystical splendor of God will first burn us down, melt away all that does not belong to us, shear us of everything that we thought necessary for life, destroy everything that is not pure gold in us…” (p. 6)

            It can happen from different angles and perspectives.  Maybe it is simply that we are confronted with the magnitude of God’s gift!   The immensity of the gift and its cost humble us and make us aware of our own unworthiness.  We recognize with incredible clarity that it really is a gift and we have done nothing to earn it.  That can be difficult.


I still remember my first adult awareness of those dynamics.  Caroline and I were in our first year of seminary and I was working part-time at a church.  So I had gone from a very comfortable lifestyle to that of poor student again.  That first Christmas was sparse.  We didn’t have much to spend on it.  But we got an incredible gift.  One of the adult Sunday school classes in the church would hold a Christmas party.  Everyone was to bring a surprise gift.  They would buy some present, wrap it up in a special way and then bring it to the party.  At the party, the gifts would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  It was great fun!  No one knew what they were bidding on, but it didn’t matter really because they took all of the funds from the auctioned items and gave them to some person or cause.  Caroline and I were given that gift.  I still remember how much it was.  $400!  Lots of money to me!  And a total surprise!  It was a wonderful gift and it was painful.  Understand? 

            Or maybe we begin to see life through the eyes of Jesus.  And our hearts begin to break for others.  We see how much they are struggling and hurting and longing and how much they are missing from their lives.  We feel like Jesus when he looked and the crowds and felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  Or when he looked at Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and wept, because he longed to draw them close, but he knew they would refuse. 

            Or maybe we begin to act like Jesus.  We all know where that can lead.                  So now, some of you are thinking, “Well, thanks, Marv.  If it’s going to break my heart, maybe I don’t want to know how great God’s love really is.  Maybe I just want to go on in my ignorance.”  And that is the temptation, isn’t it?  It can be really attractive and lots of people make that choice without ever really knowing they make it. 

            But if we do that, we miss out on the “fullness of God.”  That’s the invitation.  That’s what is possible.  Paul invites us to “Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.” Do we really want to miss out on that?  I don’t think so! 

            And besides, remember Semper Fi?  God is always faithful.  The brokenness will be healed.  Semper Fi.  And in that healing the new bond will be stronger than the old.  Like a broken bone that mends stronger than it was before!  God does that with our hearts as well. 

            Sometimes God does it in the most amazing and mysterious ways.  Really miraculous ways.  Mary’s Dad was frugal about some things.  For example, he wouldn’t spend much on himself.  Even though he was devoted to his lodge, he wouldn’t buy himself a lodge ring.  But his love for his children was extravagant—especially for the oldest, Bob.  When World War II broke out, Bob, the oldest, became a Marine fighter pilot and in 1944, he died under enemy fire in the South Pacific.

            His Mom’s faith sustained her in the terrible loss, but his Dad began to age before their eyes.  He started missing work. He lost interest in everything.  He even stopped going to Lodge meetings.

            As Christmas approached Mom and daughter Mary worried even more.  It had been such a special time of the year, because Bob, the oldest son, had loved it so much.  He was always surprising people with special gifts—a dollhouse made just for Mary, a little puppy hidden away for a younger brother, a dress for Mom purchased with the first money he ever earned.  And as the grief continued to drain the strength from their father and husband, they prayed for God’s help to get through Christmas.

            On December 23, an official looking package arrived from the government—more of Bob’s personal effects.  Dad watched grimly as Mother unwrapped Bob’s dress uniform.  As she refolded it to pack it away, she automatically went through the pockets.  “What’s this?” she murmured suddenly.  Then, with a little cry, she handed it to Dad.  In that moment, his face was transformed—a blend of wonder, hope and healing, as if Bob were still with them.  In his hand, he held a neatly folded fifty dollar bill with a note in Bob’s handwriting: “For Dad’s lodge ring.”

            Semper Fi!  Always faithful!  God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it!

Prayer:  Lord, would you answer Paul’s prayer for us?  Would you strengthen us and give us power.  Would you help us understand and comprehend more and more the magnificence of God’s love for us?  Build us up.  Empower us and allow us to live full lives, full in the fullness of God!  Amen.