Ephesians 2:4, 5, 8-10 *
March 22, 2009 * Lent 4
* Pastor Leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ,
The Greek philosopher Socrates is credited with a statement routinely used as a guiding principle not only for deep thinkers but for detectives and lawyers as well: “Follow the evidence wherever it may lead.” Let’s apply that principle to God.
Consider the universe. Psalm 19 tells us “the heavens declare the glory of God, the stars proclaim the work of His hands.” The Psalmist, King David, matter-of-factly assumes the solar system and the vast array of constellations is evidence that leads us to the majesty, power and glory of God. The unspoken question is: how else could they have gotten there?
Or how the human body? In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick “discovered” DNA. One scientist, formerly an atheist but now a Christian, followed the evidence and came to the conclusion that something as complex and as engineered as the human body could simply not be the product of random chance. A few years ago he wrote a book about his scientific and spiritual journey in which he called DNA “The language of God.”
We are in the season of Lent. The focal point of Lent is the cross of Jesus
Christ, and the focal point of the cross is the forgiveness of sins and the
restoration to a right relationship with God it provides. As Christians we understand the cross to mean
many things; but at its base it is the ultimate evidence of God’s love for
us. So the Apostle John writes in his
first letter: “This is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and gave His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
In our text for today the Apostle Paul talks about a subject which really kind of compresses everything we know about God from both our own observation and God’s divine revelation to us in the Bible and puts in all into a single package. We call that package “grace.” Today we’d like to talk about this marvelous topic and what we will happily and gratefully discover – or rediscover – is that we are
THE EVIDENCE OF GOD’S GRACE
Let’s turn to the Word we have before us and consider
1. The teaching of Grace for our lives
2. The implications of Grace in our lives
“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” In the previous verses Paul outlined the natural condition of man, a point that he reaffirms here when he says “we were dead in transgressions.” What he’s telling us is that from a spiritual standpoint we are not born spiritually neutral or with a spiritual spark within us that we can eventually fan to life by our own hard work and effort...
No. We are born spiritually dead. By nature and on our own we have no more power to obtain spiritual life than a corpse does to gain physical life. It can’t be done. And we’ll note that Paul is not just talking about a particularly vile or distasteful portion of mankind. He’s talking about all of it. He’s talking about us.
But here’s the good news: What we couldn’t do, God did for us. God “made us alive with Christ.” Three weeks from now we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What Paul is saying here is that the same power God used in raising Jesus from the dead has been used on us to make us spiritually “alive.” In other words, God is still in the resurrection business, and we are the evidence of His transforming power.
Why did He do all this? Paul gives us two reasons: First, because of “His great love for us.” The Greek word translated “love” is agape. There are a number of words for love in the Bible, but this word indicates the highest and purest form of love; a love that generates from the heart and nature of the lover and looks for nothing in return.
The second reason: God is “rich in mercy.” Behind the word “mercy” is the idea of deep care and compassion and even “pity” in the best sense of the word – that which looks upon another’s unfortunate situation and moves one to do something about it.
Put these two ideas of agape
love and compassionate mercy together and we come up with the concept of grace.
So Paul concludes these opening verses by saying, “it is by grace you have been
saved.”
Love, mercy and grace. It is so important and so comforting to know that these characteristics are not incidentals when it comes to our God. They are essentials. They don’t only define for us what God is like, they tell us what God is. God is love. God is mercy. God is grace. And He extends all of it to us, all the time.
Even when we may not think so. When things aren’t going very well there is always the temptation to think that maybe God isn’t paying enough attention to our prayers or that maybe He is somehow upset with us or either incapable or unwilling to make the difference we want Him to make in our lives at a particular time. There is a temptation to think that maybe God isn’t always as rich in mercy as He is advertised to be, because if He was, He might take a more active role in my life and be a bit more compassionate.
When we experience those kinds of emotions and feelings here is what we need to remember: when it comes to His world and especially His children, God will never be untrue to His nature. And His nature is love. His nature is mercy. His nature is grace.
How do we know?
Follow the evidence wherever it may lead. And it leads to
When we look at things from the perspective of the cross we know that whatever God allows to come into our lives may be for reasons we may never fully know on this side of heaven; but this much we do understand: God will never act toward us in a way that is inconsistent with His nature. And His nature is love, mercy and grace.
Paul continues to instruct us on the depth of God’s character and grace as it pertains to that which matters far more than any earthly externals: our eternal salvation. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” This is one of the all-time beautiful, clear and instructive passages of Scripture. Let’s break it down and look at it.
“For it is by grace” – the cause of what will follow is God’s love and mercy… “you have been saved” – eternal salvation is ours as opposed to eternal condemnation… “through faith” – faith is trusting and believing what God has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ… “and this not from yourselves” – this whole process of God’s grace and even our own faith in Christ as Savior is not our doing, but all God’s… “it is the gift of God” – again, everything pertaining to our salvation (including our faith) is an act of grace… “not by works” – we did nothing to either earn our salvation or cause our faith… “so that no one can boast” – no one can take credit for their salvation but must lay all credit at the feet of an amazingly Gracious God.
What we are clearly told here is this: Our salvation is entirely, totally and exclusively due to the amazing grace of God. The fact that every believer can echo the words Martin Luther wrote in the catechism (in his explanation of the Second Article) and say with conviction: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death…” is evidence of God’s grace.
Or to put it personally: we are the evidence of God’s grace.
Paul concludes by telling us that God has bestowed His grace
upon us for a reason. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to
do.”
Note how we are described: “God’s workmanship.” The Greek word Paul uses in the original here has behind it the idea of a creation or work of art. Actually, it’s rather uplifting to think of ourselves in that way, isn’t it? We are all beautiful, original creations fashioned by the hand of God.
And just as a beautiful and original work of art calls forth praise for its creator, so our lives are to call forth praise to God. We have been “created in Christ Jesus” through faith. And the purpose for our being created is “to do good works” – meaning, produce fruits of faith which bring glory to God before a watching world.
Furthermore, the good works we are to do “God has prepared in advance for us to do.” This suggests that God in His providence has planned and provided opportunities for believers to do good works.
But what is a good work? It’s not necessarily something spectacular or even particularly public. It doesn’t have to be connected to finding a cure for cancer of providing a solution for world hunger. In its simplest definition a good work is anything – even the smallest things – we as grateful, Gospel-understanding Christians do to the glory of God.
There is an immensely practical side of this. Perhaps we can all find a little more joy in our lives if we redefine many of our simple, daily tasks as good works and opportunities that come from the hand of God rather than drudgery or tedious acts of repetition which get played over and over again
For example, driving the kids to school… being kind to our spouse… helping a child with his or her homework… making ourselves available to someone who needs a friend… faithfully doing our job day in and day out… all are important. Because they are the good works God has prepared for us to do.
When we think along those lines, we can daily give glory to God and see our tasks no matter how big or how small as daily offerings we gratefully present to our gracious God.
The words we have considered today are all about grace. In His grace God sent Jesus to save us. In His grace, God brought us to faith. In His grace God continues to preserve us and give us a purpose in life.
From start to finish, from what we are to what we do, we are the evidence of God’s grace. What blessed people we are! Amen.