Session 23 · Ephesians 2:4-7
Buried in His Heart Forevermore
What ordinary lives are for, and how to answer his invitation
Book reading: Chapter 23: Buried in His Heart Forevermore, and the Epilogue (printed p. 215)
You have made it to the end of the book. Chapter 23 asks a big question: what are ordinary lives for? Most of us live without headlines. We work, eat, sleep, and try to love the people near us. Does any of it add up to something?
Ortlund turns to Jonathan Edwards for an answer. Edwards spoke of glorifying God forever, and the chapter picks up his picture of creation as a river held back by a dam. The thought is that the world exists so that Christ's love can flow out. Think of water pressing against a wall, and then the gate opens and it runs freely. On this picture, the point of creation is not that God needed something. His love is overflowing and creation is where it pours out.
Ephesians 2:4-7 lets you see the same shape in Scripture. Verse 4 begins with a turn: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ." Dead people do nothing. The mercy came first, and it came because of his love, not because of our usefulness. Then verse 6 says he "raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Raised, then seated. A seat is a place for someone who belongs.
Now look at verse 7, which the chapter draws on: all this happened "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." That is a purpose clause. You were saved so that he could show kindness toward you, and not for one season. The word is "ages," plural. Forever will not be long enough to run through it. This also changes how an ordinary life looks. If the heart of Christ is the river and your life is one place it flows, then even a very plain life is held inside something large.
The chapter's title gives us a picture to sit with: being buried in his heart. Think of it as the opposite of standing outside a closed door. Ephesians keeps saying we are "in Christ Jesus." Not near him, not on his good side, but in him. His heart is where we end up, and where we already are.
The Epilogue is short on purpose, because the book's answer to "what now?" is simple: go to Jesus and enjoy his love. Matthew 11:28 is the invitation that opened the book, where he calls the weary and burdened to come to him for rest. Reading about his heart is good, but the book ends by pointing past itself to a person. Do not let this become only a good read. Choose one small, repeatable way to go to him, and begin.
Key idea
Ephesians 2:7 says we were saved so that Christ's kindness would be displayed toward us in the coming ages, and the book's closing invitation is simply to go to Jesus and enjoy his love.
Questions to consider
- Ephesians 2:7 gives a reason for our salvation: so that God might show the riches of his grace and kindness toward us. How does that change what you think your ordinary days are for?
- Over the whole book, which picture of Christ's heart has loosened something in you the most? What is one concrete way you could go to him with it this week?
Journal prompt
Describe a typical ordinary day of yours. Where in it could you stop for a moment and go to Jesus, knowing he is gentle and lowly in heart? Write the specific time and place.
Practice
Choose and name one daily habit of going to Jesus: 1) Pick one time and place you already have every day (morning coffee, a commute, bedtime). 2) Write one sentence naming the habit, such as "After breakfast, I will take two minutes to tell Jesus what I'm carrying." 3) Do it for seven days in a row, even if it feels small. 4) At the end of the week, write one line about what you noticed.