A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

When Paul wrote his marvelous letter called Ephesians, he was under arrest in Rome. During that same time he wrote Philippians, Philemon and Colossians, and these four are sometimes called “the prison epistles” or “the captivity epistles” because of that. Did Paul’s captivity help expand his understanding? Maybe it did, in but he doesn’t recommend suffering as a path to understanding, he recommends prayer.

One of the primary elements of Ephesians is Paul’s prayer for the church, and it is a prayer which asks that God grant the church an understanding heart, a heart that was illuminated (filled with light) so that it could see with clarity the hope, the riches and the power that were available to it through Christ.

Paul’s prayer extends to us, and I for one am encouraged to know that Paul prayed that we (for we are the church) would have understanding. And prayer is how we get it. No amount of study, no amount of schooling, no amount of reading, no amount of thinking can give us the understanding God can give.

Do we understand that? I pray (and hope) that we do, and as Paul prayed for the churches in Asia Minor, so I pray for us…

I never stop thanking God for you. I always remember you in my
prayers. I pray that the glorious Father, the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come
to know Christ better. Then we will have deeper insight. We will
know the confidence that he calls us to have and the glorious wealth
that God’s people will inherit.

Every blessing,

Lewis

By now most of you know that I’m a fan of C. S. Lewis and his writings. He was an excellent thinker, an excellent writer, and an excellent story teller. The Chronicles of Narnia bears witness to all that.

But even many fans of “Jack” (as his friends called him) have not read his work widely, and one of the books that often gets missed is The Weight of Glory. That title phrase comes from 2 Corinthians 4.17, which we read yesterday with its surrounding verses. In that passage Paul calls his hardships, which were many and often life threatening, “momentary light affliction” compared to the “eternal weight of glory.”

Do you see all three parallel descriptions in those phrases? One is affliction, the other is glory; affliction is momentary, glory is eternal; affliction is light, glory is a weight. Beyond that we also learn here that affliction is relative while glory is beyond all comparison. (See Romans 8.18.) But perhaps the most marvelous fact is that the first (momentary light affliction), results in the second (eternal weight of glory)!

How do we gain riches in heaven? By giving ourselves to God. That will cause in our lives on this earth, as it did in Paul’s life, momentary light affliction. But rest assured that in God’s hands even that affliction is working for our benefit, and producing for us an eternal weight of glory. How incredible! And how rich we are.

Every blessing,

Lewis

Hope is defined as desire coupled with the expected fulfillment of the thing desired, and I think of that when I tell my wife, “I hope to be home by 6.” By definition that means I want to be home by 6 and I think I actually will be home by 6. And although I rarely get home by 6 (or whatever time I hoped to get there), my hope is genuine.

In that example I have some control (or at least I think I have some control) over the outcome. But what about the times that I hope for something and have seemingly no control over the outcome? Can we “put our hope” in someone else, and can we give someone else hope?

Believe it or not, there are people within easy walking distance of our church door who are living without hope and looking for it. Some of those hope to find hope, and some now consider their situation completely hopeless.

Our hope, like Paul’s, is in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 1.10), and we can bring that same hope to those around us. We will be doing that as we mail out cards about real life, real people, real love and real God. Of course we hope people will respond to those cards and come and visit us, and we hope that many of those who visit will decide to stay and make this their church home.

But my hope for this Sunday is the same as Paul’s hope for the churches in southwestern Asia — that God would open our minds and hearts to the magnificent hope of his calling.

I hope you’ll be here on Sunday.

Every blessing,

Lewis

In last Sunday’s message we ended with verse 18 from Ephesians 1, which says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened….” There is a well known praise chorus that says, “Open the eyes of my heart” and I’ve written a song called Hearts That Hear which includes the lines, “Blessed is every heart that sees, Blessed the hearts that hear his voice.” My song, at least, and I think Paul Baloche’s song, too, are a reference to Jesus quoting Isaiah (see Matthew 13.15).

But in all these places there is one thing you should know, and that is that the heart was not just the seat of emotion for these Jews (either in Isaiah’s time or in Jesus’ time), but it was also the seat of knowledge and understanding.

Too often modern day American Christians have not known this and have therefore claimed that Paul was hoping the Ephesians would have some kind of feeling about God. And we should love him with our entire being, but here Paul is praying that the church would understand with their corporate mind something that is impossible to understand without God’s help.

What is that something? That’s what we’ll be talking about this coming Sunday.

Every blessing!

Lewis

In yesterday’s message we learned that Paul both thanked God for the churches in and around Ephesus and that he prayed for them. Specifically we see that he prayed that they might be given “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him [God].”

Note that he did not pray that they might learn to be wise or that they might somehow attain wisdom through their own efforts, but that God would give the church a spirit of wisdom and revelation. So we can see that God is not only the source of wisdom, he is the dispenser of wisdom as well.

In Isaiah we read these marvelous words: “And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” You may recognize that as a prophecy about Jesus, and you will know from your study of Jesus that he did indeed possess a spirit of wisdom and understanding. You will also notice the similarities in Isaiah’s prophecy and in Paul’s prayer.

But there is an aspect to wisdom that we often forget, and it is phrased beautifully by C. S. Lewis in his book The Pilgrim’s Regress. The lines go like this:

“And what is this valley called?”

“We call it now simply Wisdom’s Valley: but the oldest maps mark it as the Valley of Humiliation.”

Every blessing,

Lewis

I recently discovered a fact so amazing to me that I’ve been sharing it with my friends in casual conversation. I have no idea, looking back on some of those conversations, how I have managed to bring the Amazon River into the discussion, but somehow I have. And now here I am bringing it up again and sharing it with you.

The particular fact is that of all the fresh water that flows into any ocean from all the rivers in the world, 15% of it comes from one source — the Amazon River. In addition, fresh water from the Amazon can be found 100 miles out into the ocean, its flow is so strong.

Think about those facts for a moment and the power of the Amazon will begin to wash over you, and if it affects you the same way it did me, you will soon be sharing the wonder of that power with others, too.

But the one who made the Amazon is far more powerful than that, and I confess that it has been a while since I’ve somehow managed to work the power of Jesus into a casual conversation and share his amazing grace.

Paul, it seems, never tired of telling people about the power of Jesus and praying that they would know it. That’s only part of what we’ll be thinking about in our message on Sunday, January 20 (A Prayer for PACC), but it is worthy of our reflection all by itself.

Every blessing,

Lewis

As we opened Ephesians last Sunday we found this wonderful phrase from Paul: … just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. (Ephesians 1.4).

Many people read that and immediately get stuck on the “before the foundation of the world” part. I’m not suggesting we should ignore that, but the three words that grabs my attention are “He chose us….”

I was reminded again just how powerful being chosen can be as I watched a “reality” show called Dance War. Two professional choreographers had narrowed more than 1,000 applicants down to 14, and they were in the process of selecting their own teams from that group. The challenge was that they could only choose six each, which meant that two of the 14 were not going on with the show.

In the end there were three guys and three gals waiting. One choreographer selected a boy and a girl, leaving four. Now the last choreographer had to choose a boy and a girl. They would be in, and the two not chosen would be out.

The looks on the faces of those who were chosen told of their joy, their relief, their unmitigated happiness. One of them ran to the one who chose her and hugged her tightly, the other one chosen covered his face with his hands in disbelief and gratitude and then jumped in the air — higher than he could before, because the weight of anxiety was lifted.

Let us run to the One who chose us, and let us hug him tightly as we express our joy, gratitude — and even surprise — at being chosen.

Every blessing,

Lewis

In my message yesterday morning I read Ephesians 1.1-14. That is a powerful section of scripture, filled with wonderful statements of blessing and praise, and so it would be easy to overlook verse 2. This verse, which is part of the salutation of Paul to his readers, says simply, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (By the way, he uses exactly the same greeting in Philippians, a letter he wrote at essentially the same time as Ephesians!)

“Grace and peace” is a Christian greeting that follows the two forms of salutation used by Greeks and Hebrews in their letters, but it raises them to a new level even as it combines them. A traditional Greek greeting would be “rejoice” but here it is replaced by the Christian term “grace,” which of course means unearned or unmerited favor, especially the unmerited favor of God.

“Peace” is a Hebrew greeting which we still hear and use today — shalom — and in this context it speaks of tranquility of soul and friendship with God rather than the absence of conflict.

And so Paul has taken conventional phrases of courteous greeting from both the Jews and Gentiles and transformed them into a marvelous Christian greeting. Not unlike, perhaps, God took people from both the Jews and Gentiles, people like us, and transformed them into his own. Grace and peace to you this day.

Every blessing,

Lewis

Ephesians is a remarkable letter for many reasons, and as we begin thinking about it this Sunday we will be challenged as a church and inspired as individuals to grow up into Christ — even if we think we are pretty much grown up already!

The title of this week’s message is Every Blessing, and that is a phrase I first noticed as a closing on an e-mail I received from a friend and brother. I immediately liked it, and part of the reason was that it seemed somehow more sincere than the often used “Blessings.” But as I began to think about it I saw another dimension in the phrase that made me appreciate it even more.

Of course my initial understanding was that my friend was saying he wanted me to have every blessing, and that was nice. But the additional way I read it now comes from Ephesians 1.3, which in the NIV says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Do you see it? The phrase Every Blessing is not just a prayer for someone to be blessed, it is a reminder that every blessing comes from God through Christ!

The story is told of a wealthy man who would always take the time to pick up a penny when he saw one on the street. He didn’t do it because he wanted the money, he did it because he could read on it “In God We Trust” and be reminded of the true source of his wealth. May we be reminded, too, of the source of…

Every Blessing,

Lewis

In my message on January 6 we looked at Hebrews 12.1-3, which says in part “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus….” I said we need to “run the race” with focus, and I said that focus is required for success in almost any endeavor. What I didn’t talk about was one of the great benefits of focus, and that benefit applies to Christianity as much as it applies to archery, fly-fishing, or even running a race.

When you are completely focused on the target, you cannot think about mechanics. That is a good thing, because thinking about mechanics is a leading cause of failure. In other words, if I’m absorbed in hitting a baseball and all of my attention is on the ball that has been pitched, I can’t also be thinking about *how* to hit a baseball. How does that apply to Christianity? Too many of us get caught up in the mechanics of how to be a Christian and we take our eyes off of Jesus. We lose our focus.

I can just imagine Jesus standing there at the finish line, shining in all of his glory, hoping that we’ll be looking at him as we run and smiling at us as we do with his arms outstretched ready to receive us. Picture that, love him, keep your eyes on him, and no one will have to tell you how to run.

Every blessing,

Lewis