2026 01 04 - Getting Our Priorities Right for 2026 - Popp

Grace, peace and mercy from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated.

The Gospel, as you heard, is Jesus at the temple. As Dave explained, Tuesday is epiphany and next Sunday is already Jesus Baptism. It's a fast start to this year, just four days into 2026. So why Ephesians? Ephesians one today?

That's where I want to spend our time together in this sermon. In today's Epistle, Paul's letter to the people of Ephesus. It's really one long run on sentence, but a powerful one. A prayer, a poem. So let's start our new year with Paul's opening prayer here.

It said in a commentary that it actually had no punctuations. You know, it was just one long. And as Dave was reading it, I thought, oh, yeah, there's still a few periods in there. We have certainly cleaned it up a little bit for you English people who get excited about those things, right? But it's a lot going on.

Couple notes I want you to know before we even start. Number one, you can read all about Paul's visit to ephesus in Acts 19, you'll see it's a lot about baptism, about him gathering disciples, about those baptized by John, and then Paul explaining what's going on and baptizing them in the. In the Spirit. Paul wrote this book while in prison, like a lot of his. And again, this, this is a little bit different.

Most of Paul's epistles start with a thanksgiving. There were four exceptions. Two of them were a little frustration of Paul. Both in Galatians and Titus, Paul was so upset he skipped the Thanksgiving. He got right to spankings.

But in two of them, in Ephesians here and first Timothy, thanksgivings come after this short time of explanation or prayer. That's what happens. The thanksgivings and the pleasantries come starting in verse 15.

As Dave read it, I don't know for how long, how many times you heard the In Jesus, in him, of him, in whom, in Christ. We're talking a lot about what is happening here, right? Three times you heard according to his purpose. Hopefully you saw the way it was broken into this Trinity, right? First things first, let's take a look at this Trinitarian prayer.

Please understand. We're gonna go real fast. This could be a whole Bible study just on this, what, 12 verses in Ephesians 1. But let's jump into this. All right?

The first thing, of course, in the Trinitarian prayer is God the Father. Verses 4 to 6, it says in him before the foundation of the world, we already understand that our Alpha and Omega understand that God was and is. He has always been. There is no time with God. And that was explained, of course.

And this idea of being adopted his sons through Jesus, it segues into this idea of why Jesus came to the world. This is Paul speaking to people who still don't understand who Jesus was or why he was sent into the world. So when we get to these next verses, the bulk of it, there's actually two sections on Jesus. It focuses on these things in whom we have redemption. We often as God's people in our catechisms, we understand these parts of the Trinity that we talk about Jesus as the Redeemer.

I can't believe we're already all set for Lent. The Lent sermons are all set. The theme is set. I'm ready to go. I have my report ready for Tuesday.

Elders, we just finished Christmas. Ash Wednesday's a month and a half away and yet I'm already looking forward to that walk to the cross, because that's what Christmas sets up. Why did he come? And of course, in whom we have been appointed so important of this understanding of why he came for us, how we become part of God's family. That's where God, the Holy Spirit comes in.

Obviously, I feel we don't talk enough about the Holy Spirit. I try to talk more about the Holy Spirit. I don't want kids ever concerned. You know, when it's Holy Ghost, they're like, what do you mean, Ghost? Right.

They got this fear of this idea Holy Spirit coming upon us. Well, it is in whom we heard the word of gospel, truth, Truth and gospel, right. This idea of what we saw and what was said and what was done and what we can expect. You know, it's right from the start. When you go Back to Acts 19, where John says, or Paul says, john baptized with water, we now baptize the name of God with the Spirit.

This is where we get our Spirit. And really it comes to in whom we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is in that waters of baptism. Baptism is that huge theme as we go through Ephesians. And again, it should be that reminder for us.

I just saw on Facebook somebody questioning why we cross ourselves. It's too Catholic. We shouldn't do that. Every time we hear the triune God of the Cross ourselves. Hopefully you're remembering your baptism.

What's the first thing we do? We make the sign of the cross on their forehead and the heart to remind them as one redeemed by Christ the crucified, not just the baby, not just person baptized. It's us every day being reminded that redeemed by Christ, crucified, when we cross ourselves in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, it's that reminder we are part of his family in baptism. So God is the doer of all good things. As I was researching again more in Ephesians 1, I read that and it just kept coming back to me over and over.

God is the doer of all good things. Everything we have. As you sat around at Christmas looking to see who actually took the time maybe to shop or to think about somebody or to find something clever, it's that family time. The older I get, the more I appreciate it's that time spent with our loved ones. The memories we make that God has blessed us with on this earth.

And absence makes the heart grow fonder. I missed you guys last Sunday. The blessings that we have together as God's people. God is the doer of all good things. God's action is the gospel.

What he put into place from the minute he put Adam and Eve in the garden, he did not make them robots to worship him. From the fall he planned to send his son. That's that wonderful 39 books of the Old Testament that are constantly pointing to the coming of Jesus. God's action is that gospel to come. God's action alone is to be praised.

We get so caught up in how we want to point to what others have done. I had somebody question why we celebrate Reformation. Do we celebrate it? I guess we're certainly excited that we're no longer bound by laws, that we can read the Bible in our own language. We're excited about how God used Luther, but Luther is not who we ever worship God.

It's his action alone that is to be praised. Regardless of how he uses his saints throughout history, including us, God acts in Christ. There's no better reminder than certainly as we finish our celebration of Jesus coming to the world as that baby, to remember that God acts through that sending of His Son, the Redeemer. Let's talk about that just a little bit. Number one, it's in his body.

We know that to be true. That's part of why we see him coming into the world. Did he have to? Could God have done a different way? Sure made it very personal.

Think about how personal he made it. If you don't believe that yet, just wait until that wooden cross is out up here and we're remembering exactly what he did for us and we pick up the Nail. We place it in the cross.

It's in his church.

Like I said, I miss y'. All. Last Sunday, this place of grace here where we come to worship, to be forgiven, to receive his body and blood, to be in his presence.

I certainly understand what it is God blesses us through when we have this and certainly in his gift of life and salvation. I put another baptism picture because I was looking them up and thought, man, it is that reminder of how the Holy Spirit comes upon us.

Yeah, I. I went to Google and put in baptism and looked at all the generic pictures and thought I have too many baptism pictures and use one of those. What a blessing it is that we constantly see that. A lot of you might remember when I went down to sub at Celebration Lutheran for Pastor Santi when he was sick that one Sunday, his daughter was sick. He had to travel to go see her and I got to do a baptism. They said it was the first baptism there in 10 years.

It hurt my heart.

One of our two sacraments and they hardly ever get to see it. The blessing we have of all the baptisms here. Now as we start off 2026, I titled my sermon Getting Our Priorities Right in 2026. This is where I kind of gave my little soliloquy advertisement at the beginning of service to think about how were as God's people going to continue to grow that strong foundation to share Him. How we prepare ourselves, right?

So as we went through this, just some things that stood out in this trinitarian prayer, in this poem, this idea of how Paul laid it out for the people of Ephesus. I want to lay it out for you, right? Number one, I am blessed with all spiritual blessings.

If you did not take a outline today, go back to the YouTube, check out this later. Take some time this week, be reminded this. All the wonderful spiritual blessings he's given us that we take for granted, that we forget about, that we minimize, that we get tired of why we are blessed. Number two, I'm chosen by God. Every single human being on this planet is God's own.

Made in his image as a child of God. Some are so lost, they're so clueless.

It starts with, I understand I'm chosen by God and I am a child of God. Those are kind of back to back verses there. It's just that reminder again who we are. You might have heard me say who we are and whose we are too many times. And guess what?

It's that constant reminder. It's that name tag, God's own child growing up My brother, you know, he was almost seven years older than me, so I learned all my bad habits from him. But one of the things he did, he and his girlfriend in high school, he worked at the roller rink. He loved going to roller skating. They got matching shirts, but on the back of his said Jody's.

On the back of hers said riches with an apostrophe. I thought, how dumb is that? I couldn't wait to do it myself. But you know, it was one of those things that I thought we all walk around hopefully and it says gods and apostrophe s. We are his number four. I am highly favored.

The next time you start to feel down about things, you start to do the woe is me. Go back to number one. I am blessed with all spiritual blessings and understand how blessed and how highly favored we are. We heard it from Mary. You are highly favored.

The angel said, guess what?

That's part of that waters of baptism. We are highly favored. We are his. I am forgiven completely. I've told you guys many times the story of the office of the keys where I almost didn't feel like I should be a pastor because who am I, right?

I didn't feel worthy to stand up and say, as a called ordained servant of Christ, I forgive you. I had to understand that God does all that forgiving, right? It's not me, but it's this understanding that I worry sometimes for you guys.

Do you truly understand the way God forgives you? Let it go and put it behind you. That's why we start our service with confession, absolution. You are forgiven completely. Quit letting the devil chain you to old sin number six.

I am included in God's plan.

Let me say it again. I am included in God's plans. That Bible, your playbook, makes it very clear. He sent his son to die for you. He loves you.

He has a place for you in heaven. That's the plan. Let's stick to it. And remember, number seven. I am an heir of God.

There's only one place for us. One thing about going home is spending time with Grandma Mike. You know, she's going to be 100 February 2nd here. She's got a little less than a month and we got to spend a little more time talking about this idea of what she has experienced and what is to come.

And what drags her down most is watching all her loved ones who died and having just that anxiousness. Where I heir place is set. I'm going to start make her read John 14 every day. I don't know, let us never forget where our room is, our real room, our real home. Finally, I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit.

One of the reasons I put up a couple of those baptism pictures, those personal pictures, is just to remind us that we are sealed with the holy Holy Spirit. That's a whole other Bible class session about the idea of being sealed, this idea of the Holy Spirit coming upon us, about what that means, all the different examples of that throughout Scripture and throughout history of how God has sealed us and loves us and claims us. Maybe we need a baptism shirt that says God sent it back to remind you I am a child of God. We sing in baptism of remembrance every month here at school, at chapel. We are God's own.

That is a seal that cannot be broken again. It's one of the most important things, as a father, to remind myself when my children sometimes did things I didn't care for or said some things I didn't like. We had them baptized. They can deny God, but they can't get rid of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to continue to push, push and push until that day.

The power of baptism.

I didn't reread it. I don't know how well you were paying attention when Dave was reading the Epistle, but I would tell you this day, go back and reread for your devotions this Week this Ephesians 1:3 to 14. Be reminded of these things this morning when Pastor Rick came in, he goes. He goes, do I need to stay? And I said, well, let's give you the test.

And I went through these eight things with him, and he said, check, check, check. Well, joking, of course.

We are God's chosen. We are an heir. We are forgiven completely. We are blessed and highly favored. Let's live 2026 with that.

And I said, getting our priorities right in 2026. It is that firm foundation of remembering who we are and whose we are and living it to the fullest so everyone else can see it and believe it.

Paul's opening prayer in his letter to the people of Ephesus is a wonderful reminder of the blessings we have, where all the glory and honor of those blessings came from, and who we praise and give full credit for our blessings. Thank you, God. May God continue to bless us in 2026 as we continue to serve and share him. Amen.