Fourth Sunday in Lent ~ March 22, 2009

SERMON: Dead?

FIRST READING Ephesians 2:1-10
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 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. 3 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. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 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. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

SECOND READING Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say this--
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
3 those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.

17 Some became fools through their rebellious ways
and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.
18 They loathed all food
and drew near the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.
20 He sent forth his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave.
21 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men.
22 Let them sacrifice thank offerings
and tell of his works with songs of joy.


INTRODUCTION DEAD?
When I read the scriptures to begin preparing for the next sermon I usually start out with the NRSV or the NIV. Then after I have studied one of these translations for a while I will read it in The Message to see if that gives me any additional insight into the passage. Today’s sermon focus will be on the New Testament passages, especially the passage in Ephesians.

Reading from The Message: It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world which doesn’t know the first thing about living tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ.

Dead! Did you say DEAD?

Yes, [God] took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ! He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Wow! That’s us now!
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and the saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

HEART
When we read this passage from the KJV or from the NIV we recognize that Paul is writing to a culture that holds a worldview that is different from our understanding of the world in the 21st century—a worldview that is difficult for some of us in this modern age to even think about. Paul’s readers in the first century believed that there were spiritual forces at work in the world. (I will add a parenthesis here: Many cultures around the globe still hold the view that there are spirits at work in the world—that there is a spiritual realm just as there is a material realm—and one can influence the other. It just so happens that most of us were born into a culture that was influenced by the Renaissance which gave birth to the modern era when a scientific world view began to develop with an emphasis on logic and proof. In this new world view the material realm took priority and the spiritual realm was ignored or denied and in many circles completely forgotten because it could not be proved by the scientific method. With this new cultural development in thinking, faith began to be expressed in less spiritual terms. In saying that I am not denying the value of the scientific world view, but I do insist that as Christians we have to reconcile the two. How do we develop and nurture faith, a spiritual exercise, while living in the scientific age that more or less denies the spiritual because it cannot be proved? The two can be reconciled because there are leading scientists who are Christians but that has been the ongoing challenge of our modern age.)

The tradition of Christian faith that my mother and grandmother embraced valued logic and debate and denied or ignored the spiritual aspects of life, contrary to the prevailing worldview in the scriptures which accepted that spiritual forces were at work, influencing lives. We expected to live the Christian life in our own strength. Sometimes as a child I wondered how all of that ‘spirit stuff’ fit into today’s thinking, but most of the time I just ignored it, saying, that was then—this is now.

I had been a Christian about 10 years when I began to question whether we could cope with life in this world in our own strength alone. That was the year I discovered the Holy Spirit! Up to that point I had been taught that the Holy Spirit worked in the first century and inspired the scriptures, but when the Bible was written the work of the Holy Spirit ceased. That was what I accepted and believed until I was a young mother—then I came into a distressing situation—a situation that Thomas and I could not handle in our own strength—so we cried out to the Lord. And we did what we had been taught to do—we began to search the Scriptures! And in that study we discovered that the Holy Spirit was still at work in the world today! Contrary to all that we had been taught in our formative years, spiritual help was promised and available to us! We did not have to function in our own strength! That which was poured out on the disciples at Pentecost was a gift promised to all who accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior! That which empowered Jesus for ministry, coming at his baptism, also empowered the early church—and that which empowered the early church would empower the church of all ages! That which broke down barriers of social status, race and culture in the first century would be doing the same thing today! Jews and Gentiles—slave and free—male and female —all stood together in Christ empowered and gifted by the Holy Spirit! Thomas and I began to see the world in a new light.

Acknowledging the work of the Holy Spirit had far reaching implications for me, personally. Up to that point I thought I had to earn God’s approval by my obedience and in my own strength. I had to earn God’s approval by doing everything right—by understanding exactly what God wanted and doing it exactly the way God wanted me to do it. Then God was obliged to accept me. And up to that point I sincerely believed that I had done that. I had earned God’s favor—and now God was obligated to respond by saving me. And I will admit that looking at salvation in that light puts a lot of stress on a person. You always wonder if you’ve overlooked something—if maybe you’ve misunderstood one of the scriptures—and that innocent oversight will send you directly to hell. So coming to the realization that God does it all and that I receive it as a gift was really good news! God is still at work in the world! The words of Paul took on a very personal meaning for me. EPH8 … by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

[In The Message] Saving is all God’s idea and all God’s work.
We can not be good enough—give enough—have enough knowledge about God or do enough good works to restor our relationship with God.
All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. Its’ God’s gift from start to finish!

Can you imagine what good news that was to my obedient but guilt-ridden mind? See, when you are trying to earn your salvation you always wonder if you are good enough. You always wonder if you’ve done everything that needs to be done to earn God’s favor. You always wonder if God really approves of you. But when you realize that forgiveness is God’s gift it takes a load off your mind—it takes a weight off your heart—and it releases you to be the person God created you to be! And that is good news.

CONCLUSION
Then the light comes on and we better understand our relationship to our Creator: Eph 2:10 10 For we are God's workmanship… God has given us new life in Christ Jesus—we’ve been born from above for a purpose—created in Christ Jesus to do good works… I can almost insert an exclamation point there! I’m still doing good works—but those good works are not to earn God’s approval—I already have that in Christ. These good works are out of gratitude to God for all God has done and continues to do!

Then I read to the end of that sentence and am filled with awe! These good works have been prepared by God in advance for us to do. In other words, we move back into the Garden of Eden relationship with our Creator and pick up the work he had for us from the beginning—to walk with our Creator in the garden in the cool of the evening—to converse with God—to tend the earth—to be in holy relationship with a suitable companion—to display with our lives God’s kindness and grace.

But in order to do that we must realize that we were dead in our sins…Dead? Yes, 2:4b-5a but God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our sins.

Receive the good news and let it change your life.