Poised for More! The church unleashed in Ephesians (Faith)

Misplaced Trust

Many of you remember the tragic story that occurred 13 years ago at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan. The story was told in the movie Zero Dark Thirty. A Jordanian doctor was believed to have valuable information regarding the enemy. He was due for to be interviewed at Camp Chapman and when he stepped out of his car, he detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and seven Americans. During the investigation it was revealed that the doctor who blew himself up had not been patted down or searched because he was a known and trusted source. Americans trusted him enough, that meeting site included a birthday cake for the very doctor who ended their lives. That trusted source, when it was over, was misplaced trust. And it came with a high cost to American lives.

Misplaced trust. We’ve all been there, though our lives have not been on the line. Someone we trusted let us down. Either they did not come through with a promise, or they broke the promise with lies or deceit, or an act of betrayal. Misplaced trust. We’ve also had misplaced trust, not just in people, but in circumstances, or material goods. We look for happiness or contentment in a certain set of circumstances or in some “thing” or “activity” and it never happens or doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Misplaced trust. Entrusting our lives, our desires, our emotions, our dreams to people and things that cannot deliver on their promises or expectations.

What is that has let you down? Where have you misplaced your trust? What is it that you think will make you happy? One of those diagnostic questions that is a fun exercise is “If I could change just one thing in my life, what would it be?” Not only does the answer to that kind of question show us the deepest longings of our heart, it almost always shows us just where we have place our trust.

SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

This idea of where our trust is placed is our subject matter today. And it all has to do with the word “faith”. We read our passage just a few moments ago, and there is a phrase that sticks out:

“you are saved by grace through faith.”

We’ve been talking about Jesus using the church to fill all of society with Jesus. Bringing the rule and reign of Jesus into where we work, we live, play, and learn. We’ve also talked about the gospel filling all areas of our life. The story of Who Jesus Is, and what He has done for us and is doing for us. What we haven’t talked about is how that filling all of life with Jesus functions in real time and space? The answer lies in the phrase we are considering. We are saved by grace through faith. Few phrases in all of scripture are more important. In fact, it was a little over 500 years ago that this phrase threw the world into great upheaval. Martin Luther’s study and preaching of this phrase launched the Reformation.

The great missionary Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus and one of the big questions that this particular church has is: how do we make sense of the fact that Jews and Gentiles are both supposed to be worshiping Jesus in our congregation? We’ve never done this before. Shouldn’t we have two congregations? One for the Jewish believers and one for the Gentile believers? And Paul says no. Both Jew and Gentile are one new man, one body in Jesus. And the question is then: how has Jesus done this? And Paul says you’ve been saved by grace through faith. All of you. Together. Their entire life together as a community flows out of that phrase: saved by grace through faith. Paul believes if they grasp what this means, unity is possible. Filling all of society with Jesus is possible. Love for each other is possible.

So it is necessary for us here at the Table to understand this phrase as they did. All of Jesus’ promises are tied up in this very phrase. This is where we find the meaning of who we are and what we do. This phrase is a running theme throughout the entire Bible and Paul explicitly states it here in his letter. The three main words help us:

All three words in this phrase are interconnected and super-important. The first is

SAVED

We’ve been saved. We have to ask: saved from what? You’ve been rescued, you’ve been delivered, you’ve been saved. Not from self-destruction. Not from having a bad life or a bad day. Paul has already noted what we need saved from.

Saved from What?

The Devil

Death

Sin

God’s wrath at the final judgment

First, the devil and his followers. Second, death, or the fullest effects of death in being separated from God. Third, we’re saved from disobedience or the full bondage that comes from disobedience, and fourth, the wrath of God at the final judgment. That’s what Paul means when he says “you’ve been saved”. All of those things were in our passage just moments ago. Before we were given forgiveness and new life, all of things were a threat to our soul, and now, none of them are. There’s nothing to fear from the devil, there’s nothing to fear from death, there’s nothing to fear from sin, and we need not fear God’s wrath on judgment day. And when I say “fear”, the devil and death and sin can cause us some temporary harm. The danger is real. We talked about it last week. The devil does want us to doubt the Promises of Jesus. But Paul says, we’ve been delivered from ultimate harm from any of these things. We’ve been rescued from the ultimate harm… eternal life without Jesus.

That brings us to the next word:

GRACE

Grace simply means favor that is not merited or deserved or warranted. God giving us what we don’t deserve in spite of us disobeying him. God gives us His favor even though we don’t deserve it; in fact, we’ve done enough to deserve the exact opposite: condemnation. So God’s rescue of us is not something that is deserved. God’s rescue of us is something that we get even thought what we have done deserves the opposite of God’s goodness. Saved from death and sin even though we are sinners deserving of death. That’s grace. This word grace sums up God’s favor and disposition towards us. His love. His steadfast or longsuffering love.

And that leads us to the third word, the main subject of our time this morning:

FAITH

We are saved by grace through faith. And this is where Paul’s audience probably began to murmur a bit. Even in our day, this word faith can mean so many different things that pretty soon, it’s just one of those nice words we use when we are describing something religious feeling or activity, but really, nobody knows exactly what faith is. But that’s right where Paul begins speaking into the lives of his audience and our lives as well.

What Paul doesn’t mean by faith:

Some sort of religious feeling or activity

Some generic word for what we believe to be true about God

Synonym for Hope

Belief in a set of facts

We hear any of these all of the time. People are described as being a man or a woman of faith. Even that phrase begs the question that we will ask shortly: faith in what? What kind of faith? Usually, it just means that they believe God exists and probably belong to some kind of religious organization. You also hear “I have faith” this and such will happen. Faith in what? Again, faith takes on the role of hope, without really being specific about just what the faith is in? And the last one can become contentious, especially when people argue not simply about whether this is legitimate faith, but about what set of facts must be believed. In the end, Paul isn’t talking about any of these.

Faith is a fiduciary trust.

Fiduciary simply means entrust something of value to another. We give money to a bank, and we trust the bank with our money. We entrust the bank not only with our money, but also our lives if the monetary value is great enough. Entrusting oneself to another. It’s not simply believing a set of facts to be true, it is entrusting myself to that set of facts, and in this instance, entrusting myself, my sin, my future to Jesus. Placing my full confidence and my hope in Jesus for salvation from sin, death, the devil, and divine judgment. It’s saying, Jesus you got this.

That’s a big deal. And Paul knows it. Because he clarifies exactly what he means by how this faith works when it comes to salvation by grace:

Ephesians 2:8 “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—”

This salvation, this grace, this faith, it doesn’t come from yourselves. It’s a gift. Salvation is a gift. Grace is a gift. Faith is a gift. It’s all given to you, including the faith. Your trusting of yourself to another for your salvation is a gift.

THE PROBLEM OF WORKS

And if that doesn’t make Paul’s point crystal clear, he adds a death-knell phrase that slams the door on any thought of me having anything to do with my salvation:

Ephesians 2:9 “not from works, so that no one can boast.”

Not. From. Works. End of story. This faith is alone. This faith is by itself. There are no conditions. The moment there are strings or conditions is the moment it is no longer grace and we no longer have salvation. And quite frankly, while this is the pure gospel that Jesus has given us, we aren’t much interested. All self-interest and self-motivation and self-salvation has been blown to bits here. We want a piece of the action. It’s why this was such a big deal in Luther’s day and why it still is a big deal. We want works. We want to save ourselves and we are constantly trying to save ourselves. I have to have my agenda, and that agenda isn’t just between me and you and whoever, it’s between me and God.

I’ve lost count of the number of times in just the past year, I’ve had someone tell me… and I think it’s because I’m a pastor and people will open up to a pastor at times… “I know I’m going to stand before God someday so I have to make sure I’m doing good by people.” Even in the midst of crisis, “I know He’s watching and I have to make sure my actions count for something when I leave this world”.

Back in the day, in another life, I was a radio news reporter. And I remember on one occasion, interviewing a well-known name in the pro-life movement.. a highly respected member of Congress. And I asked him what he wanted his legacy to be. And I’ll never forget his answer: “I wake up every day trying to make sure that the good part of the ledger with My Maker has more on it than the bad part of the ledger.” His work in the pro-life movement was all about making sure that, come judgment day, he had enough good works to outweigh the bad so he would be good with his Maker.

From the very beginning of time, we’ve always wanted skin in the game. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, wanted control of their own destiny on their own terms. We know there’s a ledger. The ledger is real. Someone is taking us to account. And we know there’s plenty of bad on the ledger. There is no getting around the ledger. But we approach it the same as Adam and Eve. We’re going to work our way out of this.

There’s only one place that road leads and it’s not to Jesus. God’s ledger not only says “Guilty”, Paul here is saying that there’s no saving ourselves from the damnation of the ledger through works. Any works. Paul doesn’t even say “not of good works”, he says “not of works”. Making sure we do good by people and making sure our actions and attitudes count for something are good things. But when judgment day comes, all the good we do, all the great things we do for others, won’t be enough. It won’t save us. We can’t be good enough to get a pass on judgment day.

And this thought is true, not just for those who are unbelievers, but for those who are believers. There’s no earning brownie points with God even in the work of the Holy Spirit living within us. One of the remarkable things about the way people think about judgment day, is that alot of what I’ve heard in thoughts about judgment day and all come from believers. Some Christians talk like there’s the good works that we do before we are saved that count for nothing and the good works we do after we are saved that count for something on judgment day. That’s also not true. Again, we’re never good enough. The best we do, any of us, on any given day is filthy rags.

And to be honest, this is me in my worst moments. Any time that my agenda means more than your agenda, I’m back in the driver’s seat, I’m back at the spot where I’m trying to save myself. I’m going to do this myself. I’ve taken control of the ledger. And I get to determine what will be right with the Maker. in fact, I start acting like the Maker.

Faith is trust.

Faith is receiving what Jesus has done for me.

That leads to this. Faith is a gift. Faith is not a work. Faith is believing and receiving what Jesus has done for me. It is accepting the fact that I can do nothing and Jesus must do everything. One other thing faith is not. Faith is not self-actualized. We can’t manufacture our faith. Paul already said it… it’s not from yourselves. It’s a gift. And it comes from outside of ourselves. That faith that brought you here this morning is God’s gift to you. it doesn’t come from within. Paul also says this in another he wrote:

Romans 10:17 “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the Word of Christ.”

Faith is delivered to us through The Word and because they are Word in picture form, the Sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Table. We can’t take credit for the faith we’ve been given. It’s that gracious. It’s that miraculous. Jesus gives us what we need to believe and trust in Him.

And that answers the final question:

FAITH IN WHAT OR WHOM?

The answer should be obvious by now. We entrust ourselves to Jesus and receive from Jesus everything, and I do mean everything that He has done for me. For us. Jesus has us. And it really is both that simple and that hard. Every day we are trying to figure out how we can be better people without the help of Jesus. Without the cross. Without the resurrection. When in fact, we need the cross and we need Jesus more than ever. Jesus died the death we should have died and he gives us life. He gives us salvation. He does all of this in grace.

Faith in Jesus poises us to bring more of Jesus into every area of life. Where we live, where we work, where we learn, and where we play. We live by faith. The very faith that saves us is also the way we live our lives. We do good works, but those works aren’t for God so that we get brownie points. Those good works are for our neighbor. We don’t have to worry about the ledger any more. Jesus takes care of that ledger for us. When we stand before God to give account for our lives, Jesus will be there on our behalf. It’s his works that save, not ours. God looks at Jesus and what Jesus has done for us and he gives us eternal life, both now and in the future. And that’s the Good News we carry to others.

The ledger is a terrible weight on people. People worry that their actions have to count for something when life is over, and quite frankly still too many religious people telling them that’s how this works. But it’s not how it works. We have this Good News. They need to know that the ledger is already taken care of. Jesus took care of the ledger and all they need to do is rest in him. Trust him with the ledger. We have opportunities to give peace to people who still believe this. It’s through this hope that Jesus uses the church to fill all areas of life with himself.

Let’s Pray.

Your first opportunity to place your faith in Jesus in these moments is this right here. Myself included. Every week we come to this table in faith. Faith in Christ’s Promise to give us Himself in His broken body and shed blood at this table. Faith in Christ’s promise to forgive us again at this table. Faith in Christ’s promise to give us life at this table. Faith in Christ’s promise to unify us at this table. This is our faith in action.