The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The sermon contrasts two kinds of power: the world’s power (which seeks to benefit itself) and Jesus’s power (which exists to bless and serve). Can you think of examples from your own life where you’ve seen these two kinds of power in action? Which one are you more naturally drawn to, and why?
The pastor argues that being part of the church means we’re not just “subjects” of a king—we’re united to him as a body. What does it mean practically that Christ is “given” to the church rather than us merely being given to Him? How does that change the way you see your role in the church?
One of the membership vows asks: “Do you submit yourselves to mutual accountability with your brothers and sisters in Christ?” Why do you think accountability and connection to others is so important for living out the Christian life? What makes this difficult, and what makes it worth it?
The sermon ends with the image of solar lights—lights powered by the sun that shine in darkness without needing to be plugged in. What does it mean practically to be “Son-powered” by Jesus in your daily life? Where is Jesus’s touch most needed in the places you dwell this week?
The pastor mentions that we often don’t know the full impact of the small acts of service we do—like the hymn writer who had no idea his song would still be sung 150 years later. How does that reality change the way you think about doing good for people who may never thank you or notice? What’s one small way you could bless someone this week without expecting recognition?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
Has anyone else been missing hydration this weekend? A little bit? For those of you not in the area, well, if you’re in the church family, you’ve probably been following on Signal the prayer request and the discussion. But if somehow you missed it, for about, I think, around 100,000 people in our county, we’ve been realizing what a precious gift water is this weekend.
Because, you know, I thought about it when we were singing “The Church’s One Foundation,” and of water and the Word, and I thought, oh, water. There was a main break. Those of us in the city of St. Charles, as we are here at Little Hills, those in St. Peter’s, we had a boil advisory all weekend because of a water main break. They had to do lab testing and make sure the water hadn’t been contaminated after it was repaired. Suddenly, it’s nothing like what people have gone through in the past, but you realize just a little bit, it’s just not quite as available—that water.
Well, that’s a pretty amazing thing when you think about it, that cities are planned in such a way that generally speaking, we don’t have to think about that, right? It’s notable when it goes wrong. And if you live in St. Charles County, one of the people you can thank for that would be the late Mayor Tom Brown of St. Peter’s. The current mayor of St. Peter’s eulogized him and referred to him as the man who realized St. Peter’s needed more water. As the mayor who presided over St. Peter’s from 1984 until 2004, he was in power during the time when St. Peter’s experienced 328% growth, going from 15,000 to over 50,000 people.
As part of that, as he saw that growth coming, he compared it to a herd of buffalo off in the distance in the dust rising. You could see the people coming. He said, “We need water.” That foresight led, in part, to our current water system. We share a line with St. Charles and St. Peter’s that brings water over from St. Louis County to ensure that those of us over here, barring occasions like this weekend, have water. He was a man who had a lot of foresight and was able to develop that city, but he was mayor for 20 years.
If you’re a politician in a city for decades, people start to think, “Eh, I don’t know. You might be a little crooked, right?” So it was in 2004 that another man by the name of Brown decided to run against Tom Brown. Sean Brown ran on getting rid of the guy who’d had power for far too long and to bring reform and clean up the city, and so on. And he won. After 20 years of seeming to be an utter fixture where St. Peter’s and Tom Brown were one and the same, he was no longer the mayor.
Well, the second Mayor Brown only lasted for two years because after two years, he took a bribe. The man who said he was going to defeat corruption had a red light camera company come and said that their cameras would get vetoed unless they provided him with some compensation. He was caught and arrested. Then, just to compound things, I found out after he got past those charges and the results of that, he went to work for a company and embezzled funds from them, and ended up facing more jail time and fines about 10 years after that.
If you’re not from St. Peter’s, so you haven’t heard this before, here’s the thing I think I can say: I bet none of what I’ve just described surprises you. Because what are we used to? People rise to power, and when they rise to power, what do they do? They become corrupt. I don’t really have any inside information on whether the first Mayor Brown was corrupt or not, but if he was in office for 20 years, he may have brought the water, but he probably also got some favored deals and so on. It would not surprise me at all. I don’t know that. But we know the political system well enough that it wouldn’t be surprising.
But it’s also not surprising when the person who says he’s going to fix it, maybe even sincerely meaning it, comes in and does the exact same thing or worse. Because when we receive power, we ask, “Well, how can I help me?” We all know selfish power. That’s just essentially a rule of the world, right? It’s almost as sure as gravity. If people have power, they will use that power for their benefit.
As we come to the end of chapter one, and we’re wrapping up tonight in Ephesians chapter one, we’re called to think about a different kind of power. Power that doesn’t just bring some benefits or bring some water, but also do so in a way that benefits the person bringing it. Not power that says, “I’ll clean up and get rid of the corrupt power,” but then comes in and is just as corrupt or more so.
But it’s really selfless power—the power that we see in Jesus. Let’s pray tonight as we see and reflect on his power. Reflect on his power that we’d understand it truly is something very different than what we see in this world. And we would be used by God to be different, too. Would you pray with me, please?
Lord, as we come to your word, we see the God of the universe, the one whose name is above all names. The God whose kingdom is above all kingdoms. No nation will ever reign as long. No nation will ever be as glorious. You are the true king, the one and only true king. And yet you are also the one who comes and serves. And Lord, as we reflect on what you have done for us, would you help us to be a people who are equipped for service, to be selfless ourselves, that we might reflect the very love that you show us. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The starting point, and you think about this, it’s a familiar refrain when we come to God’s word: if we’re going to reflect on how things are in the world and how things are with God, the thing we can say is they’re not alike. And that’s so true here. Jesus is not like the others when it comes to power because Jesus reigns to bless, not to profit.
Take a look at verse 22 of Ephesians chapter 1. It says, “And he put all things under his feet.” So God the Father gives to his Son, all. He puts all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church. Jesus isn’t like the others.
Now, we talked last week about how everything is subject to Jesus, that all the powers and the authorities, whether we’re talking about earthly powers, or the Jewish framework where there were different rankings of angels, all the spiritual beings, all the magical powers that the Greeks thought they could pull up—none of it could reign over Jesus. Jesus is over all of those things.
Here we’re told that he’s the head of the church to remind us that he also reigns over the church. But there’s a difference here from what we saw last week, and it’s so easy to miss, but the phrasing of the sentence kind of gives it away because the phrasing feels a little surprising: “and gave him as head over all things to the church.”
Now, the first part isn’t all that surprising. It’s right where Tom took us at the beginning of the service, the Lord says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Well, what do we see here? All things are being put under his feet. Exactly what was foretold in Psalm 110 is happening here. But then, what’s this “given to the church”?
Something beautifully different about being a part of the church. I love—and this isn’t God’s providence, it wasn’t planned this way—that Betty joins, has now officially joined. We can say it’s past tense now; she has joined our church family.
Well, let’s embarrass you like crazy because we love you.
The beautiful thing—this is God’s providence—the series was planned out months ago. The conversation with Betty was a couple weeks ago, and this was the very first Sunday that she was away for family things last week, and this was the first Sunday that she could be here to join after we spoke. It wasn’t planned to coordinate talking about what it means to be part of the church with when Betty joins; it was just God’s providence.
But I think about how neat this is to arrive at this when we have her joining because here we are, celebrating someone joining the church, and we’re talking about what does it mean to be joined together as brothers and sisters in Christ as the church?
What’s that mean? It means something more than coming into something, right? If you join a famed king’s military and you become a part of it, you now take his commands. Well, we should do what Jesus commands, too. But I can tell you this: you’ll never be told, “The king was given to you.” You’re given to the king, right? You’re there to serve at the king’s pleasure.
But here, the king is given to us. Because joining the church and being a part of the church—and we’re both talking about membership in the local body and the broader truth that we are members of the body of Christ around the world, whether we are a part of Little Hills or another church in the area or a church somewhere else in the world—it doesn’t matter. Someday if they’re talking about putting a base on the moon—or someday there’s a base on the moon or Mars and there’s a church in it because, of course, there needs to be a church in it—if you’re a member there, you’re still a member of the same body of Christ.
And in both of those aspects, and what we’re doing as an individual distinctive body of the church and as the church of Christ whole, we’re not just subjected to the king; we’re brought in union with him. We’re brought in fellowship with him. We’re actually made one with him in some mysterious way—that mystic sweet communion that we sang about—that he’s the head, not just the leader, but the head of a body, of an organism that is his, that we function with him.
So what we’ll be talking about more tonight in Sunday School Express—Greg had a wonderful video this week at Little Hills. If you haven’t gotten to see it yet, you should make sure to watch it when you go home—just talking about the sweetness of being in fellowship together and the beauty of that is we’re functioning together as the body of Christ, Jesus directing us, just as our body—our brain directs our body—so too Jesus’ head directs his body.
Isn’t that something beautiful? It’s not like the power of the world. He doesn’t subject us so he can get a good tax from us. We get kickbacks from those whom he brings into service his kingdom. He brings us under himself and gives himself to us so that we actually have the direct benefit of being with him.
So incredibly different. There isn’t anything we can really compare it to, truly. But so unexpected. This is not what conquerors do. Jesus is victorious and yet a servant.
And in that, as one commentator put it, we see the one true man, the only man who actually lives truly as a man because he is both God and man. He comes into the world and lives that perfect life and what does he do? He gives it to his church so that those of us who never actually live as we ought have the dignity of one who does. It’s completely upside down of how the world thinks.
I love John Chrysostom, an early church father, reflecting on this passage. He said that as Jesus does this and as he unites us, well, what do we know about Jesus? Well, we know even from this very passage and in other passages like it, Jesus has been elevated. Jesus has been placed where all his enemies are subject to him, that all who oppose him are now under his feet, and someday that will be utterly clear. But as his body, where does the body go when the head’s elevated? It’s elevated too.
I thought that was so remarkable as Crystal Stone reflected on this passage—by not just subjecting us, but by uniting himself to us, Jesus in that very act brings the glory that he receives and he provides it to his body. He really does look at his church and love us enough to say, “I don’t just want you to be that little broken down thing that I sometimes come down and say, I care about, I’m going to draw you to myself. I’m going to give you my Spirit. Your Spirit’s going to dwell; my Spirit’s going to dwell in you. And as my Spirit dwells in you, you are no longer just down there in the dumps in the dirt and the mud, but rather you’re part of something I’m doing. Something beautiful and something glorious.”
He gives us life. His life is life-giving. As he gives us that life, he shows us a different way.
You think about how we give our membership vows here at Little Hills. They’re very traditional vows that have been passed down through at least recent church history. I think they’re beautiful. Ours is slightly adapted at the end, but I love the fifth vow: “Do you submit yourselves to mutual accountability with your brothers and sisters in Christ in this local body of believers?”
You think about that: what’s it saying? That we recognize that we aren’t just autonomous individuals that float around with no connection, but rather because of Jesus, because of his Spirit, it makes sense to do this. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. If I get away without it, why am I going to submit myself to anyone? Why am I going to be tied in and bound to anything? Why not just go on my own and do whatever I want and not care what anyone else thinks?
But Jesus binds himself to us and draws us together to bind to each other so that we function as his body, so that we can go and do what he’s called us to do. He models service, and then he calls us to mutual humility that we see none of us should seek to be great. None of us should seek to be viewed as the most important, but rather that all of us are together and functioning in this mystic thing, this mystical thing that God has formed—his body.
It’s just so different.
Does anyone—I’d imagine some of you—watch some of the coverage of the big Alaska 2025 summit on Friday as President Trump met with President Putin and they discussed world matters? How is that war in Ukraine going to end? I’m not going to get into how to make sense of that because most of us don’t even know what fully happened at the summit, but there were certain things we could see.
For example, if you were watching, you may have seen the soldiers kneeling on the ground, rolling out a red carpet up to the Russian plane so that President Putin and the other dignitaries from Russia could get off. It struck me as they did that and all the other things they did—they did so many things that were according to diplomatic protocols that take the host and you show a certain level of submission to the guests that you’re bringing into the country to say, “You’re great and you’re important, and we’re welcoming you and we’re doing all these things, and all of us are serving you,” right?
And if you see an event like that, it’s striking. Why did we do that? Well, we could say that because someone hosting is being such a good sport, but we can also say, and I think we know this is intrinsically true: those who have power want to be told how great they are and how important they are.
Here’s the thing I think we can be assured of: if instead of that, the Russian plane had attacked into the airport in Alaska and up came an Uber—maybe Jeff was there—and he pulled up in his SUV and there were armed guards and there wasn’t bulletproof glass and there weren’t the dignitary’s preferred beverages chilled to the perfect temperature inside the vehicle, it would be a diplomatic fiasco, right? Things would not go well. You probably wouldn’t even get to the conference.
You need the red carpet, and you need the special vehicles, and you need all that, right? I mean, they say, “No, no, we’re too important for that.” So you have all this protocol.
But how did the ultimate King come into the world? He came into the world humbly. He came into the world in a manger. He came into the world in a way that most of the world never recognized who he was.
I’ll tell you, if you got into Jeff’s Uber, it would be great. He was just telling me about all the vacuuming he does. It’d be nice and clean and lovely. Jesus didn’t get into that kind of Uber. What did he do? He got into the one where the door panel’s falling off and somehow missed the inspection, and the exhaust is leaking into the cabin, and there are spills all over the seats.
I need to say, “Where’s my sparkling water? Has to be mineral water from Italy, or I won’t drink it.” He didn’t say, “Where are the soldiers kneeling down, rolling out a rug so I can walk on it?” He came into the world and was walked on, trampled on for us, that we might be brought into this union with Christ, that we might experience the glory that is deserved of him and him alone.
If we’re properly reflective of ourselves and our state, we should realize we should be the ones at best rolling out the carpet. But then if we really reflect on ourselves, we realize, well, not even that. You don’t take the newest person at boot camp who is constantly being given kitchen duty because he never gets anything right and his shoes are a mess and he doesn’t know how to roll the rug or salute or do anything yet. You don’t give him the job of welcoming the foreign dignitary and rolling out the rug, right? You put your best out there when you’re doing something like that.
So even the people in the humble position are those who have been elevated greatly. But Jesus took a ragtag bunch to call a bunch of fellow ragtag people.
And if you say today, “Well, I’m definitely in the category of ragtag,” then here’s the thing you need to hear: that means that you’re right in line to be a part of the body of Christ.
When we take membership vows, one of the things we don’t do is say, “Are you going to live perfectly as a Christian all the time?” No. We’re going to endeavor to, right? Because we are that ragtag bunch. My shoes are always scuffed, and my uniforms always wrinkled, and my name tag’s always upside down.
But I want God to fix that. I want him to lead me and guide me and make me more like him.
Now, that’s you. And his church is for you. Not for those who have everything right, but for those who know that they need the God who can make everything right.
If you feel unworthy today, maybe you scrolled online and you weren’t even planning to watch church service, but you scrolled onto this and you’re watching and you think, “Well, I don’t usually watch church services because that’s for those holy people who have their lives together.” No, that’s not us. And may it never be what we think we are, because it’s not us. But we are those who know that there’s a holy God who loves us and loves you.
And the beauty of the gospel is that as he unites us together, he doesn’t take us and say, “Well, if you’re good enough, someday you can be part of my body. Someday you can be united to me and experience what it’s like to be part of the body of Christ.” No, he says, “If you love me, if you want me to be your Lord and Savior, and you repent of your sins, even as you’re still struggling with them and the flesh is still battling, if you just want a Savior, I’m here for you.”
Those who take power to extract advantage, what do they do? They want the best and brightest to be those who serve them. They want the people who roll out the carpets, serve the food, drive the cars, vacuum the cars, put up the chairs for conferences and everything to be the best at the best.
A guy takes those who are unworthy and says, “I’ll make you mine because I love you.”
Why does the world want it different? Well, it’s because it’s, “What can I do for myself? How can I benefit myself?” I’ll take a bribe because that benefits myself. If I get the traffic safety lights to be safer so people can come in and out of the city and there are fewer wrecks and so on, that’s great, but what’s in it for me? Well, a few thousand dollars would be kind of nice.
That’s how the world leads. But the corollary to “That’s how the world leads” is “That’s not how Jesus leads.” And if that’s not how Jesus leads, that’s not what our calling is either.
The world says, “What can you get for yourself?” But we do something different. Just as Jesus reigns to bless, so too we belong to bless.
Verse 23: “What is the church? It is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” We belong to bless.
Notice that as we’ve been talking about, as we realize that we’re not just subjects, that we aren’t just those under the king that happen to be more powerful than the other kings, but we’re actually drawn into his body. He doesn’t just say, “Oh yeah, now you’re my body. You can wear a name tag.” What does he do? He actually fills us with his Spirit.
If you tonight make tonight the day that Jesus says you’re his Savior, he will fill you with his Spirit.
You say, “But if he knew what was inside of me, he wouldn’t want to do that. It’s all icky. All ugly.” He says, “No, I know, and I want that.” And he fills us.
It doesn’t just fill us that we can be a body that just—is it stationary? What does a body do? What’s a body meant to do? A body is meant to move. A body is meant to serve its purpose.
And so whatever part of the body you are, there is a purpose for you. And here’s the thing I can say with confidence: if you’re here tonight, if you’re in our online church family tonight, God has a purpose for you. I’m not a prophet nor a son of a prophet, so I can’t necessarily know exactly what it is immediately, but here’s what I can say: let’s figure it out together.
I think that’s something beautiful about this church family as we pray together and as we talk together. I love how we talk throughout the week on Signal and stay connected because we’re helping each other through things, and through that we can help each other in places.
We may not know right now exactly how each of us fulfills something, but if you’re feeling like you’re just that limp part, that useless part of the body, then know that you’re not. God actually has something He wants to use you for.
Each of us is God’s temple. First Corinthians… Chapter, uh, that’s supposed to be chapter 6, not chapter 10.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you are bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Glorify God in your body. And there’s so many little and big ways that we get to do that. You don’t know because you can’t see my screen, but Leo just advanced the slides and moved me right where I needed to be after I messed up that slide.
There’s all kinds of little things, all kinds of big things. A lot of times, we don’t even think about it and we don’t remember it. But each of us has something that we can do, and that makes a difference.
Well, that’s true. Then the real question is, “How do I do that?” How do I do that? A lot of people come up with a lot of ideas. This is how we’re going to show Jesus to the world. I feel like that’s a big discussion right now. I’ve been reading a lot of people, sort of both on a popular level, and then people trying to make more theological cases for how that’s going to happen.
But it’s a lot simpler than we try to make it be. We make it into this big complicated thing.
Take a look again at verse 23, second half of it: “The fullness of him who fills all in all.”
If the lifeblood of the body, if the function of the body is filled with Jesus, then what are we really trying to do?
We don’t need to come up with some way to make the ways of the world look Christian and speak more Christian. What we need to do is help more people to become Christian. And how do we do that? By being more like Jesus.
Our call is to be a blessing. And the way you bless people is you live like Jesus. You live selflessly. We’re not the people demanding the carpet be rolled out for us, or the spring water be chilled. We’re not even the people that battle to get to the top of the ranks of whomever’s going to do that so that we get to do the important job.
We’re the people that see the no-know-nothing person, the person of zero regard in society, that we have a chance to show Jesus’ love to, and we love, and we know that no one will ever even know it, and we’re okay with that.
I think back to the call of God’s people at the very beginning of the formation of it back in Genesis 12. What did God say in verse 3 to Abraham? He said, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And then you, all the families of the earth, shall be blessed.”
How do you do that? Well, Israel couldn’t figure it out. Israel, for several thousand years, is living out this calling as God’s people, and yet they can’t figure it out. Why can’t they figure it out? Because they didn’t yet have the Holy Spirit.
They tried at times, but it’s sort of like if my hand decided it wanted to do its own movement, it was going to control itself—it wouldn’t go well. It’d either just be completely useless movement. Or if my hand could think it could say, “I want to tell these muscles to contract,” but I don’t have a brain to do it with—if only I had a brain—it won’t work. At least not unless we’re in Oz.
And so it is with all of us. We try to do it on our own. When Israel tried to present, “We’re authoritative and we’re powerful and look, we are the Lord’s people,” what do they end up doing? They end up worshiping other gods. “Oh, we’ll make these deals and compromise a little.” Soon they weren’t actually representing the Lord at all.
It can be that way with us today too.
A little thing—I didn’t realize until this week when we were talking about music and Melanie said, “What about ‘The Church’s One Foundation?’” As her or Laura—her and Laura were coordinating—and Laura suggested that, and I thought, “You know, I don’t really know the background of him.” I know the hymn; I grew up singing that hymn, but I don’t know the background of it.
As it turned out, the hymn was penned by a little Anglican priest of little regard. He wasn’t some famous one. He wasn’t some important one, but here is what he knew. This is 19th century; he heard some of the bishops and some of the leading theologians wanted to compromise on what we thought about scripture. They wanted to call into question some things that happened: if Jesus really was truly God in man. He heard about these things.
He looked at the gifts that God had given him and he didn’t rage. He wrote a series of 12 hymns to go through the Apostles’ Creed and proclaim the glory of God that we find in scripture. One of them was “The Church’s One Foundation,” because they could say, “You can come up with all that brilliance, you can come up with all those intellectually impressive feats that deny what is in God’s word, but the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.”
He wrote that and we still sing it today. That’s the truth that, in one way or another, we will sing until the day that Jesus returns because he is our one foundation.
And in that, we live like him. We follow him. It doesn’t matter for the impressive, important people; it matters if we’re the people that speak like him and believe like him and do as he does.
That man took his gifts and wrote music to encourage others—that others who maybe saw what was coming and saw the doubts that were creeping into the church would sing this and feel encouraged and be directed towards the Lord.
I bet he didn’t have any sense that this was going to be something that 100 plus, 150 years later, we would still be singing.
And I think that brings us to a question that each of us should ask, which is, “Where is Jesus’ touch needed in the places I dwell?”
For him, the place that was needed as a priest was just an unimportant priest watching the powers that be rail against the truth of scripture. He couldn’t just nominate himself leader of the church and change it, but he could take his gifts—and clearly he had poetic gifts, clearly he had musical gifts—and he could take those gifts and do something to testify to Jesus that would bless others.
And here’s the thing I know about each and every one of you today: God has given you gifts. God has given you a place. You’re going to interact with people this week, maybe at work, maybe at school, maybe in your home, maybe online. The question is, are we ready to bless them?
How can I present him—not some earthly, refiltered version of him, but how can I present the very one who fills his church, and to whom all things are brought under subjection? How can I present him with his help?
There’s the old question, “What would Jesus do?” But maybe not ask quite “WWJD.” Let’s just tweak that a little bit, shall we? Why don’t we ask, “How will Jesus use me?”
Because sometimes we’re going to have to do things that Jesus never had to do. Sometimes the way Jesus is going to use us is that we are willing to humiliate ourselves by admitting we’re wrong. Jesus never had to be wrong. He never was wrong. He certainly was humiliated for us, but sometimes the starting point of being Jesus in this world, showing Jesus to the world, is simply being willing to say, “I know this is going to hurt me. It’s going to make me look bad, but I’m okay with that because I have a Savior who loves me.”
Maybe it’s praying for someone—praying for someone you don’t want to pray for. There’s a calling I think I was challenged on years ago by a mentor: think of whom it is that you don’t want to pray for—and pray for them, regularly, for 30 days straight. Pray for them every day and see if it isn’t a little bit harder to hate them or be angry at them after that, because if you’re praying every day for God’s blessing—and not the blessing of having their infants dashed upon the rocks—but that God would truly bless that person, that he or she would experience God’s love and care and guidance and whatever that person’s facing at the moment—that should transform us.
Maybe it’s someone you can serve at work—someone who never does anything for you, who always takes advantage of all his or her coworkers and the last person you want to actually volunteer to help out. But you see that person struggling this week, and you say, “You know what? How could Jesus use me this week? He could use me to go over and help that person when no one else wants to.”
Maybe just maybe it’s praying that the person we’ve gotten used to the fact that doesn’t know Jesus—she doesn’t know Jesus and that’s just the way it is. Maybe this week we need to have our eyes opened and the Spirit will lead us to actually share the gospel with that person.
The exact way it plays out doesn’t play out the same for each of us every time or even any time, but the key thing is that we’re actually going and being lights in the world, that we are actually going and showing God’s word to the world, that we’re living like Jesus, that we’re not living for our own benefit.
If we’re living for our own benefit, if we’re living to elevate ourselves, the world understands that. But that’s not how we’re made. That’s not why we’re united to Jesus. It’s not what we’re made to do.
If you think about the whole journey we’ve been on through Ephesians one, it’s been recognizing who God is, how we belong to him, and so therefore how we’re secured to do what he calls us to do, even when it seems completely illogical by the standards of the world.
Something that seems illogical if you didn’t know the technology would be to take something that is all sealed up, doesn’t have a battery cover, you can put AAA or AA batteries in, but it doesn’t have a plug, and stick it in your yard expecting it to light. That seems kind of ridiculous, doesn’t it? A few decades ago, if you’d done that, people would say, “Well, okay, if you want to, but that seems silly.”
But there’s something you’re going to get to take home tonight. Every household gets one, and I want you to put it in your yard. It’s a solar light. You know the amazing thing about solar lights? You never have to plug them in. You don’t have to change the batteries. You put it in your yard, and the very light of the sun will come into it. Then at night, you look out there. I like these because they’re called firefly lights. It looks like what happens when we’re actually reflecting Jesus into the world. It kind of just bends out; the light spreads out.
The light, the sun, brings light into the darkness, and that’s exactly what we’re called to do as the church—to be those who are powered by the sun, not the big hot sun that’s outside right now, but the one who made that sun. We’re sun-powered. Have you ever thought about that? We are sun-powered. The church is the ultimate solar entity because we’re powered by the true Son.
Put that light in your yard. Let it get some light. You’ll need to flip on the switch on the bottom and turn it on. Put that in your yard, and when you see that, it’s a reminder that we’re sent to be sun-powered lights in the world. We’re sent to be those who show Jesus to the world, to be those who understand because he is the God who reigns to bless that therefore we are a people, as his body, who belong to bless.
That’s my prayer for here at Little Hills and beyond—that we would be those who belong to bless because we are sun-powered lights to this world.
Would you pray with me, please?
Lord, we come before you as those who can’t do it on our own. We truly do need sun power. And Lord, as these lights will light up from the power of the physical sun that you made, would you light us up to show kindness and love and to show something that’s transforming and gracious, unlike what’s found in this world, as those who are sun-powered by the very Son of God, by our Savior, Jesus.
Lord, we are sinners. We are imperfect. Without the sun, we’re those lights sitting out just off at night unable to do anything, but Lord, would you use us that we would see as that light lights up at night, that we’d be reminded that you are the one who calls us to be lights into this world, and would you use us? Would you empower us to be that light that’s so desperately needed? We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
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