Fourth Sunday in Lent March 22, 2009 The Rev. Charles Henrickson “It’s a Gift!” (Ephesians 2:1-10)
You are a Christian. You are saved. You believe in Christ. In your Christian life, you do good works. You are heading for heaven. Now, the question comes up, how did all this come about? To what extent does all of this, or any of this, depend on you? The salvation, the faith, the good works--which parts are a gift, by grace, God’s doing, and which parts are up to us, our doing, our contribution to the equation? That’s what we’re going to explore this morning. Now these are important questions, and a lot can be hanging on the answers. Let’s say salvation is mostly God’s doing, he does the biggest part and he gets us going, but then it’s up to us to finish the job. Well, in that case, then we better find out what we’ve got to do and try our hardest to do it! Suppose the difference between who gets saved and who doesn’t depends on some difference inside of us--some of us are better prepared to believe and get saved than others. Maybe that’s it. Some people are likelier candidates for salvation. Or let’s say Jesus did it all for us on the cross--that’s God’s part--and now our part is the believing, the coming to faith, making our decision for Jesus. God does his part, we do ours--that sounds like a fair match. And then there’s that matter of our good works. Surely that must be up to us. After all, they are “works.” We’re the ones doing them. Shouldn’t we get the credit? Now all of the things I’ve just said--salvation by works, at least in part; faith as a work we must do in order to be saved; good works as something to take credit for--all of these things you can find in some form or other in churches that dot our landscape and fill our airwaves. Maybe you’ve heard some of these ideas resonating in your own heart at times: “Yeah, that sounds right! That makes sense! It’s up to us! It’s gotta be up to me, to some extent.” Well, let’s see how that lines up with Scripture, in particular, with our Epistle for today, Ephesians 2:1-10, one of the clearest and most theologically packed passages you will ever find on the doctrine of salvation and faith and good works. Now Paul here is writing to the Ephesian Christians, and he’s addressing the very questions we’ve just raised. What lies behind your new life as Christians? What were you before, and what are you now? And how did that come about? Let’s start with the starting point of who these Ephesian Christians were. Paul describes it in the first three verses here. Listen, and as you do, realize that this is the starting point also for each one of us: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” If ever you thought there was something in you that qualified you as a candidate for salvation, that there was some spark of goodness or life in you--maybe it was dormant, dim, really tiny, but it was there--well, this passage flatly rules that out. What was your condition before salvation? In a word, “dead.” You were dead, totally, completely dead toward God in spiritual things. That was your condition, your state, just as it is the state of every person walking around who looks like they’re alive but are really dead. Dead men walking. That’s who we are by nature. Paul really piles up the terms to emphasize us how dead we were. “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. . . .” The trespasses and sins you kept on doing--and which your old Adam still wants to do--show the essential deadness in your soul apart from Christ. Your natural inclination is to do the wrong thing. And in this you were not alone. Paul goes on: “following the course of this world. . . .” The world lives this way, going the wrong way, rebelling against God. And you followed, willingly. The influences of the world around you, the messages the world sends, fed and encouraged you in your wrong behavior and deadness. But wait, that’s not all: “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. . . .” Not only did you follow the world, you also followed the devil. You and I were in the devil’s domain, under his sway, dancing to his tune. But wait, there’s more: “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. . . .” Our own sinful flesh--our inherited sin nature, our innate tendency to go wrong, our selfish inner desires that show themselves in sins of thought, word, and deed--this too is who we were. So here Paul lays out the “unholy trinity” of the world, the devil, and our flesh to emphasize just how dead we were in our natural state. And as a consequence of that, our natural condition was that we were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Children of wrath--God’s wrath, his justifiable anger against creatures who rebel against him--that, my friends, is our natural state, and it is not pretty. You and I were really, really, really dead. People don’t like to hear that. They want to argue against their own deadness. I am reminded of a comedy sketch about a dead parrot. A guy comes into a pet shop carrying a cage with a parrot in it, looking kind of immobile there on the perch. He says he wants to complain about this parrot that he bought. The shopkeeper asks what’s wrong with it. The guy says, “It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!” The shopkeeper comes back, “It’s not dead. It’s resting!” The shopkeeper doesn’t want to admit he sold the guy a dead parrot and just nailed it to the perch. The customer insists it’s a dead parrot. The shopkeeper comes back, “No, no. It’s stunned.” Finally, exasperated, the disgruntled customer really piles up the terms to emphasize the deadness of this parrot: “It’s passed on. This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot!” I think in this story the “dead parrot” is our soul in its natural state. The shopkeeper is our devious old Adam, arguing that our soul is not really dead, just “stunned” or “resting,” and we can wake it up or hope that it recovers. And the insistent customer is St. Paul, piling up the terms, one after another, to emphasize how really, really dead our situation was. So, spiritual death was our starting point. And dead men don’t raise themselves. Not by their works, not by their decision. When Lazarus was in that tomb for four days, he didn’t say, “Oh, I think I’ll revive myself and walk out of this tomb.” No, it took the voice of Jesus to make him alive: “Lazarus, come forth!” That’s how it is in our conversion. You and I didn’t do anything to raise ourselves from spiritual death. Rather, it is as Paul describes it: “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--by grace you have been saved.” “But God.” God did it. Up to this point, Paul has been talking about us, us apart from God: “dead,” “sons of disobedience,” “children of wrath.” But now God comes into the picture. God, who is “rich in mercy.” God, who loves us with “great love.” God, who acts “by grace,” that is, out of his “giving-ness,” apart from any merit or worthiness in us--pure, undeserved favor. This merciful, loving, gracious God “made us alive.” God raises the dead! He raised us up, even when we were dead, completely dead, in our trespasses. It’s all God’s doing, 100%. It’s a gift. God made us alive “together with Christ.” It’s all “with Christ,” “in Christ,” in connection with him. There is no life apart from Christ, only death. And the amazing thing is, it took the death of Christ to undo death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and so something had to be done about those trespasses and sins. And we couldn’t do anything about it--we were dead, remember? And so Christ came, the Lord of life come from heaven--Jesus Christ came into our hall of death and took our trespasses and our sins into his sinless body. The Son of Man was lifted up on the cross, bearing those sins and suffering the death that we children of wrath deserve. That did the job, 100%, nothing more to add. Sin paid for, death conquered. So God raised up this Jesus and seated him at his right hand, and now he lives forevermore. And now God has made us alive with Christ. He raised us up with him in Holy Baptism, when we were joined to Jesus and saved and made new people. This is “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” New birth. New life. New creation. It’s a gift. Salvation in Christ is a gift. “By grace you have been saved.” OK, so Jesus did all that. His cross and his blood purchased my salvation. But what about faith? Isn’t this where I do my part? You know, make my decision for Christ. Isn’t that up to me, by an exercise of my free will? No, you were dead, remember. Dead men don’t make decisions. And your will was willfully willing the wrong things, following the world, following the devil, following the desires of your sinful flesh. Your will, like the rest of you, was dead in spiritual matters. And so faith itself, your coming to faith--that too is a gift. Listen to what St. Paul says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” The whole “by-grace-being-saved-through-faith” thing--that whole thing is, as our text plainly states, “the gift of God.” Salvation is a gift. Faith is a gift. You would not believe in Christ, you would not have received the gift, if God had not first enlivened you, quickened you by the gospel, so that you could receive it. “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel.” Both our salvation in Christ and the receiving of that gift--all of it is God’s doing, not ours. No boasting allowed. No boasting allowed, either, even when it comes to our life of good works. Paul continues: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We Christians are God’s workmanship--not our own workmanship, but his. Our good works are due to his good working. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.” We are his “workmanship,” his handicraft, if you will. The word used here could describe a work of art that a craftsman or an artist makes. Friday evening Sally and Anna and I went to the St. Louis Art Museum to see an exhibit of treasures from China’s Ming Dynasty. And the works of art we saw were truly beautiful and glorious: textiles, carvings, works of silk and gold--noble, excellent things of beauty that showed the skill and design of the artists who created them. Well, take that concept now and apply it to God. He is the great Artist, and we Christians are his handiwork. He has designed us to show forth his glory by our life of good works. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” That is the Christian’s life of good works. That is who God has created you to be: a reflection of his goodness and love and character, in how you love and serve your neighbor. You don’t need your good works for your salvation--no, that is 100% God’s doing--but your neighbor needs those good works. And you were designed to do them. God has mapped out the course beforehand for you to walk in them. There are already some good works planned out for you to do this week, ways and opportunities for you to serve your neighbor in love. Now just walk forward into them, walk with Christ, and you will recognize them and you will do them. So the whole thing, from start to finish, is God’s doing: your salvation in Christ, the faith to believe in Christ, and your life of good works as God’s workmanship. All of it, a gift. No boasting allowed. Now why is this a good thing? Because if it depended on you, in any part or to any degree--if it depended on you, you could never be sure that you had done enough. You would always be wondering. But because it is all a gift, it all depends on God, then you can be sure. You can be sure of your salvation, because Christ finished the job on the cross. You can be sure God will provide you with everything you need to keep you in the faith, because that is simply the gospel, which comes to you here in plenteous supply, in Word and Sacrament. You can be sure that God will help you to live the new life of love, because that is what he has created you to do. And you can be sure of the eternal life that is awaiting you in heaven. For all of it is God’s doing, a gift from the God of all mercy and love and grace. And it’s all together with Christ, in him, your 100% Savior from start to finish. Yes, whether we’re talking about our salvation, our faith, our good works--or our being raised and seated with Christ and being shown the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in the coming ages--in all of this we can joyfully say, “It’s a gift!” Charles Henrickson 4749 Melissa Jo Ln St. Louis, MO 63128 (314) 845-8811 (home) (314) 779-8108 (cell) [email protected] ___________________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_ _attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author, as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Unsubscribe? 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