Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10
In today’s sermon, part 3 of our sermon series in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I want to make three points: Number one, the depth of our human problem; number two, the richness of God’s mercy; and number three, the response of God’s children…
Back in the late-’90s—B.C., before children—Lisa and I traveled to Paris and met her sister, Nancy, and Nancy’s husband, Jones. Nancy and Jones had moved to Europe the previous year—to nearby Brussels, Belgium—and have lived there ever since. Anyway, they met us in Paris, and we spent a week there before going on to Brussels. Even back then, Nancy and Jones knew their way around Paris pretty well—including where to stay, where to eat, what to do, how to get around… So they put us up in this small, quaint hotel a little bit off the beaten path from the more touristy places. They couldn’t have been better tour guides or travel agents
On the morning we were checking out of the hotel, I ventured down to the lobby, dreading the prospect of paying my hotel bill—not because we couldn’t afford it, not because it wasn’t totally worth the price; it was. But I was apprehensive because I didn’t know the language—apart from a few phrases I remembered from high school French class, the most important of which is “Je ne pas parles francais”—i.e., I don’t speak French. I felt intimidated trying to speak French—and for the previous week in Paris, I had simply let Nancy and Jones do all the talking.
But here I was now, by myself, having to fend for myself… no crutch to lean on!
So, in my fumbling manner, I tried to explain that I needed to pay my bill, and this blonde woman at the front desk raised her hands, smiled, and said something that sounded like this—I’ll try to get the accent right—“Blah-blah-blah blah-blah. Toot-sweet!” I apologized. I didn’t catch that. Could she repeat it? “Blah-blah-blah blah-blah. Toot-sweet!” I was still lost. So I pulled out my credit card to pay for my room. She gave it back to me. “Blah-blah-blah. Toot-sweet!”
Now I understood: What she was saying was that my brother-in-law had come down to the lobby before me and paid for both his and Nancy’s room and for our room at the same. I didn’t owe anything. No further action was required on my part. Toot-sweet. My debt was paid.
In fact, my brother-in-law Jones always does this sort of thing. Always! I’m sure you know from your own experience the routine of pretending to protest when someone offers to pay the check at a restaurant… You’ve at least got to go through the motions of trying to pay, right? That’s considered polite. That’s good etiquette. Jones, however, doesn’t even let us get to that point. He excuses himself from the table and pays the check, long before it even arrives at the table.
And you know what? I kind of love it! Whenever Nancy and Jones are in the States visiting, I make a point of making a reservation at the most expensive restaurants…
No, but he’s very generous… I guess I only wouldn’t like it if I actually couldn’t afford to pay the bill, in which case I’d feel like a charity case, I’d feel as if I were indebted to Jones, I’d worry that I was imposing on Jones… in which case it would mortally wound my pride!
Well… if we take to heart the message of verses 1 to 3 of today’s scripture, then our pride ought to be mortally wounded… if that were possible.
In today’s scripture, the apostle Paul is talking to a church filled with Gentile Christians—people who lived apart from God’s Law and lived outside the covenant God made with Israel. And in verses 1 to 3 he’s writing to themabout the state of their spiritual health prior to their conversion. Listen to what he says: “Once you were dead because of your disobedience… You used to live in sin… The devil himself was at work within you…” “All of us used to live that way,” Paul writes, “following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger”—or “children of wrath,” as the King James puts it—“just like everyone else.”
Notice Paul isn’t simply picking on heathen Gentiles; he’s including himself, too! All of us used to live that way, he says… including Paul, who, by all outward appearances, seemed like the most respectable, the most godly, the most righteous, the most “law-abiding” Pharisee around. But nope… Paul says… he too, by his very nature, was a “child of wrath”—“just like everyone else.”
And this, my friends, is the human condition, at least apart from God’s grace. We are helpless before God. That’s why Paul emphasizes that we are spiritually dead apart from Christ. Left to our own devices, we are bound for hell. Eternal separation from God is what our sins deserve!
Growing up in youth group back in the ’80s, we would go on youth retreats and youth camps and often hear testimonies of people’s lives B.C., before Christ, and then after they became Christians. Back then, we mostly didn’t care about what they had to say about their lives after Christ. “Yes, yes, we know all that!” We were mostly interested in the “B.C.” part. You know… the gorier the details, the better. One time, for instance, the youth evangelist at youth camp had been a real-life nephew of Elvis Presley… through Elvis’s marriage to Priscilla… and Elvis made this kid an official member of the “Memphis Mafia,” that inner circle of friends and hangers-on who surrounded Elvis for the last 15 years of his life. He had been among the closest associatesof Elvis, and his testimony, to say the least, included the “gory details” of a life devoted to sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
And then, of course, this man described how Jesus the Good Shepherd rescued him from all that. Praise God! Sincerely… Praise God. I’m not making light.
We loved hearing about the “before Christ” part of the testimony, not for the best of reasons, I’m sure… But truth be told, I think some of us were a little jealous of sensational testimonies like this one: because we thought to ourselves, “A person like that… someone so obviously lost before Jesus got hold of him… someone so obviously close to the precipice of destruction and death… someone so obviously in thrall to the devil… someone not only on the “highway to hell,” but someone who had a “Peach Pass” on the windshield; someone who was in the express lane…
But someone like that must have a greater love for Christ, a greater appreciation for what Christ has done to rescue him from sin, death, and the devil… than normal, average, everyday sinners “like the rest of us.” Right?
If you know how much God has forgiven you… If you know how big your debt was before God… If you know how close you came to hell… well… you would surely love Jesus even more!
As Jesus himself says, “He who is forgiven little loves little.” 1
Most of us in the youth group were already Christians… and most of us—not all, of course—but most of us didn’t get into a lot of trouble before we professed the Christian faith. Most of us were “pretty good kids”—churchgoing kids, from good Christian families, who hardly remembered not believing in Jesus.
Our lives were so different from the lives of these people, like Elvis Presley’s nephew, who had dramatic, sensational testimonies of their lives before and after Christ…
But please notice: Paul disagrees! The Bible disagrees! Their lives are not so different from ours. In God’s eyes, after all, there’s no such thing as a “respectable sinner.”
The Bible says that, apart from being born again through faith in Christ, there’s not much difference between us sinners: we’re all spiritually dead; we’re all “following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature”; we’re all facing God’s wrath. And get this: we’re all “obeying the devil”—in fact, the spirit of Satan, Paul says, is “at work in our hearts.”
Uh-oh!
It’s kind of funny because when we think about the devil’s work in the world, we tend to think—at least if we’re of a certain age—of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Something dramatic! Something obvious! If only that were the case! If only the devil’s work could be so easily spotted! Because the devil rarely works in such dramatic ways! No, Paul says the devil is usually far more subtle than that… far more inconspicuous… far more hidden… And… yikes… far more pervasive than we imagine.We will turn our attention to the subject of Satan and spiritual warfare when we get to chapter 6 later in this sermon series, including verses 11 and 12: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
But for now, let’s notice verse 2: Paul says the devil is “the commander of the powers in the unseen world” who’s at work in the hearts of every unbeliever. The more literal English Standard Version calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air”—as if Paul were saying that in our fallen world, Satan is just part of the “air we breathe.” We can’t escape him! While we’re on the lookout for an occasional demon possession, or some other dramatic manifestation of his work in the world—he attacks and does harm in about a thousand-and-one much smaller ways that we never even see coming!
So… as I said earlier, we’re helpless… on our own… apart from God’s grace…
By the way, in our former denomination… It’s O.K. to talk about them now, right? But in our former denomination, preachers would routinely go months… years… without even mentioning the devil… or God’s wrath… or hell. And I’ve heard some of my former colleagues justify their decision, saying that they don’t talk about doctrines like hell because they’d much rather talk about God’s love!
But that’s a false choice! As one pastor put it: If you try to remove the doctrine of hell from Christianity, you’ll never know how much God loves you—you’ll never know the depths to which God would sink in order to save us from our sins: because God, in Christ,loved us so much that he was willing to suffer not only death on the cross—however painful that death was—but when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”… he was experiencing the agony of separation from his Father, which is hell itself.
But God loved us so much that it’s as if he said, “If it takes death on the cross, and hell itself, to save these people that I love, I’ll do it.”
What does Hebrews 12:2 say? “Because of the joy awaiting him, [Christ] endured the cross, disregarding its shame.” Because of the joy… the joy of rescuing sinners like you… and me… the joy of making us a part of his family forever… That’s love!
So… the truth is, without hell, you can’t even know the depths of God love for us!
And that’s Point Number One… the depth of our problem…
Point Number Two: The richness of God’s mercy…
As you know, our church’s vision for this year consists of two glorious words: “But God… [dot, dot, dot].” See the banner hanging in the corner. And here we go with one of the very best “But God” verses of all! After describing the depth of our human problem, our helpless plight to try to save ourselves from sin, death, and the devil, verses 4 and 5 begin with those two glorious words: “But God…”
“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)”
But God… But God, Paul says, is so rich in mercy…
Speaking of mercy…
In my quiet times recently, I’ve been reading 2 Samuel, which mostly describes the decline of King David’s empire. In the wake of his sin against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, things go from bad to worse… including a civil war in his kingdom, instigated by David’s own rebellious son, Absalom, who attempts to take the kingdom away from David by force. And for a while, it looks like Absalom is going to succeed… so many of David’s subjects were turning against him and siding with his son, including one that I want to highlight: Amasa, who had only recently been promoted by David to be the commander of his army. But Amasa “switched sides” and went to command Absalom’s army instead… Amasa became a traitor to David!
And later, after the war is over, after David and his army defeat Absalom and retake the kingdom, David sends word to Amasa: “Since you are my own flesh and blood… may God strike me and even kill me if I do not appoint you as commander of my army…”
Wait… This is just beyond the pale! This same man, Amasa, had just been commanding the army of the enemy, the insurrectionist Absalom, and instead of executing him for treason, David makes him commander of his army again!
No way!
I’m all for mercy and all, but doesn’t that just seem… reckless?
David’s chief of staff, Joab, thinks so. Because without David knowing about it, Joab walks up to Amasa, and says, “How are you, my cousin?” He leans in to kiss him. And while doing so he stabs Amasa in the guts. And this former traitor, whom David forgave and made commander of his army, is dead… just like that. Good riddance, we say!
And as I was re-reading these words last week, I promise that that’s what I thought: good riddance. I thought, “Hear, hear, Joab… That’s more like it. That’s the sensible thing to do… That’s the prudent measure to take… That’s what Amasa deserves: he’s rebelled against the king! He’s led an insurrection against him! He’s committed treason! He deserves capital punishment… not forgiveness… not restoration…not reconciliation…not mercy!”
Who could possibly disagree?
You know who would agree with me about what Joab did to Amasa? The older brother in that famous parable that Jesus told, the Prodigal Son. The older brother is on my side, so I know I’m in good company!
But not so fast… What about me? What about us? Who do we think we are? All of us human beings have done the same thing as Amasa, and worse, against Christ our King… Over and over and over again! We’ve rebelled again and again through our sin. We’ve committed treason against our King Jesus. We’ve fomented insurrection against our King Jesus.
“But God…”
That’s Point Number Two…
Point Number Three: The response of God’s children…
Verses 8 and 9: “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
Grace is the key word here. We’re saved by grace. In other words, it’s all God’s doing, not ours. Our response to grace, according to these two verses, is what?
To believe…
Let me say two things as a good Wesleyan Christian… Yes, we are saved by grace through faith. But as Paul says in Romans 10:9, “because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” But even this believing itself—this faith—is hardly anything to “boast about.”
Let me give you two reasons why we can’t boast. First because we remember verses 1 to 3: We are spiritually dead apart from Christ. Which means none of us is able, by our own strength or power or human wisdom, to make ourselves undead. This is made possible by the work of the Spirit—which is precisely what we Wesleyan Christians mean when we talk about prevenient grace.
The Spirit is the One who makes possible our response of faith. Charles Wesley captures this truth nicely in his amazing hymn, “And Can It Be”:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound by sin and nature’s night.
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray:
I woke—the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
“Thine eye diffused a quickening ray…” That’s 18th-century English, which can be hard to understand: but “thine eye” means Your eye—in other words, God’s eye, not our own eyes. He’s not saying, “I looked, and through my keen sense of super-vision I saw this ray of light.” No, God provided the light. Wesley is crediting God with providing that spark of light that enables us for the first time to see this dungeon of sin, death, and the devil that we’ve been living in, and through faith to break free of it! The emphasis, even in this great Charles Wesley hymn about salvation, is on what God does, not us!
That “quickening ray” of light itself by which we first see is a gift of grace!
Besides… consider this illustration…
Say a man “finds himself in the middle of a vast sea, treading water. 2 There is no land in sight, no boat on the horizon. He is hungry and thirsty and rapidly tiring. He’s headed for death… Then along comes a rescue ship. When the ship gets close, it lets out a raft with three men on board. Rowing over to the desperate man, they stretch their arms out over the edge of the raft and grab him. He grabs their arms as they pull him into the boat. They take him on board the ship, give him medical attention, and get him home. The man is saved.
“When this man later recounts his story to his family, how will he describe it? Will he say, ‘Let me tell you about what I did to save myself. When those rescuers stretched out their arms to save me, I grabbed on and let them pull me up!’” I mean, you should have seen my biceps and my triceps! I was strong to hold on tight to their arms!
Is that the part of the story he’ll emphasize? That he didn’t refuse the hands that reached out to save him from drowning? That he was so strong to hold on to those lifesaving arms?
I hope not! I hope, instead, that he’ll “describe how utterly hopeless his situation was, how grateful he was to see the rescue ship, how wonderful those three men who pulled him aboard were, how excellent the navigator was to find him, and so on.”
Our response of faith is nothing to boast about!
One pastor puts it like this: Suppose you’re about to hurdle over a steep cliff and there’s nothing to slow you down or prevent you from going over the edge to your certain death… Nothing except the branch of a nearby tree. You can just reach out and grab hold of it. So that’s what you do. And praise God! The branch is strong enough to keep you from falling. Did it take faith for you to reach out and grab hold of that branch? Well, sure… You had to believe that there was at least a chance that the branch was strong enough to stop your fall and support your weight. Of course, what did you have to lose at that point? It doesn’t take much faith to reach out and grab hold. So when that branch saves you from falling to your death, you’re not crediting your faith in that branch, you’re just thankful that the branch was there!
My point: “It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.” 3
Finally, verse 10: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
Why has God done all of these good things to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil, to give us eternal life, to adopt us into his family, to give us future resurrection: so that, first, we can glorify God—that’s what Paul means when he describes us as God’s “masterpiece.” And so that “we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
My favorite part of verse 10 is this reassurance: in spite of the messy life I have lived and often still live—in spite of my sins, my failures, my mistakes, in spite of my many obvious flaws, in spite of the ways that I sometimes hurt others and hurt myself through sin—God has a plan for me, even me. He’s appointed me for a purpose… Gosh, just like King David appointed that former rebel Amasa, except unlike Amasa I’ll never face destruction!And God is working that plan through me.
Which surely means this… He must really love me.
And guess what? The same is true for you… if you also believe in God’s Son Jesus. Amen.