Introduction
I have
known Jake Suderman since I was young. What I remember most about him is that
he was an administrator at Lion's Manor. That was his vocation. More recently,
I have discovered that he also had several avocations - tennis and wood working.
Perhaps this isn't a good illustration because now that he isn't an
administrator at Lion's Manor any more perhaps his avocation has become his
vocation.
All of us
have a vocation, the thing that is our main job, our main pursuit. We also have
avocations. My vocation is being pastor, but I also enjoy going cross country
skiing as often as I can.
Using this way
of looking at things where would you place your faith in Christ? Is Christianity
your vocation or your avocation? If it is the main thing in your life, where
does the motivation come from? Does it come from duty or passion?
Once or
twice I have met people who were dead, but were brought back to life. Perhaps
they had a heart attack and flat lined, but were brought back or perhaps they
had been in a severe accident and recovered from the accident. Often after an
experience like that people have a new lease on life and it is not surprising
that they make new decisions about what is important and what is not important.
The truth
is that every one of us has experienced death and has been brought back to
life. Has that experience caused us to make following Christ our passionately
held vocation, the main thing in our life, because we love God so much? These
are the questions which we must answer as we read about this renewal after
death that has happened to every person who is a Christian. It is described in Ephesians 2:1-10 .
I. The Living Dead
The online
encyclopedia, Wikipedia, defines "Zombie" as a term used to denote an
animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means, such as witchcraft. The
language comes from Haitian religious practices. In modern times, the term
"zombie" has been applied to an undead race in horror fiction,
largely drawn from George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The
idea of someone who is living dead is a horrible thought and rightly assigned
to horror fiction, but when I read the opening verses of Ephesians 2 , I thought it was an apt
description of what we once were.
A. You Were Dead
In the
first verse of this chapter our beginning position as people is that we were
dead. Wood says, "The most vital part of man’s personality—the spirit—is
dead to the most important factor in life—God." The verb used here
describes not something that we chose or became, but something we were.
The cause
of our being dead was our trespasses and sins. The word trespasses refers to
the fact that we have fallen off the path, we have made a fatal mistake. The
cause of our slip was sin, which at its root is hostility to God.
But what is
really interesting is that although we were dead the text says that we were
still walking about. Notice the interesting juxtaposition of the words
"dead" and "in which you once lived." Because of sin, we
were dead. But at the same time we were walking about, acting out in rebellion
and disobedience. As we read that we realize that "zombie" or
"living dead" are apt descriptions of who we were. Neufeld says,
"Life apart from God is a living death….These dead are highly
animated—they walk, trespass, and disobey."
B. Worldview of the Living Dead
The word "following,"
in verse 2, suggests a worldview, a lifestyle for those who are dead. Three
phrases describe that lifestyle. It is according to the course of this world, according
to the ruler of the power of the air and according to the spirit now at work
among those who are disobedient. These descriptions help us understand how
those who are spiritually dead live, which is how we used to live.
They follow
the course of this world or as Neufeld describes it, “the spirit of the age.” How
would we describe this worldview? One of the primary aspects of it is that it
is a self centered worldview. People live by what is best for them. For
example, everyone wants the benefits which comes to them from the government
but no one wants to pay their taxes. Everyone wants to buy things for the
cheapest price possible, but everyone wants to sell their product at the
highest price possible. So a pop, which probably costs a few pennies to make
sells for fifty cents at Superstore because there is abundance of competition
and sells for $4 at the MTS center because there is a monopoly. You say, well
that is how a market based economy works, but we must realize that the reason
it works is because it seeks to find balance on self centeredness.
There are
many other values of this worldview such as those listed by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:2 , "For people
will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive,
disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable,
slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen
with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…"
Where do
these values of the living dead come from? Paul goes on to say that the living
dead are animated by "the ruler of the power of the air." There is an
evil spirit at work, a power at work among those who are the living dead. I
have often wondered how people can be so wicked. How can you murder your wife
and your daughters as was reported in the court case in Ontario Syria
Yet the
next phrase shows that those who are the living dead are not so only because
they have no choice. There is an evil spirit at work, yet it is at work among
those who choose disobedience.
This is
what it means to be the living dead. This is what all of us were.
C. Don't Count Yourself Out
Several of
you have shared your testimony with us and we are looking forward to hearing
many more. My testimony is very similar to others who grew up in the church.
This is what often we hear, "I don't have a very exciting testimony. I
grew up in a Christian home and when I was a teenager I made a commitment for
Christ and have been living for Him ever since." Sometimes with such a
testimony we may not believe that we ever were the living dead. We don't really
believe that we were under the power of the course of this world.
It is
interesting, if that is our thinking, to realize how Paul structures this
passage. When he begins he says, "you were dead." Who is he talking
about? He may be talking about the Gentiles, who came from a wicked pagan
background. He may also be talking about those who have recently become
believers. It almost sounds like an accusatory "you" in which he
could be saying, "you people who come from a pagan background were dead,
but we Jews did not experience that." But as we read on, we discover in
verse 3 that he is not making such a distinction. Whether he is talking about
Jews or long term Christians, when he says "we," he makes it very
clear that "all of us once lived among them in the passions of our
flesh."
Paul was
able to boast about all the things which made him a righteous person. He was a
Jew with a stellar pedigree, but he still calls himself the worst of sinners in
I Timothy 1:16 . He
understood that in spite of the appearance of righteousness, he also had been
among the living dead.
I think it
is important for all of us to understand that we were among the living dead no
matter what our testimony is. We need to understand that, as Paul says, all of
us were at one time living in the passions of our flesh, which does not only
mean in sexual sin, but also in selfishness and greed and many other things. We
need to understand that all of us followed the desires of the flesh and senses
and that it was, and perhaps still is, natural for us to do exactly as we
please. We need to think about our life and discover what it was that made us dead
because unless we understand that we were dead, we will never fully appreciate
what comes next in this passage.
D. The End of the Living Dead
As the
living dead, we were by nature, children of wrath. Neufeld says, "Wrath must be understood not as a divine
fit of anger, however, but as God’s meticulous attention to and response to
rebellion, oppression, and the defilement of creation." Every person who
has not been made alive is spiritually dead and being dead means being under
the judgment of God. The finger of God which pointed the way out of the garden
of Eden was intended for us as well and we remain under the sentence of that
judgment to this very day. Every person who is among the living dead is under
God's righteous and justified wrath and so is eternally dead.
II. The Living Living
A. But God
If we
should hear, "They were in an accident, but no one was hurt," we
would say, "That is good news!" If we should hear, "The tumor is
malignant, but if we do surgery soon it is easily treatable," we would say
"That is good news!" We like to hear that positive tone after the
word "but." There is no more positive, more significant use of the
word "but" than that in verse 4. "But God" is the best news
we can ever imagine. Neufeld says about these words that they are "…arguably the two
most important words in all of Ephesians. God has acted!
What is
every bit as wonderful is the reason why God has acted. Three reasons are given
in this passage.
God has
acted because He is rich in mercy. Mercy is an emotion. It sees the suffering
of others and wants to act. I have often noticed that when someone gets hurt,
some people are quick to get up and do what they can to help. Others watch and
assess the situation and enter in if they are needed. Those who are quick to
help are people who have mercy. God not only has mercy, but is "rich"
in mercy.
His mercy
comes from an even deeper characteristic and that is "the great love with
which he loved us." The love which God has for us is not an emotion which
is aroused because of something attractive. Don't forget, we were the living
dead. The love of God is the decision arising out of His very character which
chooses to do that which is best for us.
His love
has acted on us because of our great need. NRSV translates this passage,
"…even when we were dead…" This suggests that God's love came to us
even though we did not deserve it, much like Romans 5:8 . I think the Greek, however, gives this a
slightly different perspective. I would translate it "but God; being rich
in mercy on account of the His great love with which he loved us, and we being
dead in our transgressions; made us alive." I believe our being dead is
the reason why God acted in love and mercy. He saw us in desperate straits. We
were dead and his love and compassion sprung into action in order to help us out
of that situation.
B. Made Us Alive
1. Made Alive
What did
God do? He took us when we were dead and He made us alive. A number of years
ago I got involved with the Billy Graham TV Telephone ministry. As a broadcast
was shown on television, we would wait on the phones for calls to come into the
center. The volume of calls increased about the time that the invitation was
made. Many calls were for literature or for prayer, but often we would be
helping a person through to a decision for Christ. When the call was over we
would complete filling out the forms so they could follow up on the person. The
forms were picked up and whenever a person had made a decision for Christ, they
would ring a bell. After our time on the phones was completed, we would gather
for prayer and give thanks for the lives which had been changed. The person in
charge would often use the phrase, "a dead person has come to life tonight"
when talking about those who had made decisions. I like that phrase for it describes
accurately what happened. Whenever a person becomes a Christian a resurrection
happens. A person who was dead is made alive by God. That is what has happened
to everyone of us if we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Marcus Barth writes, "…the
dead have neither right nor hope, and yet God's riches are such that he calls
the dead to life."
2. With/In Christ
One of the
pleasures of time at the beach is making sand castles. I always like to make
them with a moat. Then we fill the moat with water and put a little boat in the
moat. Of course the fun isn't over at that point because the really fun thing
is to make one little break in the moat and watch the water rush out towards
the lake taking the boat, the walls and anything else in its path with it. The
power of the water carries everything in its path with it.
We could
think in a similar way about what God has done. What He has done He has done in
Christ. The phrase "in Christ" which we have noted repeatedly in
chapter one makes its appearance again in verses 5, 6, 7 and 10. As we accept what
God has done in Christ, we are swept along with Christ into a complete victory.
There are
interesting Greek words used to describe how God made us live. He made us alive
with Christ. The word "alive with" is one word. The same word pattern
is used with the word "raised up with" which means that we have been
raised up with Christ and also "seated us with him" which means that
we also are seated with Christ on His heavenly throne. The action of Jesus to
give us life sweeps us along with Him in making us alive, raising us from the
dead and seating us with Him in heaven.
Neufeld
enthuses, "To claim believers have been raised and seated with Christ in
the heavenlies conveys to readers that they are pitted against that realm of
death and its ruler from a position of superiority—in and with Christ, to be
sure."
3. Saved by Grace Through Faith
How are we
swept along with Christ in this great victory over death? Ephesians 2:8-10 are well
known verses among believers reminding us that we are saved by grace. Although
we know from many other verses in Scripture that we need to respond to God's
gift by trusting Him, this may not be one of those verses. Twice in this
passage it says, "by grace you have been saved" and in verse 8 it is
very clear that "it is not your own doing." The emphasis is clearly
on God's work. The phrase "through faith" may not even refer to our
faith, but to Christ's faithfulness. The Greek word translated
"faith" is often translated "faithfulness." Because of the
context I believe that this is a good translation because it reinforces that we
are saved by God's grace because Christ was faithful to Him.
There is a
very good reason why we need to emphasize God's work in making us alive. It
reminds us of the power of the fact that we were dead and that the only way in
which we can escape that is through a God made resurrection. We must be made
alive by God. It was absolutely impossible for us to make ourselves alive.
Since that
is true, we also understand that we have no ground for boasting about anything.
Here is where we who have grown up in the church need to take particular note.
Sometimes we do boast. When we observe the brokenness of an addiction, we
boast, perhaps inwardly and silently, that we have never made that mistake.
When we see the devastation of lives shattered by broken relationships, we
inwardly congratulate ourselves that we have been smarter than that. But can we
really do that? When we understand that we were dead and that we have no hope of
being alive apart from what God has done, then we have no ground to boast like
that. The common thread of every person in this church is that we were dead and
we are alive only and solely by the grace of God. We praise you Jesus!
C. The Consequences of Living
Yet the
power of this grace is not without consequences in us.
1. To Glorify God
Verse 7
tells us that all of this happened "so that," which suggests a
purpose for His work of grace. Different translations put a little different
spin on this verse, but both yield a wonderful result. The differences arise
because of a difference in the meaning of the word "to show" which
can also be translated as "demonstrate."
In TEV we
read, "He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary
greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus." What
this suggests is that because of the amazing wonder of what God has done for us
in Christ, all of future history will be an opportunity to retell the story and
relive and celebrate the "extraordinary greatness" of God's grace.
The Message
translates it differently when we read, "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." The emphasis here is that since God has already saved
us by grace, He will continue to shower grace upon us for the rest of eternity.
I like both
because it tells us that now that we are alive, God will continue to bless us
and we will, for all eternity, have reason to give glory to God.
Since we
have been made alive, these are the consequences and they are wonderful.
2. To Do Good
The other
consequence is that we now live in a new way. God who made us alive, has a plan for our life. God has re-created
us to do good works. Since we are no longer the walking dead, but those who are
living, we live in a new way.
This new
way of life is "to be our way of life." Just as there was a
worldview, a lifestyle attached to being dead, so there is also a lifestyle
attached to being alive. It is quite different and as we continue our study of
Ephesians, we will begin to see some of the ways in which the lifestyle of good
works is to be lived.
Of course
we share in responsibility to choose to walk in that way of life and we will
emphasize that as we continue to look at this book, but the passage before us
is not about our responsibility, it is about what God has done. Even in regards
to the good works which must characterize a person changed by Jesus, God has
prepared these good works for us to do.
Conclusion
This
passage is about what God has done. Through the obedience of Jesus, God has
taken a corpse and given it life. We are that corpse and God has raised us to
do good works. How do we respond to such grace, such kindness? I suggested at
the beginning that Christianity must be our vocation - the reason we live and
the reason behind all we do.
May the
reminder that we were dead and are now alive draw us to a deeper love for God
and inspire us to give our lives to Him completely. May the reminder of the
grace of God cause us to ask how we can respond to God's goodness.
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