This morning, I want us to look at avoidable major mistakes. For instance, many spend a great deal of time training for our career but spend almost no time in developing their marriage and family. As a result, they have weak or strained relationships with family members. This mistake is major, but it is also avoidable when sufficient time and resources are given to address the problem.
Another avoidable major mistake many make is working hard to reach goals for possessing a certain car, a certain house or a certain level of financial wealth, without working hard to figure out what life is really about. We get up each morning to go to work, in order to make money enough to buy a house, where we sleep, so that we can get up each morning to go to work, in order to make enough money to buy a house, where we sleep, so that we can get up each morning to go to work.
Fred Smith reminds us that we make blood in order to live; we do not live in order to make blood. One of the biggest blunders human beings make is that we are keeping ourselves alive without knowing why we should.
This morning, we will continue our study of the letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Ephesus. Paul is writing from a prison cell, and if you remember, he was in prison not for a civil or criminal violation. He was arrested for his faith in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:1-10.
Paul in these ten verses retraces the journey of people, including himself, who moved from their avoidable major mistakes in life to God’s best for their lives. Let’s look together at the five steps for moving from our blunders to God’s best.
Step one: We need to admit we have a problem. Verse 1
When Paul speaks of people being dead in our transgressions and sins, He’s not writing to a bunch of biologically dead people. Paul is speaking about spiritual death or life apart from God, and living life apart from God is a big problem. Yet many pretend that there is no problem. They believe that hard work, technology, psychology and education can replace God in our lives.
In Genesis 3, we read that the first man and first woman, Adam and Eve, lived without regard for God’s instruction, and God kicked them out of His presence. God didn’t allow Adam and Eve to just leave His presence without giving them reminders that life apart from God is a big mistake. God made Adam’s work and Eve’s childbearing painful.
The daily stress, frustration and breakdowns at our work are meant to remind us that everything is not okay. The fact that our wives are the only ones in the animal kingdom that requires an epidural is meant to remind us that everything is not okay. Everything is not okay. We are separated from God.
Whether you are a counselor, a friend or a coworker, your effectiveness in helping others requires that they first admit they have a problem. If they deny that they have a problem or want to cover up their problem, they never move toward a solution. People only move toward God’s best for their lives, when they admit that life without God is a problem. God helps those who admit they need help.
Step two: We need to understand the cause of our problem. Verse 2 and 3a
Paul tells us that the causes for separation from God are one, our sinful nature; two, the ways of this world; and three, Satan, the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Let me briefly explain each and how each separates us from God.
First, our "sinful nature" is the tendency in us to distrust God. Throughout the Bible, "faith in God" or trust in God is held up as the highest quality of mankind in God’s eyes. Yet mankind distrusts God, which makes intimacy with God impossible. This lack of trust in God is one of the causes for our separation from God.
Second, the "ways of this world" are the values and the philosophies of the world. The world values what is seen, our appearance and abilities. God values what is unseen, our right motives and good works done in secret. The world’s philosophy says, "Love things and use people." God says, "Love people and use things." Conflicts in values make intimacy impossible. Not agreeing with God’s values is another cause for our separation from God.
Third, Satan is the spirit of deception and destruction. Jesus said John 8:44 that Satan is the originator of lies, and in John 10:10 that Satan’s motive is to kill and destroy. Whenever we live in a spirit of deception and destruction, instead of truth and love, we live separate from God.
Understanding the causes for the problem is important. Unless we understand the causes for the problem, we cannot determine what needs to be done or what help we need to solve the problem.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been feeling a bit depressed. I wasn’t sure why that was happening. I thought maybe I was under a great deal of stress, so I decided to lower my expectations to lower my stress. I also thought maybe I was not exercising, so I began to exercise a bit more.
And then this past Monday, all of a sudden, tear began to well up in my eyes for no reason. I wanted to cry. And then the light went on in my head! I’ve been taking Pseudophed for the last two weeks. This happened to me five years ago. Pseudophed makes me depressed. So I reduced my dosage of Pseudophed by half. And I felt better two days later.
Understanding the causes of our problem helps us to know what to do to solve our problem. We can solve many problems by removing the cause to the problem. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, "If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off.... If your eyes causes you to sin, gouge it out...." But when the cause is unknown or not removable, we need additional steps.
Step three: We need to despise the consequence of our problem. Verse 3b
Paul is reminding us that the problem of life apart from God currently has a terrible eternal consequence. If we don’t acknowledge God now and make peace with God while we are yet alive, we will be eternally objects of God’s wrath and judgment.
In Luke 16:23-28, Jesus described the person who lived and died apart from God. At death, this person experienced eternal torment in a burning fire. And in the book of Revelation, chapter 14, we read about the eternal burning for those who follow the spirit of this world rather than God.
Telling you this makes me as uncomfortable as telling someone he has cancer. I don’t like what Jesus said about the eternal consequence of being separated from God, but if it’s true, and it is, then you need to know. And the fact that you don’t like what Jesus said either, should give you legitimate and powerful motivation to seek appropriate help to avoid the consequence of being separated from God.
I visited with my mentor sometime ago, and he showed me a handgun in a box. My mentor explained to me that this gun was used in a suicide. The husband who killed himself was being found out that he led a double life, housing mistresses on the side. That gun reminds me of the terrible consequence of adultery.
Unless we despise the consequence of our problem, we are unlikely to remove the cause or to seek out help. As long as a person can cope with his debt, he will not seek help for his spending or gambling problem. But when we despise the consequence of our problem, we are ready to receive the help we need and move toward God’s best for us.
Step four: We need to receive God’s help. Verses 4-9
Christianity is not a self-help religion. Christianity is a God-help relationship. Romans 5:8 tells us, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God’s love for us is what motivates God to send Jesus Christ to die on the cross to pay for our sins. And God raised Jesus Christ from the dead to show us He has the power to raise us from the dead to eternal life in Heaven.
Someone once said, "Heaven is a gift. If entrance into Heaven were determined by good works, you would stay out and your dog would go in." God doesn’t need anything from us. He just wants us to trust Him and His solution to restore our relationship through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Some try to earn a relationship with God by their good works and the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Others try to earn a relationship with God by believing six doctrines and performing the five duties of Islam. Still others perform rituals and good works to fulfill Brahma of Hindu.
These people underestimate the power of their sinful nature, the power of the philosophies of the world and the power of Satan to separate us from God. We think that we can use will power, rituals and our good works to make things right with God. Paul reminds us that restoring our relationship with God requires God’s supernatural power, the magnitude of power that was required to raise Jesus Christ from the dead.
Some problems can be solved with medicine, courage, discipline, technology or counseling, but only God can solve the problem of death. The funeral director who signs "eventually yours" is accurate. No one will escape death. But God adds a postscript, "eternally Mine," to those who trust in Jesus Christ.
If we admit our problem, understand the causes and despise the consequence of the problem, but we do not receive the help we need, we are no better for having taken the first three steps. We must receive God’s help through trust in Jesus Christ.
Step five: We need to let God continue His work in and through us. Verse 10
Many people received the needed help to rid their problem, whether alcohol, relational strife, financial debts or certain bad habits. But within a short time, their problem returns to them. This usually happens because they don’t know what life without the problem looks or feels like, and because they don’t realize the causes of their problem are still around.
For a person who has become sober through Alcoholics Anonymous, he is one drink away from being an alcoholic again. The way to keep from being an alcoholic is to so enjoy a life free of alcohol that he never wants to return. Until he gets to that point, he will need to continually work the twelve steps.
In the same way, we need to let God continue to work in us until we so enjoy our new life created in Jesus Christ that we will never want to return to our life apart from God. And when we get to that point, we can truly be useful to God.
Someone tells a story of man who found a goat in his front yard. This man didn’t know what to do, so he put the goat into his truck and drove it around the block to see if he might find the owner. After circling his neighborhood for ten minutes, he came across a policeman. The policeman told him to bring the goat to the zoo.
The next morning, the same policeman saw the same man driving the same goat down the street again. The policeman stopped the man and asked him why he still had the goat. The man replied, "Well, I did what you said, to bring the goat to the zoo. And we had such a good time at the zoo yesterday that I’m bringing the goat to park today."
Most people would look at that goat and say, "My, that must be some special goat. He gets taken to the zoo and to the park."
God wants to do a work in us so that when people look at us, they would say, "My, he must be someone special. He is so loved by God that he has a personal relationship with God." And at that moment, we can be used by God to tell others that our personal relationship with God has nothing to do with us, but it has everything to do with God’s love and grace.
Let me close with one of my daughter’s favorite songs, "The Donut Song":
"Life without Jesus is like a donut, ’cause there’s a hole in the middle of your heart.
It might be okay for a while; then the truth will wipe away your smile.
There is something sad inside me; I cannot control when I think about a donut hole.
But when Jesus fills your heart, He satisfies your soul, like a pastry nugget in a donut hole."
Jesus said in Mark 10:15, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
I imagine this is true because a little child can more easily see the problem of life without God. Adults, on the other hand, have learned to pretend that everything is okay, even when everything is not okay.
