"From Death to Life" - reflections to the church congregation on Ephesians 2:1-10

We were never meant to just meander through life. Rather, we were designed to have a keen sense of where we have come from, where we are going, and what our purpose is along the way! The first ten verses of chapter 2 in Ephesians give us much insight into this process. To a greater or lesser extent, Jesus has saved each of us from making a mess of our lives. From the extreme of behaving in self-destructive ways through to the possibility of just wasting our lives altogether, Jesus has put our lives back on track.

We often hear the quote – ‘There’s only two things certain in life … death and taxes’ – with the idea that “death” is one of the two things we cannot escape; but Paul teaches that indeed we have escaped real death i.e. spiritual death, and entered the fullness of eternal life (that cannot be taken away). Physical death is then a mere change of plane – from the earthly to the heavenly. So we are not living awaiting death, but rather living with purpose until such a time where our life changes focus.

We are already card carrying members of that heavenly plane (v.6), carrying full citizenship of the ‘kingdom of heaven’, yet remain on earth as ambassadors for the priorities and values of God’s kingdom. This is like the Australian Government sending an ambassador to another country to protect the interests of Australians living in that country. God calls us here on earth to be ambassadors in looking toward the well-being of all of God’s potential children who live around us. For God desires that none are lost!

We have been designed to be in a worshipful relationship with God, and this will continue into the heavenly plane; however while in the earthly plane, mission will be the central focus of our worship.

Through the insights of the apostle Paul, the congregation of the Ephesian church is led to reflect on the process of their salvation. We might put ourselves in their place and ask a few questions of this text.

How were we dead? Because we did things that hurt others, tended to hurt ourselves, and were generally destructive to the general well-being of the human community. We suffered various lapses and thus exposed some of our shortcomings. Verse 3 says a bit more about the source of our “mis-living”! It would be our selfishness, our self-centredness, our focus of our own needs in isolation from the needs of others, our quest for independence … that gets us off track. We have done things we knew we shouldn’t do, just letting ourselves slip into destructive and disruptive behaviour; ignoring God, abusing the freewill that God entrusted us with, and putting up barriers blocking God’s path to us.

Now it may have been that these things were done just following the normal course in the world (v.2), just doing what everybody else does, not really thinking much about it; but this of course does not make us any less responsible or accountable. It’s so easy just to flow with how the wind blows with behaviour and attitudes, but this really isn’t good enough. We must always look carefully to what God thinks about certain earthly occurrences, and fall in line with this! We must always consider what will uplift life on earth, rather than demean life. And any thoughts of revenge toward even the worst of criminal offenders will always demean life and be anti-God. And maintaining such attitudes in our hearts will surely demean us personally.

I was mortified by the activity of that vicious man in the news this week, with his prolonged abuse and torture of that poor five-year-old boy Cody; and we might all hope that there might be a more just and reasonable term of imprisonment applied; and we could easily agree with the premier in seeking longer prison terms under the crime of “child homicide”; yet, having said that, any negative thoughts about what should happen to him in prison, anything other than our hopes and prayers for his rehabilitation will be anti-God and demeaning to our humanity – for which we will pay the emotional price.

[We can trust that our loving God was with that young boy Cody in his suffering, and that he has been received into the loving arms of Jesus for eternity.]

Its makes an interesting study to look at Luke chapter 4, where Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah 61 and reads, and you observe where Jesus stops before he states that this scripture has been fulfilled in the people’s presence. He stops at the point of forgiveness of debt – “the year of the Lord’s favour”, rather than continuing to include the pre-Christian concept of vengeance that is in Isaiah. This is of course consistent with Jesus’ most radical teaching of all – “love your enemies”, and with Paul’s understanding of the vastness of God’s mercy (v.4).

I mentioned the ease at which we can just flow with the wind of the world’s behaviour, which connects with Paul’s thoughts in verse 2 of: “following the ruler of the power of the air …”. Just as the Holy Spirit is available to lead those who have given their life over to Jesus, there is the opposing spiritual force that will lead those who are intent on destruction, violence and misery.

The challenge for us will always be staying with the One, whilst resisting the other! And we do have the promise recorded in James 4:7: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”. In other words: ‘show repeatedly that you are solidly on God’s side, and your (spiritual) opponent will give up (at least for a time)’! Also, as we are showing ourselves faithful, God will provide a measure of protection for us – we pray in trusting God the words: “…do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).

We might also be caused to be motivated to keep ourselves pure because of how God feels about sin – the destructiveness and separation it causes. God hates it! Sin can have such an impact that someone could be described as a ‘child of wrath’ (v.3)! Yet we have the example in books like Hosea, that no matter how bad a community gets, and how much they separate themselves from God through their actions, God remains a God of grace and mercy, for God can do no other. The mass corruption of verse 3 might shock us, but this just highlights all the more … the raw materials that God wished to transform into a display of his creative glory!

So, how did we become alive again? Not by our own efforts; not by anything we have done or could have done; but, purely by the grace of God. Meaning – that God’s heart of mercy reached down to us in the form of God’s Son Jesus; his death on the cross bringing us the path to the forgiveness of our “trespasses and sins”. God intervened in the desperate situation we found ourselves in and rescued us.

We only have to seek and gain that forgiveness through ‘repenting’ i.e. committing ourselves to turn in a new direction – the direction of the Spirit of God (rather than the ‘spirit of the air’). We then share in the resurrection of Christ into a new heavenly based experience of life. We are then said to be living “in Christ” – “In Christ … the solid rock, I stand”!

Even when we falter or when tough times come, we have a lot to fall back on when we have experienced the grace of God in our lives. For God’s mercy is not like just a little bit of compassion that we might muster under the right circumstances; God is “rich in mercy” – it is abounding, it is vast, it is who God is > God is mercy as God is love; and therefore it is fully sufficient to meet our need of: forgiveness from sin, removal of guilt, and deliverance from shame. Indeed God’s mercy exceeds all of our need; there is a whole ‘ocean’ of it – that can fill all our emptiness, without losing its abundance!

What is our purpose? Whereas good works do not in themselves ‘save’ us, this is what we are called towards. Such good works are part of the life that has been called out of death. As we have experienced God’s grace in a transformative way, we will inevitably come to know our calling towards doing the work of God (“good works”) on earth! That which we were initially created to perform, now that we have experienced God’s grace personally, we will be actually equipped to do – expressed by Paul thus: "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (v.10).

So “our way of life” is to participate in the “good works” that God has already prepared for us to do! God has known who our neighbours and community members will be, and given us everything necessary to help them. God has known who our work colleagues will be, and prepared us in various ways for helping them. God knows who our family members will be, and has given us ways and means of loving them.

This idea of God preparing us for all the opportunities and challenges ahead is most exciting – God is working in me!! We have always had potential, despite any experience we have had of ‘spiritual death’. But now, as we live in Christ, and in the power of the resurrection, we can truly be seen as God’s ‘workmanship’ or God’s ‘work of art’. For we are a painting starting to show promising form, or a sculpture beginning to take an interesting shape – God’s work in progress!

And so everything has turned full circle: from spiritual death to spiritual life, and from selfishness to selflessness; all of this the work of God – our part … acknowledging our poverty, being open to change, and letting Jesus reign! Made alive in Christ, we are different; and we make a difference!!