Ephesians 3:2-12 - God's Master Plan Revealed - January 8, 2023

Just outside those doors a new neighborhood – called Juniper Ridge – has sprung up from the farm fields in just the past few years. Many of us witnessed the progress from farmland to surveyor’s stakes to earthmovers to roads and finished homes. It was captivating to watch this project become a reality. It’s also remarkable to think that long before the first earth-mover moved the first yard of earth, before the first foundation was dug, this entire project was nothing more than a plan in a developer’s mind (or on his computer). When it was being proposed, there were skeptics. How’s it all going to fit? Will anyone want to live there? How are they going to get it passed by a village board, which is rumored to be…difficult? That’s why, before Veridian received permission to start their Juniper Ridge project, they had to present a master plan, showing where and when and how they planned to build those homes and parks and streets. Now when we look out at the finished homes and roads, it seems obvious how it would all go together. But only a few years ago, it was hard to imagine. That’s kind of how it works with God’s good and gracious rule of this world and our lives. It’s hard to grasp and hard to know your place in it unless you know the plan. This morning, Paul reveals God’s master plan of salvation.

As fallen – and yet proud – humans, we tend to think we know what God’s plans are – or at least ought to be – and that they will always make sense to us. Boiled down, we expect that God will reward those who do what is right and punish those who do what is wrong. But what happens when God doesn’t work the way we expect him to? When bad things happen to good people and the wicked seem to thrive? Don’t we wonder about God’s plans, question them, even get angry at him for not doing what we expect, when we expect it? Occasionally, the passing of time gives us perspective – we can look back with 20/20 hindsight and say “Oh, yeah, that’s what God was doing. Duh.” But in the moment, God’s plans often leave us confused and frustrated. (By the way, that’s nothing new. Study any believer’s life in the Bible and you will see evidence that God’s ways are far above our ways (Isaiah 55:9)).

And yet, while God’s plans are often a mystery to us, they aren’t to him. Everything that happens is according to God’s perfect blueprint. It’s a massive, mind-numbingly intricate, eternally expansive blueprint, but a blueprint nonetheless – not all that different from Veridian’s master plan. Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in this universe and in your life follows God’s plan down to the day, minute and second. One of the things that makes God’s blueprint far superior to any developer’s is that he never has to change his plans, there are never any unforeseen challenges, no obstacles that frustrate his will. Oh, it may seem like things get in the way all the time. Snowstorms ruin your travel plans. Southwest airlines can’t find enough people to fly their planes. Babies are born outside God’s institution of marriage – or worse, murdered before they can take their first breath. [1] Jobs are lost. Cars break down. Families are divided. Spouses divorce. Cancer kills and wealth evaporates. Did God really account for all of those disastrous effects of sin in his master plan? He sure did. He assures us: I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). We know that. We try to trust that. But it often seems like a mystery. That’s where Paul comes in. His special calling was to reveal how God’s plan was eternally for us.

Now, if you’re at all familiar with the first 39 books of the Bible, you might question that statement. In fact, you might start to think that right from the beginning God’s plan only involved saving a select group of people – which did not include us. Around 2000 BC God chose a man named Abraham and promised that he would bless him and make his family as numerous as the sand on the seashore (Genesis 12:2-3). God made the same promise to Abraham’s son Isaac, his son Jacob, and Jacob’s sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. On Mt. Sinai God separated this ever-growing family from the nations around them. He gave them their own laws, their own diet, their own temple and rules for worship, their own nation, and the promise that the Savior would come from them. Only members of this family were allowed to worship in God’s temple. Non-Jews were considered unclean (Revelation 11:2). [2] And the Lord made no secret of his favoritism. He told them you will be my special treasure out of all the nations, although the entire earth is mine. You will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation (Exodus 19:5-6). So, where were we in this master plan? Aren’t we just plan B; just a fallback plan when God’s original plan failed? No. And that’s the mystery.  

This mystery is that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and people who also share in the promise through the gospel…To me – even though I am the very least of all the saints – was given this grace: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to enlighten everyone about the administration of this mystery. In past ages this mystery remained hidden in God, who created all things. When you hear mystery, don’t think of a murder mystery podcast or Dateline NBC. It’s not a mystery that requires human investigation. It’s a mystery that requires divine revelation. But here’s what Paul wants us, non-Jew Gentiles, to be certain of: we were part of God’s plan long before we were born, from before the creation of the world. This was done according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. God did not start with the Jews and then, when that experiment failed, decided to move on to the Gentiles. You were eternally part of God’s plan, even though for centuries it was a mystery as to how he would carry it out.

Flattering, humbling even, isn’t it? To think that God has been thinking of you since before creation and that he actually planned every minute detail of his entire blueprint around you thousands of years before you were born. But that’s definitive evidence that we are saved by grace, isn’t it? Before we were born, God had drawn up a blueprint to save us. The same God who keeps the planets spinning in their orbits, who guides the orderly procession of the seasons, who directs the vast orchestra of everything in the entire universe cares so much about us – just specks of dust on the timeline of history – that he made us the crown and goal of his master plan. Every time a baby is baptized we witness this plan in action. Those little ones squirming in your arms were created by God and given to you at this time and this place so that he could reach out of heaven with water and the Word to adopt them into his family and make them heirs of his heavenly kingdom. And what’s true of the little ones we bring to this baptismal font is true of all of us. You have your own history that somehow resulted in you hearing the Gospel and believing that God has saved you for Jesus’ sake (Acts 17:26). A history carefully crafted by God from beginning to end. Flattering. Humbling.

And…embarrassing when we compare God’s eternal plan for us to our plans for him. Now that the holidays are over, I imagine many of us have begun planning out our 2023. Birthdays and anniversaries, school breaks, holidays, vacations, weddings, doctor’s appointments – even where and when we’ll watch the Packers game later. We plan and schedule even the most minor details of our lives. You know one thing that you won’t find on my calendar – I checked – and I’m guessing I wouldn’t find on yours either? Time for prayer, time for Bible study, time specifically and intentionally set aside for the One who wrote his entire plan for us.

Now, I’m not saying that we never pray, never study our Bibles, never take time for devotion and meditation. After all, we’re here today, aren’t we? Never taking time for God is not the problem. Compartmentalizing God is. God gets an hour – or maybe two – on Sunday mornings; he might get a shout-out before meals and before I go to sleep – but the rest of my life, that’s mine. I have a plan for my life, and if God wants to help – he’s welcome – but if not, he can take a back seat as follow my plan and chase my dreams. Is that really any way to thank the One who carefully laid the foundations of the universe, set the days and seasons, controlled governments and empires, and sent his One and only Son to this earth to die for you and your salvation? Can we really only find a few minutes here and there for the one who put us at the center of his eternal plan? That doesn’t mean that we need to be praying or reading our Bibles every waking moment – after all, God has given us vocations as mothers and fathers, employers and employees, students and teachers – but it does mean that as we carry out those vocations and plan our schedules God should always be at the very center. He’s the one who gave us a life to live and time to schedule. He’s the one who gave us our jobs, marriages, and families. But let’s be honest. Even if we only made one resolution for 2023: to keep God at the center of our lives every minute of every day (out of obedience to the 1st Commandment) – we wouldn’t and couldn’t keep it, would we? We’re not capable of it. We’re too self-centered.

You know what? God in his multifaceted wisdom even planned for that. He knew who we would be and how we would act. He knew that our schedules would be perpetually self-centered and that he would be relegated to an occasional cameo appearance in the drama of our lives. That’s why he designed his master plan for you, not around you. Everything he created, he created for you. Every promise he made, he made for you. Everything he had written down over the centuries, he had written for you. Every time he steered the events of this world in a certain direction, every monumental miracle he performed and every little undetected detail he worked out behind the scenes he did for you. And, as the climax of his whole plan, he sent his Son.

God’s plan was eternally for us, but it was always about Jesus. That’s why our sermons and hymns and Bible studies and church year are not about us; they’re about him. But the amazing thing we discover when we examine his life is that His life was for you too. When Jesus was perfectly obedient to both his earthly parents and his heavenly Father – he did it for you. When he went toe to toe with the devil in the wilderness – he defeated those temptations for you. Every law Jesus obeyed, he obeyed for you. Every temptation he fought off had you in mind. Every word he spoke, every miracle he performed, every comforting, compassionate look he gave had you in mind. When he was being whipped by the Roman soldiers, guess who he was thinking about? When the angry mob was screaming for his crucifixion, guess who he was thinking about? When he was carrying his cross out to Golgotha, when nails were pounded through his hands and feet, when he was hanging there naked for all the world to see his shame and agony, guess who he was thinking about? He wasn’t up there for his own good. He was there for you, for your forgiveness. He was there to give his life for yours. He was there to die so that you might live. You were at the center of every moment of Jesus’ life and death. The Bible is about Him. But from beginning to end, his life was for you. You were his obsession.

And you still are. Jesus has risen. Jesus has ascended into heaven. Jesus has taken his seat on his heavenly throne and is in full control of all things at all times. But even now, everything he’s doing, he’s doing for you. If we could see Jesus’ agenda right now there would be trillions of things on it – but it’s all for you. Wind chills and snowstorms…Jesus has his hand on that thermostat. The passing into and out of office of elected leaders – the King is ruling those kings (yes, even when they struggle to elect a Speaker of the House). The ebbs and flows of the stock market and your blood pressure – Jesus is controlling them all for you.

And that’s the way God planned it all along. From the very beginning to the very end, his plan was that through the gospel, you and I would be fellow heirs, members of the same body, and people who also share in the promise through the gospel…according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. God planned to make you a member of his family in Baptism, to preserve and strengthen your faith in Word and Sacrament – and he’s done that. God planned to make available to you all the blessings that membership entails: forgiveness of sins, new life – free from sin and guilt, the hope of salvation. God planned that you will experience the joys of heaven forever as a result of Jesus’ work. God determined that you and your salvation would always be THE master plan. And on Epiphany, the day the mystery is revealed that Jesus came to save us, too, we see that what God plans always happens. Happy Epiphany! Amen.

[1] (It’s estimated that over 44 million babies were aborted in 2022) https://notthebee.com/article/abortion-1-cause-of-death-worldwide-again

[2] https://www.gotquestions.org/Court-of-the-Gentiles.html