It’s Time To Rest | Ephesians 3

I remember twisting my husband’s arm to go see The Greatest Showman with me in theaters when it came out in 2017. Musicals aren’t usually his film genre of choice, but he ended up loving the snappy soundtrack, and seven years later we still occasionally listen to it on long drives. One of the songs, Never Enough, goes like this.

All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough
Never be enough
Towers of gold are still too little
These hands could hold the world but it'll
Never be enough
Never be enough

I realized recently that I spent most of my teens and early adulthood living as though God was the one singing those words. I believed that he always wanted more from me, that even though his hands did hold the world, he still couldn’t have his way in it without my full surrender, without my being “sold out” for him.

But the Bible is the story of God, not the story of us, and the Christian life is meant to be the way that we continue God’s story into the present. The first half of Ephesians tells this complete story. God has orchestrated salvation for us through Christ’s death and resurrection in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we have placed our faith in Jesus we are raised from death to life with him. We are now identified as saints. We are now called to live out of that identity, rather than chasing it.

In Ephesians 1 Paul identifies the recipients of his letter by calling them “saints” (1:1). He also says, before offering any instructions at all, that they “are faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1). Paul’s posture toward them is not one of reprimand or lack. He seems to believe that who they are in Christ is enough.

A few verses later Paul prays and thanks God for their “faith in the Lord Jesus” and “love toward all the saints” (1:15). He rejoices over these markers of their identity as believers. He doesn’t point out that not enough of them have answered the call to foreign missions. He doesn’t divide them into the apathetic and the “on fire.” He seems to believe that their pursuit of ordinary faithfulness is enough.

In chapter 3 Paul re-emphasizes the unique revelation of the gospel that God has given him, how in Christ Jews and Gentiles are joined in one body, the church. He says his purpose as an apostle is “to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (3:9-10). Paul knows that the Christians in Ephesus don’t have to do anything “radical.” Their belonging in the church, the body of Christ, already is radical!

It’s time for us to rest in our identity as saints, the beloved children of God. It’s time for us to lay aside the heavy burden of living radically for Jesus, thinking that we must add our zeal to his sacrifice. It’s time for us to take up his easy yoke of ordinary faithfulness and find rest for our souls (Matt. 11:28-30).