Ephesians 2:1-10
“Saving Us Is All God’s Idea”
In trying to follow directions to get to a certain place, have you ever turned down the wrong road and kept going happily for a long time…
…believing that you were going in the right direction?
Perhaps it was dark and raining and you managed to get on the wrong road.
Or maybe it was a sunny day, and you were sure you were on the correct road…
…cheerfully confident, in fact!
It is, after all, a well travelled road.
So maybe you are doing 80 when the speed limit says 65, but so is everyone else.
And the radio is blasting and perhaps Sammy Hagar is singing his song: “I can’t drive 55,” and you are humming along with him.
And since the person who gave you directions to the place you were trying to go told you not to worry about looking for the “turn-off” signs for 10 miles, you didn’t start to worry until you’d gone at least 12 or 15 miles and none of the signs were making any sense.
Perhaps you eventually turned off to the side of the road, and stopped at a gas station only to find out that you were totally in the wrong part of the county.
So you bought a map…
…this was before GPS systems…
…studied the map, and then gradually started to realize your mistake.
You had been driving confidently, believing you were doing the right thing, but with every minute you had been going further and further away from where you wanted or needed to be.
I’m saying this to illustrate a major point Paul is making in the first three verses of our Scripture Lesson.
We live in a world where human beings, left to ourselves, not only choose the wrong direction, but stay cheerfully confident that it is, in fact, the right one.
And, as I said, why wouldn’t it be the right one?
It’s the same road just about everyone else is traveling.
There are only a few cars going in the opposite direction!!!
Did not Jesus say, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”?
Clearly, just blindly going our own way leads us to ruin and destruction.
But the problem is, even if we realize this, what can we do about it?
If we are already “like a dead person,”…
…if we are already heading the wrong way down the road, with no hope of turning off…
…with no hope of avoiding the deadly cliff, let alone turning around…
…with no brakes on the car so we can stop—what hope can there be?
Might as well just turn the music up louder and close our eyes!!!
Verse 2 of Ephesians Chapter 2 says, “You used to act like most people in our world do.
You followed the rule of a destructive power.
This is the spirit of disobedience to God’s will that is now at work in persons whose lives are characterized by disobedience.”
In this present age there are forces which pull us, lure us, and compel us to
go in the wrong direction!
We are in a state of sin, we are under the control of Satan, and we are preoccupied by our egos—by self—by me, me, me!!!
And we don’t even know that there is another way.
We are completely blind to that.
Or, of course, we may be aware that others are going another way, but we have no idea how to go about that way ourselves, and we have no desire to go that way anyhow!!!
We are completely “out of control.”
We are going with the flow.
We are riding the wave of the world.
We are “hanging ten” with everyone else.
We’re doing what “seems right” to the world around us, even when it isn’t right!!!
We are so delusional!!!
What’s good is bad and what’s bad is good!
We are following “the rule of” the “destructive spiritual power,” or “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
We are “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.”
Our actions are so crippling that our God-intended humanity is dead!
We are so egotistical and selfish that our spirit is not alive to God nor to love.
Therefore, we misjudge and mistake lust and desire for love.
And we misjudge and mistaken “what we want” for God!!!
And so we are like the blind following the blind—we all end up in the ditch!!!
Think for a moment about the things that control people.
Money.
Careers.
The search for beauty.
Desires of the flesh.
Alcohol.
Drugs.
Other rascally human beings who are bent on doing the same kinds of things!!!
What is controlling you?
Or what is trying to control you?
Is it a lust for power?
Is it a desire for revenge?
Is it a need to be praised, adored, worshipped—like an American Idol?
What is it?
What’s got you by the throat?
What has you in its grasp?
What is it that you can’t shake…
…no matter how hard you might try?
What is ruining your very existence?
What’s keeping you going in the wrong direction?
What is propelling you toward the cliff—toward ultimate destruction?
One scholar has suggested that “biblically speaking, the straight forward issues…” we face as human beings living in this world is “how to live humanly during the Fall.”
What does he mean by that?
He means that human history begins with God’s gift of creation.
But after creation, humanity falls, dying spiritually to sin and trespasses and following “the ruler of the power of the air.”
And thus, with no brakes to stop us, with no way nor compulsion to turn around: we are part of our culture…
…we don’t try and oppose the powerful influences, we ride along with the “conflict, distortion, alienation, disorientation, chaos, decadence,” and living hell of life without God.
Can any of us relate to this?
Does it sound familiar?
Paul tells us that “At one time” we were all like this.
“At one time” we were all in this same predicament.
“At one time…All of you used to do whatever felt good and whatever you thought you wanted so that you were children headed for punishment just like everyone else.”
But verse 4 marks a major transition!!!
It’s where grace breaks in.
Verse 4 is the place where the brakes are fixed on the car, and the tires start screeching!!!
Verse 4 is where we start to do a 180 in the middle of the road to nowhere!!!
We are told, “However, God is rich in mercy.
He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead…
…He did this because of the great love that he has for us.
You are saved by God’s grace!”
So even though we were dead and disobedient, this is not the way we were intended to be!!!
Even though we could not stop ourselves, or didn’t even know it was possible to stop or turn around—God does it for us!!!
Even though we are being manipulated by forces outside ourselves, even when we are dishonoring the gift of creation by our self-absorbed egotism—we were created for much greater things!
And because God loves us, God’s plan is that we will be recreated in order to do these greater things, and to live this greater life—the only thing that actually is life!!!
“God is rich in mercy”; God is not some angry, stingy, mean, inflexible being!!!
God has a “great love” for us.
Not just a “love” but a “great love”!!!
And being “saved” is all God’s idea.
God is the One Who pursues us on our roads to hell.
God is the One Who provides us with the Only means by which we can be turned around!!!
God gets all the credit!
God is the Change Agent.
We didn’t deserve God’s love while we lived life wallowing in our self-preoccupation, being manipulated by forces around us.
We are the recipients of a remarkable gift from God—the gift of absolutely everything!!!
Will we accept the gift or throw it all away?
Will we decide that the habitual behavior of the whole human race which leads us on the fast road towards death—the ultimate destruction of our humanness is where we want to stay…
…or will we play a privileged role in God’s plan?
Will we “die with Christ” and thus be “raised with Christ” into a new sort of life entirely?
Where we are actually “seated…in the heavens with Christ Jesus” not just at some point in the future, but right now as well?
Verses 8-10 inform us, “You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith.
This salvation is God’s gift.
It’s not something you possessed.
It’s not something you did that you can be proud of.
Instead we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things.
God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.”
We all share the common burden of fallen-ness.
And we cannot overcome this on our own. We are too weak.
No amount of frenzied “good works” can save us.
Faith is a gift of God.
The ability to have faith is a gift from God.
Salvation is a gift from God.
We can’t do anything to earn it.
We got nothing to boast about—excepting in the Lord!!!
But before we decide that the Christian life simply means relaxing by the swimming pool, sipping drinks with little umbrellas jutting out of them, Paul reminds us, that we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good things.”
Through God’s amazing grace, not only are we transformed…
…but good works are transformed as well!!!
Instead of good works being a self-focused, self-serving way to try and impress God, they are the blessed opportunity for us to live out the lives we were created to live!!!
Doing good things or good works are the outgrowth of Jesus Christ being alive in us!!!
When we are alive in Christ, there is no other way we can live.
Oh, we can go back to the old wrong way road.
But we will never be happy nor content on it again.
For now, in Christ, we are new creations!!!
We are turned around for good!!!
And this all comes about because of the sheer, magnificent kindness, mercy and love of God!!!
Whenever someone says or implies that this is not true, look at Ephesians Chapter 2!!!
And realize that, of course, lots of people who are heading at a high rate of speed in the wrong direction want to ignore the truth—just like people who are enjoying their drive don’t like it if someone tells them they’re going in the wrong direction, and that they are about to pass the last chance to turn off and head back again!
But the crucial factor, as always, is Jesus.
Take away Jesus’ Resurrection, and for all anybody knows the road to death and hell is the only road there is.
Put it back in the picture, though, and you realize two things.
First, there is another way.
And second, we are all urgently summoned by God to turn around and follow the Other Way!!!
And this urgent summons comes by grace through faith, and this not of ourselves it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
