Live by Faith

Intro

Welcome bethel, rural church network, page 976.

Is God good?

Talk about how we impune unto God expectations of justice, questioning his judgement, when he has in fact may the way for restored relationship with him by grace through faith.

TRANS: We’re going to look at this question of whether God is good through the categories given in our text today: The realm of death, the realm of life, and our response.

The Realm of Death

Scripture creates umbrella categories under which we make sense of the world. Another term for this concept is a worldview. The umbrellas that we accept help organize and categorize what we experience, believe, and value.

Here in our passage today, we see that all people live under two umbrellas or two realms: death and life. This is a clear either-or. You cannot be half in, and half out, you cannot be in a third unmarked category. There are two options here.

Let’s take a look at what Paul says, starting in Ephesians 2:1

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Notice how Paul opens. “You were dead in the trespasses and sins” and he describes this as a “walk.” Or pattern, or way of life, or beliefs that are lived out. There’s a direction, an orientation, and a destination. Death now leads to more death in the future. And this is not only physical death, but worse: spiritual death.

Paul explains what exists in the realm of spiritual death. There are certain powers and influences at work in this sphere, and it can be broken down into three. This is not original with me, don’t come after the service and say “why did you call it that.” I’m calling it what many others have called it. The list of three influences are nicknamed the “unholy trinity.”

Unholy Trinity

World (v 2)

First. The world.

Here there is a mistake that is commonly made, one that I think is worthy of discussing.

Some well-meaning Christians take this to mean that there cannot be anything good in the literal world. Everything. The whole of culture, history, institutions, hobbies, etc. Now you can begin to see the problem with interpreting “world” in this manner. Where is the line? Bacon burgers are a part of the world. Is that what Paul means? Please say no. I’m not ready to give that up.

An argument can be made, based on this verse, that anything that has origins in the world should be abandoned. You see some Christians, like the Amish I grew up next to in Lancaster, PA, try to completely remove themselves from “the world” in order to pursue their Christian faith? Well, who says 1850s technology is precisely the right amount of technology?

The truth is, this is not what Paul meant. He was clear,

The world a “course” that follows an evil power.

DEFINITION: You could put it like this, the “world” means the parts of culture that are contrary to Christ. Or set you on a path contrary to or in rebellion of Christ.

This path is clearly made by the second influence in the realm of death. The Devil.

Devil (v 2)

Satan, the devil, the great enemy of God, wants people to rebel. He wants people to reject the living God and live as though they are independent of him. This is what one commentator said on what the devil wants for us:

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians A. Our Spiritual Death (vv. 1–3)

Satan’s kingdom encourages us to have ungodly values, attitudes, and actions, much the same way a spirit of enthusiasm at a ball game might encourage us to embrace the attitudes and actions of a sports fan. We cheer, yell, jump up and down, and otherwise act in ways that we would not if we were not under the influence of the spirit of enthusiasm.

In short, the devil wants us to not only engage in, but to CELEBRATE evil. Have you noticed any celebration of evil lately? This comes from the devil.

Now let’s take a moment and recognize something. The church in America goes through trends. Some ideas come to be “in style” and then out of style. One such idea is the overemphasis of hell, satan, demons, etc. Many people now view even *mentioning* these topics as “fire and brimstone” preaching. So these topics are often ignored or downplayed.

Well let me ask a question: What happens when we pick and choose what the Bible teaches?

A lot can be said, but let’s bring it down to this. We deceive entire generations by not teaching the whole council of God’s Word.

This week I did a webinar with the president of a christian homeschool and private school curriculum called Foundation Worldview. We were talking about my book on heaven, and a question came in from a parent who said something like this:

“During our family devotions, we came across a passage in the gospels where Jesus talks about Hell as weeping and gnashing of teeth. Should I talk to my kids about that? I don’t want to scare them.”

Now we don’t want to scare people. But here’s the key distinction: *For it’s own sake.* I believe many well meaning people, by over emphasizing hell, demons, the devil, etc. emotionally manipulate people into making a decision.

But hear me, it is not manipulation to follow where the Bible goes. We’ve walked verse by verse through this letter so far, yes? I haven’t brought ideas into the text (to the best of my abilities) but have let the text speak for itself, yes? So now we are at this point where Paul clearly argues, the man behind the curtain of all evil is the Devil. A literal being, not figurative, who is at work in the world to this day.

- When we see people celebrate what God calls sin, we know who is behind it.

When we see an entire generation reject Jesus in the name of “personal happiness,” we know who is behind it.

Any time we hear of or see someone commit horrible acts of evil, we know the source. And worse, when we notice in ourselves the temptation to or even acting on that which God calls sin: it has one source.

This is why there cannot be utopia on earth, because there is a so called “prince of the power of the air” that longs for people to celebrate evil. And he does this by using another key influence:

Flesh (v 3)

By “flesh,” Paul means our sinful inclination or orientation. The compass of our hearts from birth are directed toward sin.

Let me illustrate.

One of my kid’s favorite movies is The Lion King. Simba is told by his father, Mufasa, not to go where? The shadowy part of the land. No surprise, that’s exactly where he goes?

And it’s not just Lion King, any great story carries the motif of the “forbidden place” or “forbidden pleasure” of some kind. But it is not just that there is something *out there* that is tempting, it is that WE have a longing to do what is wrong. What is sinful. We *want* those things.

Our curiosity, depravity, and sinful orientation finds some level of satisfaction in sin, death, and evil. This sounds so weird to hear from a preacher right? But if we didn’t find *some level of satisfaction,* then why would we do it? Or seek it out?

Very often when we think through sin, we think through the behavior. Our knee-jerk reaction is to say “Why would you do that? that’s bad. Stop it.” Well, sure. We should stop it. But that’s not the right question.

The right question is, “what felt need is being *satisfied* (at least temporarily and certainly improperly)?”

The flesh promises that our needs can be satisfied on our own terms and in our own way. And here’s the key to the flesh: that we can find satisfaction apart from God. Or to put it another way, God’s way of satisfying our needs is *less than* other ways. Something else can satisfying me more than God.

This is the great lie of the flesh. But notice what realm the flesh dwells: the realm of death.

Has any sin truly satisfied you? Or has it destroyed your life? Would you describe being at the bottom of the pit as life?

The lie of the flesh, the devil, and the rebellious ways of the world does not lead to freedom, happiness, and prosperity. They *appear* to on the front end, but actually lead to death. All of us are in this place.

Illustration: Frank Turek asking “if Christianity were true, would you become a christian?

TRANS: This rebellion of humanity, living life on our own terms and rejecting the Creator, puts us as objects of God’s wrath.

We all begin as children of wrath.

Paul says in Ephesians 2:3b

Ephesians 2:3 ESV

3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Paul defines wrath in Romans chapter 1 as “turning them over.” Meaning, allowing humanity to receive the consequences of their rebellion. All of us rightly deserve God’s just punishment.

Notice that Paul says “by nature.” This is not learned behavior. This is not cultural conditioning. This is the state of every human from birth. This is the doctrine of original sin. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.

Dr Snodgrass summarizes the hopeless nature of this passage.

“The picture the text paints is bleak. Because of sins, humans are the living dead. They live in keeping with a world order that ignores God and in keeping with a tyrant who works to cause disobedience. In their enslavement they follow desires and distorted reasonings that leave God out of the picture and, therefore, they are under God’s wrath. But, the main point of Ephesians—and especially of 2:1–10—is that God will not stay out of the picture.”

11 Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 99.

TRANS: “God will not stay out of the picture.” Let’s move to the transition point of this passage, verse 4.

The Realm of Life

“But God...” shows us His goodness.

Ephesians 2:4 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,

Mercy: Not giving us what we deserve.

Ice cream truck illustration

Life comes when we are joined with Christ.

Ephesians 2:5–7 ESV

5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Life comes when we are joined with Christ. And this salvation from the realm of death comes by grace.

Grace: giving us what we don’t deserve.

Ice cream truck illustration again.

Ephesians God’s Merciful Salvation in Christ and Its Purpose (2:4–7)

Grace means the completely undeserved, loving commitment of God to us. For some reason unknown to us, but which is rooted in his nature, God gives himself to us, attaches himself to us, and acts to rescue us. Though wrath should have come, saving grace comes instead.

Spiritual resurrection from the dead comes to those who are joined with Christ.

Notice also how Paul calls back to the end of chapter (1:20) where he says that Jesus is raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the father. Now WE ALSO will be seated with him in the age to come. Grace and kindness have not been fully realized for those who are joined with Christ.

Life is a free gift, and cannot be earned.

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Faith is has some key ingredients. It certainly has an element of belief, because there must be something that the faith is placed *in.* But faith also has the element of trust. Trust has to do with the heart, the whole self. And here it is implied that the object of faith is in Christ Jesus. He saves by grace through faith.

“This” is referring to the salvation, and the delivery mechanism “grace.” Faith is simply our response. And this idea is further developed by Paul saying it is a “gift of God.” Receiving a gift is not an act of works, as Paul goes on to say. It is simply opening our arms to the gift, and receiving it wholly and fully.

It is that simple.

Yet we struggle with the idea of a gift being truly free. This comes from the unholy trinity, the world the flesh and the devil. And here’s the bottom line of the problem: control. We think we need to have some part to play in our salvation, and this ultimately comes from control. Whereas what Paul communicates is there is zero control for us. When we are in control, in our spiritually dead state, we choose sin and rebellion! It is God who brings everything to the table in regard to salvation.

If you survey other religions, this element of control is there.

Illustration of Mormons in my living room:

2 Nephi 25:23: “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

“after all you can do.”

When we try to wrestle control, we CANNOT have assurance of salvation, because we can always do more. We can always be better. We can always try harder. That’s a lot of pressure.

TRANS: So how do we respond? One response is implicit in the text and the next is explicit. Let’s go through these together.

Our Response

Be made alive by placing your faith in Christ.

Recognize you are dead in your sins.

Every person throughout history has tried to make their life work apart from God. And this life always ends in bitter defeat. Not for lack of trying, but because we all start from the place of defeat. We begin as children of wrath. Spiritually dead. Broken. In need. We cannot fix ourselves no matter what we try. The lie of independence may work for a bit, and the world, the devil, and the flesh will ensure that it appears to “work” for a bit. But it never lasts.

TRANS: What you need is to be renewed, to receive living water. You need to:

Receive God’s gift.

Waive the white flag. Release control. Put your faith in Christ. Receive God’s gift of grace. Be taken out of the realm of death and into the realm of life. Though the outward world is waisting away, in Christ your inner world can be renewed day by day.

If you would like to pray with me, talk about it, ask questions, I will be down at the bottom of the stairs after the sermon. Or of course I would love for you to reach out to me and we can talk. Receiving Jesus by faith, receiving forgiveness, eternal life, salvation, is a big step. You are made new. But that comes with a cost. Jesus said to count the cost, to consider. Receiving Jesus appears like death on the front end (because we must die to ourselves and our fleshly desires), but it leads to everlasting life.

TRANS: If this sounds like too tall of an order, consider the alternative. Staying dead in your sins. None of your solutions working. Going on thirsty with no water in sight. Whereas Jesus says come, drink, be filled. Start your new life with me and I will make you into what you are meant to be. This leads to our final point,

Walk according to His purpose and your design.

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

My False Belief: My real self will never be good enough.

We tend to ask ourselves two questions: “Who am I?” and “What am I doing here?” Because it is easier to answer the second question, we tend to start with that in order to answer the first. What this boils down to is this message, “If I can do enough, eventually I will be enough.”

The formula may become either:

Who I AM = What I DO

Or

Who I AM = What I DID

But pain is a teacher. Sometimes the formula becomes:

Who I AM = What was DONE TO ME

Or

Who I AM = What was SAID TO ME

It gets worse. Because one of our core needs is “significance,” our formula may become:

Who I AM = What I DO + the AFFIRMATION OF OTHERS

When we fail to do enough that can eat away at our sense of identity. As a broken person living in a fallen world, you are prone to feel identified by failure. You may catch yourself thinking things like, “When I fail, I am a failure. When I make mistakes, I ama mistake.” Guilt is “I failed,” but we are talking about something far deeper. Taking on an identity of failure, mistake, dirty, worthless, broken, etc. is called shame. It is the most personal and private emotion we experience. Like Adam and Eve, when we experience shame we hide. From a young age, when we notice something wrong inside of us, our instinct is to hide what is wrong, to conceal what is broken, to dress up what we see as ugly.

Illustration of Shame

When I [Pete Kuiper] was a little kid, our family took a trip to a dude ranch in Colorado where we rode horses and did lots of fun activities. On the outskirts of the property of this dude ranch there was an outhouse. In case you couldn’t get back to the lodge in time, you had a place to go. Now, as far as I know, there are a very limited number of reasons why you would move the location of an outhouse. What do you suppose the number one reason would be? It’s full! (Well actually, that would be the number two reason) Indeed, that was the reason they moved the location of this particular outhouse on this particular day. But the ranch hands did not have enough time that day to fill in the old hole.

My two sisters decided to go exploring that night with Sally, a girl who was also staying at the ranch, and they foolishly decided it would be daring to do so without a flashlight. As they were walking, you can say they had a preview of the ranch rapture - three were walking, and only two were left! Their new friend had fallen in. My sisters were able to pull her back out, but did they give her a big hug and comfort her? No, they didn't! Not even a thought of hugging someone that stinky and repulsive.

Sally ran back to the lodge, and as she approached the lodge, she had a sense of the power of Moses – wherever she went, she parted the people! She showered for a long time, repeatedly lathering up, then rinsing off. But even when her parents told her the odor was gone, she could still smell it on herself. She couldn’t get away from the thought of it, the memory of it, the feeling of it. She felt so gross and disgusting! And she was convinced that if anyone came too close, they too would smell her and be repulsed.

Shame tells us, “if anyone gets too close, they will be repulsed by me and abandon me.” So you hide, cover up, and keep your shame a secret. Like an egg that may look white and clean on the outside, it slowly rots as it sits on the countertop for weeks and months. Our shame identity is not the solution.

But this is not what Paul says. Paul says we are his “Masterpiece” or “workmanship.” Literally, the greek is Poema. What does that sound like? Poem. We are God’s great work of art. If God had a mantel above his fireplace, the place of honor where only the finest artwork goes, he would place us there! What he has made is good, though we are marred by sin, through grace we are made new again.

Identity

When we trust in our identity in Christ, we do not live from shame but from freedom.

CLOSER: To return to our original question, is God good? Yes. He does not leave us in our sinful state, but provides the way to everlasting life. Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross so that all who have faith in him will be saved. Our God is a rescuing God. Do you trust him?

Pray