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Which part of the Bible's message can be verified by our own behavior every day? The answer is what God has to say about sin. There is no limit to human ingenuity to try to overcome these imperfections. But at every turn we fail. The startling command of Scripture is not to try harder, but to surrender to the God who has provided our salvation all by himself.

Hope in Darkness
But God
June 5-6, 2010
Glenn McDonald

Ephesians 2:1-7

Until her death 15 years ago, Madalyn Murray O’Hair was America’s most outspoken atheist. She once appeared as a guest on David Frost’s TV talk show. During the course of their conversation Frost asked if those in his audience who believed in God would be willing to raise their hands. Almost every hand went up. Frost then asked O’Hair if she considered that response to be evidence that she was seriously out of step with the rest of humanity. O’Hair huffed disrespectfully that the audience was obviously irrational.

Theologian R.C. Sproul later made an interesting point. He suggested that O’Hair could easily have won the day if she had asked the audience this simple follow-up question: “How many of you not only believe that God exists, but that his Son Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross, rose again from the dead, and is the only way to God?” A staggering number of people would have lowered their hands.  

We live in a society in which a great many people believe in God. But a majority of these God-believers are not in fact God-trusters, and are certainly not committed to even the most basic teachings of the Bible. A good many of us, even in this room, would strongly prefer to have a God who is adjusted to the conclusions that we have already drawn about reality.

For eight months we are working our way through the New Testament book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul’s short but compelling presentation of spiritual basics. Why is this book so important? Here’s an example: Christians appropriately get excited about the idea of “being saved.” But Ephesians makes it clear that we can’t be saved on our own terms. We must be saved from a particular condition, by a particular person, and for a particular kind of life. Understanding those details isn’t just a matter of knowing the right answers in case we ever appear on Jeopardy. Knowing the difference between what we do and what God does when it comes to salvation determines whether we will experience abundant spiritual life in this world and enter heaven in the next.

Today we arrive at the doorway of Ephesians chapter two, and come face to face with a trio of the Bible’s most basic teachings. In the words of author and pastor Tim Keller, here they are:

(1)  Everybody is wrong.

(2)  Everybody is loved.

(3)  Everybody is called to receive God’s power to be transformed.

This is Trusting God 101. If we don’t embrace each of these basics, or if we somehow end up putting them in the wrong order, we will quickly find ourselves heading in the wrong direction. It’s possible, for instance, to build a whole church around statement #1: Everybody is wrong. Congregations that overemphasize that sentence but underplay the other two tend to create a culture of obeying the rules and issuing non-stop warnings about the fires of hell. Other churches get stuck on #2: Everybody is loved. In those environments there is little motivation to seek repentance or change. Most Americans, in fact, believe they are already inherently good. Why do we need to worry about developing personal character or confessing our sins?

How about a church that downplays the first two statements and goes right for #3? In such a fellowship there may be myriad “conversions.” But getting people signed up for heaven just by praying a prayer or thinking new thoughts about Jesus is not what the Bible means by entering a new life. Unless we really grasp how broken we are, and take to heart how much God loves us, we won’t be able to experience the radical transformation that Jesus talked about.

Week by week we’ve been challenging each other not just to read or study the book of Ephesians, but to drink in these verses more fully by memorizing them. Today we come to Ephesians 2:1-7, the longest single block of Scripture in our entire series. This is the Mount Everest of memorization. If you find yourself staggered by this task, take heart. Look towards next week. Make it your aim to memorize Ephesians 2:8-10, which are arguably three of the most important verses in all of God’s Word. Take your own Bible and underline or circle those verses, then be sure to bring your Bible here to worship.

The real power of Ephesians 2:8-10, of course, arises from the seven verses that precede them. So let’s get to those. We can begin by speaking them aloud, either by reading from our own Bibles, looking up at the screens, or reciting them from memory. Let’s stand together:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 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. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s opening words, “As for you,” alert us to the fact that we are making a transition. The first chapter of Ephesians was entirely focused on the majesty of God. Now we turn to our own condition. The first thing Paul tells us is that everybody is wrong. Something is wrong at the core of every human life. As Paul puts in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All of us by nature are sinners. We are wrong-headed, wrong-hearted people who consistently make wrong choices with wrong attitudes and motives.

Every human life is a three-dimensional proof text for this teaching. One day last week I lost my cool because of what our pets had been doing to our carpet, and I let it spill over into family conversations. I whined about the weather. Instead of taking the time to listen carefully to someone I love, I skipped right to the part where I said, “Here’s what you ought to do.” I became impatient with another driver because he wasn’t moving fast enough for me. All those things happened, by the way, before I even got to work.

Even though I have personally made a non-negotiable commitment to follow Jesus, and the Holy Spirit lives within me, I am still a sinner. And I sin all the time – evidence that there remains within me a sinful nature that constantly wages war against my best intentions to please God.

What does the Bible mean by sin? Sin is the act of choosing my own way and leaving God out of the picture. Sin means choosing to say, do, or think what I know is wrong – or not choosing to say, do, or think what I know is right. Whenever I push God out of the picture of my life, I am proving again what Paul says in verse one: “You were dead in your transgressions and sins.” Apart from the mercy of God, we are the living dead. Think zombies – dead people walking around looking as if they’re alive.

This inner brokenness is what Christians have come to call original sin. The first line ever printed in North America appeared in the New England Primer. It read, “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.” After the first human couple rebelled against God, every human being – with the single glorious exception of Jesus of Nazareth – has been born with a deeply-planted impulse to leave God out of the picture. In verse three Paul chalks this up to our “sinful nature,” which prompts us to yield to its never-ending cravings, thoughts, and desires. Now all of us have infinite value because we are made in God’s image – that important reality has not been erased by our sin – but the Bible makes it clear that not one of us is capable of utilizing a Personal Performance Plan to get into God’s good graces.

The problem is that we simply don’t believe this is true. Surely we’re not that bad. Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers can say, “I almost threw a perfect game last Wednesday, if only that umpire hadn’t blown that call.” When we get on a roll we might be tempted to think, “I keep coming up just a tad short of moral and spiritual perfection, praise God.” But Paul will have none of that. Our natural condition isn’t to be sick in our transgressions and sins, but to be dead. When we try our very best we don’t miss heaven by an inch. We miss it by a million miles. And what’s at stake isn’t getting our name in some sports record book. Eternal life or death hangs in the balance according to how we will respond to the reality of our sin.

Paul goes on to say that our natural condition is not to follow God, but by default to serve another master. In verse two Paul calls him “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

That’s the devil, or Satan. And at the end of verse three Paul writes, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”

To put it bluntly, God hates sin. And he doesn’t grade on the curve. We’re not just spiritually fractured; we’re dead. This is something contemporary people almost universally fail to take seriously. Theologian Francis Schaeffer used to say that if he had just 60 minutes to explain the gospel to someone and hopefully lead them to faith in Christ, he would invest the first 50 minutes making sure that person understood the eternal seriousness of living a life that falls short of the glory of God.

What can be done about our desperate condition? Here are the solutions that are typically proposed. Everybody is wrong:

• But I resolved to try really, really hard, and apply myself to spiritual matters with all diligence.
• But I gave up feeling sorry for myself and getting so down on my own performance.
• But I decided that Paul must have eaten a bad burrito on the day he wrote Ephesians two.
• But I concluded that at least I’m doing better than most of the people in my small group.
• But I came to the conclusion there’s probably no hope for me, so why even keep trying.

What does the Bible say? What we find on the pages of Scripture is that the answers to life’s most important dilemmas do not begin with the words, “But I…” They begin with the words, “But God…” Those two words, in fact, appear at some of the most important intersections in all of Scripture. Let’s take a quick tour of both Old and New Testaments.

Joseph said to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

Joshua tended to waver before leading God’s people into battle. “But God said to Joshua, ‘Do not be afraid of them…’” (Joshua 11:6)

The psalmist wrote, “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart.” (Psalm 73:26)

Peter boldly declared to the crowds in Jerusalem, “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.” (Acts 3:15)

Paul assured the Romans, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 8:7-8)

He reminded the Corinthians, “We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside. But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.” (2 Cor 7:5-6)

And he added, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will also make the way of escape.” (I Corinthians 10:13)

The reality of sin may lead us to conclude that we will always fail. That we can never change. That we cannot trust other people. That we can never be sure of anything. That we will always be defeated by temptation. That we will grow old and die and that’s the end of everything. But God offers comfort, hope, encouragement, and power that can turn life upside-down and inside-out. That brings us to the second basic teaching that emerges from these seven verses: Everybody is loved. Loved by God, that is. Look at verse four: “But because of his great love for us, God…” Did you see that But God?

There’s a tremendous tension in the Bible. God has absolute ideals. Not one of us measures up. God has made it clear that there are eternally disastrous consequences for not measuring up. How can this problem be solved? By God chucking his ideals? Never. God will never cease to be God in order to adjust to our brokenness. Instead, the God of absolute holiness offers absolute grace. In the words of Bible commentator Klyne Snodgrass: We routinely leave God out of the picture, “but God will not stay out of the picture. 

God knows how bad things are. So he takes action to change things. Notice the four powerful words in this text that describe the essence of his motivation: Love, grace, mercy, and kindness. God acts with these qualities all the time because that is who God is.

Sometimes we assume that Jesus came into the world to make bad people good. It’s far more accurate to say that Jesus came into the world to make dead people live. Verses five and six tell us that God “made us alive with Christ,” and “seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Once again the key to Paul’s thinking is embodied by the words “in Christ,” an expression that he uses 36 times in Ephesians. If we have surrendered our lives to Christ, then all the powerful and transforming things that happened to him – his death, his resurrection, and his ascension into heaven – have, in a sense, happened to us as well.

If you’re a fan of the local NFL franchise, then you have made a decision to live in what some people call Colts Nation. Did you know that the Indianapolis Colts have won more games over the past ten years than any other pro football team? If you are “in Colts Nation,” then on approximately 80% of your Monday mornings you have awakened with the thought, “We won!” That pronoun is significant. We say that we won even though we ourselves couldn’t make it through a single day of Colts training camp without passing out.

But victory for a Colts fan is vicarious – just as losing for us Chicago Cubs fans has now been a vicarious experience for 101 years. In a far grander way, if we are “in Christ” by faith, then we experience a vicarious spiritual victory through Jesus. That means that his victory over death becomes our victory, and his resurrection to a new life guarantees our resurrection. On 100% of our mornings we can awaken with the assurance that all is well, in this world and the next.

Everybody is wrong. That’s the bleak news. But God says that everybody is loved. That’s the wonder of his grace. We need to know the depth of the bad news in order to grasp the goodness of his good news. And that brings us to the third basic biblical teaching from this text: Everybody is called to receive God’s power to be transformed.

Remember what Scripture teaches about salvation? We are saved from a particular condition (sin) by a particular person (Jesus) for a particular kind of life – and next week Scott Shelton is going to begin to describe what that life looks like. But it’s not enough merely to know that we are spiritually shattered beyond self-repair, and that God has taken action to help us. We must respond personally to God himself – to receive his power to be transformed. And how exactly do we do that?

During World War II the British Navy was overwhelmed by the threat of German submarines that were terrorizing the seas. Naval commanders were desperate to find a way to detect their presence. At a brainstorming session one man proposed what he thought was a foolproof idea: “All you need to do is boil the ocean. Once you bring the ocean to a boil, the submarines will be forced to surface. Then you can knock ‘em off, one after the other.”

“But how does one boil the ocean?” shouted an irritated listener. “I don’t know,” said the first man. “I’ve just given you the great idea. It’s up to you to implement it!”

When we come to church we hear this great idea: Spiritually dead people can live with hope and victory. But how do we implement it? We try, and try, and try to live a spiritually abundant life; but we’re more likely to boil the ocean than to provide ourselves with such a gift. We can’t do it. But God can.

How does it happen? I know that what I’m about to say may sound a bit religious and out of touch to you, so bear with me for just a moment. We receive God’s power to be transformed by going to the cross. That’s the place where God’s greatest work was done. That’s the place where God’s greatest work is still being done. The cross isn’t just for people who don’t yet know God. The cross is for Christians, too. It’s where we continue to experience vicarious victory in Christ, as we bring every wrong thought and action to him for repair.

Even if you’ve walked with Christ for years and years, you know this is true. The undertow of our sinful nature continually threatens to drown us. We still battle the temptation to push God out of the picture. Christians need grace just as much today as the day we first trusted the Lord. In fact, all of us need to go to the cross every day to receive what God alone can provide – his own power to be transformed.

How do we do that? Simply present yourself to God, wherever you are. For many people, it helps to picture approaching the cross of Jesus. You don’t need to bring anything. Just bring yourself. The only people who can be blessed by what Jesus accomplished on the cross are spiritual failures. So come exactly as you are. Come with open hands and an open heart.

Confession is an absolute necessity. Confession means we are agreeing with God’s assessment of our reality. It helps place us in the flow of his grace and power. Confess your sins, your shame, and your brokenness. Be direct. Be ruthless. Say, “Lord, here I am. I know I have broken your heart in these specific ways. Here are the addictions that are destroying me. Here are the places where I have compromised my walk with you. Here are the fears and anxieties that have I have embraced instead of your peace. I am powerless to help myself. So I give myself back to you. Once again I come seeking your forgiveness.”

Do this with trust. Trust that he has heard you. Trust that he loves you and through his Son’s sacrificial death you are indeed his forgiven child.

I can say from experience that coming to the cross like this can feel deeply frightening. I don’t want to feel this raw before God. I don’t want to admit that I am a spiritual failure. But I am. I want to hold on to my dignity and believe that I am doing better than this. But I’m not. But I can tell you that every time I have laid down my illusions of somehow being in control of my own life, God has granted freedom and deliverance beyond what I could have ever imagined.

Whenever we leave God out of the picture, we’re not acting like sick people. We’re going back to being dead people. We’re not at St. Vincent Hospital; we’re at Flanner & Buchanan. But God shows his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ came so dead people can live. Let’s come to him with open hearts and open hands.