We dug into Ephesians 1:15-23. And there was one particular phrase that really caught my attention and (since I lead the thing) that I made our small group deal with:
[I pray that] that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints...What I want that last line to say is "inheritance for the saints." But it doesn't say that. It says "inheritance in the saints." All about those stinkin' prepositions again. A couple of takes on this.
First, part of God's inheritance at the end of all things is his people. God has created all people and longs for all people to be his inheritance. But the reality is that not all will come to the party he is throwing. For those who do respond, we are richly treasured, glorious, objects of joy and delight. That starts today. God delights to have you for his inheritance today. Really. Soak in that for a second.
Secondly, God's people are a significantly rich part of our inheritance for one another. This section of Paul's prayer is listing the things available to the believer, the gifts that God longs to give us. Not only are we God's inheritance, we are the inheritance for one another, given to each other as part of our eternal joy and gladness.
If we move beyond the theory and to the practical, and if we're honest, many of us would find this disappointing. Most of us would prefer to self-select, to have our circle of friends from our church or our flavor of "the church" and not have to be associated with the rest. There are lots of annoying Christians out there, no matter how you slice it.
And so this sounds more like the consolation prize on Jeopardy then the real winner's take-home: a year supply of Rice-A-Roni while someone else got the jackpot. I want something better than to have to be stuck with this sorry lot called "the church" with all its embarrassments throughout the centuries.
But God, in his infinite creativity and with every possible resource at his disposal, has seen fit to so design our great inheritance with one another smack in the middle of it. If you are in Christ today with me, then you and I are given to one another right now and will be finally and eternally given to one another forever.
For those for whom this feels particularly repulsive, the good news is that this final giving will be as finished and fully redeemed people. But this has some immense ramifications for how we live life here and now.
If you are my inheritance, for example, I better care of you. Slandering you or gossiping about you, lying to you or using you for my own gain, despising you for either your weaknesses (to make myself feel good) or your gifts (which make me feel bad), all of these are out of order. You are my inheritance. It's time to treat you as such.
And "the church" that is so easy to hate on, those are your peeps, your eternal inheritance. Might be time to make peace with that now.
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