Series: What Makes Christians Different?”

by Pastor Nate Walther

Tenth Sunday of Pentecost, 08/02/2026

How much life insurance should you have?  What should health insurance provide for your family?  How much should you have invested at a certain age?  What salary should you be making? Experts have varying opinions on these questions, insisting you should do this or not take a job if it fails to provide that.  And maybe you think about all these things often.  Or maybe you don’t.  But even if you don’t, is it only because God has blessed you with so much, and your mindset would quickly change if you suddenly lost your job, health, or savings? 

It all leads to another question today as we look to learn from God’s Word: do we trust God to provide?  We probably all struggle with that more than we would care to admit. But wherever we doubt him, God still has a BLUEPRINT TO BLESS us, and also to forgive that sin too.

Our sermon text from Ephesians 1 is so good…  If you wanted to go to just one place in the Bible to understand God’s “master plan” for life, salvation and really every blessing, it’s hard to beat this!  Again, ^3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” And what does that blueprint look like to bless us?  It boils down to two things:

1) Verse 4, “(God) chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that – which really indicates a “cause and effect” in language in which this was first written – so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight…”  This is why, if ever we begin to think, “You know what, maybe I have to do something to be saved. I mean, you have to be a good enough person to get to heaven, right?” God replies, “NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!”; rather, verse 5, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons…”  We didn’t earn this.  We weren’t just born into it, with enough good in us to make it happen.  God loved us enough to make it happen.  Long before we ever came onto the scene or did anything, God says this was “his good will.”  That’s why in verse 6 he gets all “praise” and “glory”, ifwe make it about anything we must do, we are actually taking away from him and what he did for us. 

2) Which leads us to the 2^nd part of the plan, how did God accomplish this? ^7 “In him we also have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in keeping with the riches of his grace.”  That can only be talking about Jesus, who shed his blood for us.  Several times in the opening verses, God made this additionally clear when he said we’re “blessed”and “adopted” as “God’s sons”… “in Christ,” and “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Verse 8, this is what God “lavishes” on us.  Verse 9, he planned this good purpose “in Christ.”  And verse 10, it happened “when the time had fully come.” If those words sound familiar, it’s because the Bible uses them elsewhere to describe how Jesus came into the world at Christmas.

In summary, what is GOD’S BLUEPRINT TO BLESS US? Step one: he chooses us entirely by grace, not based on anything we do (right or wrong).  Step two: he sends Jesus to pay the price for sin, to earn what we could not…  It’s a great blueprint.  It’s the message we Christians cherish…  But did you notice one thing we didn’t hear?  There’s nothing here about God’s plans to bless us in this life. 

We didn’t cut it off either, the following verses don’t get into it.  And it’s not just that things were going so good for the Ephesians there was no reason to talk about it.  Very few Christians in the New Testament had much material blessing, and most struggled mightily.  Ephesus was no exception: in that city the book of Acts tells us people rioted against these Christians for their faith.  There’s nothing in the Bible to suggest they were living an easy life.  But instead of focusing on whatever problems they were facing at the time, God’s blueprint to bless them started and ended with something that superseded all earthly things.  God’s plans simply revolved around salvation, and everything else was meant to fall into place after that.

How quickly do we overlook that?  So many people in this world worry so much about what they must provide for themselves.  They even want to attribute some aspect of salvation to themselves: “Don’t I need to choose the right Savior? Don’t I need to be a good enough person for God to let me into heaven?”  And that’s where we may smugly think as Lutherans, “That’s not us, we’ve got this figured out!”  But what about all the other things we worry about providing for ourselves?… Do we really we trust God to provide?  Or do we ultimately look to insurance, to money, to ourselves to provide (and if it doesn’t work there, we don’t imagine things can work out)?… It’s a common theme in all hearts with sin.  Whenever we fall into that mindset, God says to us just as surely, “there’s no room for you to fit into this, my plans don’t depend on you to make them happen!”  Yet, when we live as though they do, how much might we actually be getting in the way of what God wants to accomplish for us?

That’s why it’s remarkable for as often as we fail to trust God will bless us – and for as often as we get in the way of God’s plans! – still, God provides.  In fact, God’s blueprint fully takes it into account!  Because he knew we would only mess things up.  I’m not trying to be a downer by saying that, it’s just that we’re ultimately talking about getting to heaven.   You know, the place we want to be perfect in every way: no trouble, no sickness, no sin at all, everything always provided. Can you really achieve something like that through the work of your hands?  I know I can’t!… So God carefully calculated and executed a plan that would work for us.  Way back in eternity before we ever lived or did anything or made any decision, God existed.  And God loved you.  So God chose you and he promised his Son in just the right way: to live the perfect life that we could never live ourselves, and to pay the price for sin on the cross we would never want to pay for sins we have committed.  Not only this, but God then sent his Son into the world at just the right time & place so that this message would perfectly spread before arriving at the doorstep of your heart & mine 20 centuries later… With that, should we ever doubt God or think we can provide better when he gives the most outstanding of blessings in the eternity to come, carefully planned over the course of eternity past?

It goes to show, there’s a better way to live life.  Let’s be clear about a couple things first. Today we are not saying that investment, insurance, healthcare, or good-paying jobs (or anything like that!) are bad.  But there’s a difference between being blessed by these things, and making these things themselves the blueprint for blessings. Along those lines, neither are we today saying that our needs on earth don’t matter.  In our other two readings earlier (John 6:1-15, 1 Kings 17:1-6), we heard that God will provide for our basic needs. After all, Jesus specifically tells us to pray for that in the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which we’ll pray later in the service!…  And yet, with that being said, that’s the only one of seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer asking for material blessing, which kind of leads to the main point today…

Christians, you’re going to want good life, health, auto, or home insurance – that’s just good stewardship in a world like ours! – but realize you don’t have to max out every insurance for everything that could go wrong.  Otherwise, when will it stop?  No, you can trust God to provide!  Additionally, you’re going to want to work hard to provide for your family, earn enough money, save for retirement, and have an emergency fund – that just makes sense given bad things that do happen, plus the money God has given to us! – but you don’t need to have a plan for every last contingency the financial gurus say you need to have figured out.  Again, when will it stop?  You can trust God to provide!  Or how about this one: you’re going to want to raise your kids right, get them baptized, teach them God’s Word as they grow up, and continue to have a good relationship with them – God commands you to do these things! – but in the end you can’t believe for your kids or make every decision for them along the way.  No, you do what you can, and then you trust God to provide! 

If you live your life in this way, not only may it relieve some stress and anxiety, but think of how it will free up some of your time, your talents, or your treasure for other things God also says he wants you to do.  For example, in the Old Testament, God only told his people to give 10% of their wealth to offering, and he doesn’t even command a specific amount today!…  So what if instead of stressing over all the insurance we need, and what we should be investing, and how little money we earn, or how much we should have in our emergency funds – and you’ll still never feel like it’s enough! – what if we just made sure to give a small but generous portion of that back to the Lord, as I way of saying, “I trust you to get me through everything else that could happen… this is me investing in the best insurance policy there is!  Might God bless that? Provide more for us than we could ever provide for ourselves through that money? Help us find a little bit of peace along the way?…  Similarly, what if we gave up some portion of time we could be using to work overtime or on yet another DIY project, and instead used our talents to serve others, be more involved in our families, or get more involved in our church? (You read the same bulletin I do, there are needs that aren’t being met here!) Might God bless us and cause us to be even happier for it?

God. Will. Provide.  Believe it.  Better yet, live it.  Again, GOD HAS A BLUEPRINT TO BLESS US…  It just starts and ends with Christ. Start and end with Christ.  Then you will see that he has already taken care of the biggest and most eternal problems.  He’s going to take care of the little stuff that you and I face this day as well.  That’s the peace we’re missing.  Amen.