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WHO ALL IS GOD THE GOD OF?

“You ain’t the boss of ME!” How the human race loves to say that! Allowing someone to have authority over us is about our least favorite thing — whether it’s the highway patrol, a parent, or this fellow named “Dubya” living in the White House. And . . . maybe even God.

It was a cool Friday evening in Dallas when Mr. Warren Harding arrived home from work. Named after a Republican president, Warren, a Democrat, had a job with the government as a county treasurer. And this particular Friday hadn’t been a good day. The calendar read November 22, 1963, and earlier that afternoon the President of the United States had been assassinated right there in his own city. As he walked up the front drive to his house, a neighbor kid came up to him. “Mr. Harding, I’m sorry your President died.”

And the distraught government worker, his heart numb with grief, paused for a moment before quietly saying to the boy: “Son, he was your President, too. He was everybody’s President.” And, according to historian William Manchester, in his chilling, powerhouse bestseller, The Death of a President, the child just shook his head. “He wasn’t ours. My mom and daddy didn’t vote for him. He didn’t mean anything to us.”

Isn’t that a devastating denial? Earlier that same Friday, Harding’s own 14-year-old son had gone to school, like always, at W. E. Greiner Junior High, which was just across the Trinity River from the Texas School Book Depository. School officials had already made arrangements so that any child whose parents came to get them could get out of class and go see the JFK presidential motorcade. But now the Harding boy’s homeroom teacher made an opening-bell announcement, and again, this is how Manchester tells the story:

“‘Nobody here will be let out for that parade,’ she told them. ‘I don’t care if your whole family shows up. You still have to be in this class. He’s not a good President, and I don’t say that because I’m a Republican. It don’t make no matter whether it’s him or his brother Bobby. One’s as bad as the other. You’re not going, I’m not going, period.’ She smiled faintly, a smartly dressed young woman in her mid-twenties. ‘If I did see him,’ she said, ‘I’d just spit in his face.’”

A few hours later, John F. Kennedy was dead and in a coffin on Air Force One. The man these confused, disdainful Americans refused to acknowledge as the Commander in Chief of the nation they claimed to love.

Well, friend, that’s a painful story from four decades ago. And I don’t bring it up today to dredge up political feelings on either side of the aisle. How many of us have, at times, thought to ourselves that the man living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was not “our” President? That we were not the subjects of that scoundrel, that womanizer, or that rich-kid imposter who stole the election with the help of a few boxes of buried ballots?

Let’s quickly move away from Dallas and D.C., then, and get ourselves back to the ancient city of Ephesus. Because in the very preamble to this great epistle, there are several fascinating instances where the question of “Who is my President?”, “Who is my leader”?, emerges.

We already commented about Paul’s opening greeting, but let’s look at it again.

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus [and around the world], the faithful in Christ Jesus.”

Did you know that just in the first three words there — “Paul, an apostle” — there is a claiming of authority? The New International Version text notes make this observation:

“Apostle. One specially commissioned by Christ. . . . Paul not only stresses his authority under God, but also anticipates the strong emphasis he will make later in this chapter and book on God’s sovereign plan and purpose.”

In other words, Paul is saying, the sovereign God of the universe commissioned ME to carry this message to you, to give you spiritual direction. Paul is essentially doing like the detectives on Law and Order, where they show their badge. “We are on official business here.” In fact, I like what Eugene Peterson’s The Message paraphrase does here; Paul describes himself as “a special agent of Christ Jesus.” Isn’t that great? Dr. Francis Foulkes, in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, suggests:

“Apostle is the title Paul most frequently gives himself. It speaks of the great privilege, but also of the divine compulsion, of the commission laid UPON him. He could not think of himself in his relationship to men except in terms of his being sent to all with the gospel. He is what he is by the will of God; and this is no mere permission. . . . It is God’s positive purpose that makes Paul a man under authority, and enables him to write with authority. He is always at pains to stress that his calling is due to no personal merit; his authority is not self-assumed. Both are entirely of God and on that fact he relies, especially when his mission is challenged.”

Let me ask you something, friend. Have you arrived at the point where you allow these Bible writers and what their words indicate to have AUTHORITY over you? Is your life LED by the six chapters in the book of Ephesians? If it’s not, then it ought to be. Because the Word of God is plain that it’s exactly that: the Word of God. Paul writes with authority because God gave him that authority. There’s nothing worse than “self-assumed” authority, but the teachings in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians are not self-assumed. They’re God-ordained, mandated by heaven. And how often do we do like that stubborn, misguided kid on the Dallas sidewalk, saying, in effect, “Aaah, he’s not MY President. He’s not the boss of me; I don’t have to pay attention”?

Here’s one more quick and related point. Paul continues:

“To the SAINTS in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”

And maybe we quit on our Bible studying right there. “Paul’s writing to SAINTS? That lets me out. I guess I’ll go pour a beer and watch some hoops on TV.” Because we don’t feel like we’re saints. Let me share just one more paragraph by this same Dr. Foulkes and the Tyndale commentary:

“In Old Testament days the tabernacle, the temple, the Sabbath, and the people themselves,” he writes, “were holy as they were consecrated, or set apart, for the service of God. A person is not a ‘saint’ in this sense by PERSONAL MERIT; he is one set apart by God, and in consequence he is called to live in holiness. Thus the word expresses at once the privilege and the responsibility of the calling of every Christian, not the attainment of a select few.”

In other words, the word “saint” — applied to you — doesn’t mean that you’ve gotten to some wonderful level of holiness. Although we ARE called to holiness. What it does mean is that you’ve placed yourself under God’s authority; you’ve recognized that He has set you apart as His; you’re consecrated to Him. Once again, we find that we are simply recognizing the fact: God is over us, and we are under Him. He is our Creator; we are the creatures. He should be worshiped; we do the worshiping. The word “saint” just means that you are daily living in that reality.

But now verse three is most interesting. Let’s look at it:

“Praise be to the God AND Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And we think to ourselves: “Yes, God is the Father of Jesus; that’s biblical. And God is, of course, God. But is He JESUS’ God? He’s your God and my God, and WE bow down in humble worship. But is He the God of His own, co-equal, part-of-the-Trinity Son?”

Sometimes believers get hung up on this question of Jesus being God’s Son. Was there a time when God MADE or created Jesus? Was there a time when God the Father existed but Jesus was not around, and finally God went to the hospital — in a sense — and had a child? And I don’t mean at Bethlehem, where the Word of the Lord is entirely clear that the Holy Spirit moved upon the virgin Mary and she had a baby boy named Jesus. I’m not talking about then. I’m talking about way back at the beginnings of time, before the foundations of this world. Did Jesus Christ come along partway into the story?

We’re going to hold over, until tomorrow, a very revealing sermon illustration from C. S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity. He addresses most effectively this issue of Jesus and God, the Son and the Father. But today, let’s let it suffice that Ephesians proclaims God the Father as both Jesus’ Father and also His God. The NIV scholars take us back to John 20:17, where Jesus Himself said to Mary, after His resurrection:

“Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to My Father and your Father, to MY GOD and your God.’”

There it is from Jesus Himself. And the NIV Bible study team comments:

“God is Father both of Christ and of believers, but in different senses.”

Did Jesus do His Father’s will — as we should? Yes. Was He loved — as we are? Yes. Was He an obedient part of God’s plan — as we should strive to be? Always.

Why, then, is Jesus called the Son? Especially the “begotten” Son? We’ll get into that issue first thing tomorrow.