God’s Handiwork

Numbers 21: 4-9
Ephesians 2: 1-10

The passage in Ephesians speaks directly to our hearts because it is about death and life. Paul tells us we were all at one time dead in our transgressions and sins. The way we lived our lives showed no signs of life. But being Paul, his message is not about death, it is about life. We are given life through the grace of Jesus Christ, through his faith in God.

For some people, it takes a long time to realize they are walking corpses, animated only through their wants, desires, and needs. They live for what they can obtain, what they desire to receive, and what they need to survive. Life has its passions, but they are passions of the flesh. They are the things that hold us captive instead of making us free as we wish them to.

You have seen people like this, perhaps you were once one of them. They are the ones that would rather take one more drink than put down the bottle and be sober. They are the ones that are addicted to pain pills. They are the ones that live to go to work and burn themselves out on their jobs and responsibilities. They are the ones that eat food nonstop or refuse to eat anything at all. They are the ones that would rather watch television for six hours at night than be social. They are the ones that seek out new sexual partners every weekend. They are the ones that exercise constantly to get a better body, but forget a healthy body is meant to be lived in. They are the ones who fill themselves with duties and jobs and social activities to forget about their misery.

I once read that when a terrible plague came to ancient Athens, people there committed every horrible crime and engaged in every lustful pleasure they could because they believed that life was short, and they would never have to pay any penalty. In one of the world's most famous poems, the Latin poet Catullus wrote, "Let us live and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single halfpenny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep."

This is life lived without hope. The only satisfaction to be gained is through earthly pleasures. There is no hope, there is no life and there is no real happiness. These people’s lives are empty and they use these means: pills, jobs, social activities, food, sex, and alcohol to fill the empty voids in their lives. They are searching for home, a place they can feel completely comfortable and it’s okay to be who they are, whoever that may be.  Paul tells us in this passage that each of us has at one time (or perhaps may still be) lost in the passions of the flesh.

But the story doesn’t end there. There is a place to feel alive and whole. There is a world that accepts the person you are and wants to help you become the person you’ve always wanted to be. The fulfilling of our self starts with accepting Jesus Christ. It begins there, but it doesn’t end with just acceptance of Christ. It also includes the acceptance of whom we were and who we will now become as Children of God.

You see, the radical gospel of grace as it is found throughout Scripture, has always had its critics. An older gentleman once told me that by trusting in God's justifying and preserving grace, I would end up living a life of sin before long - and thus, lose my salvation and be consigned to hell. Paul anticipated that reaction from the religious community of his own day after he said, "Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more".

So he asked the question he expected us to ask: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Should we sin so that we can receive more grace? In other words, "If people believed what you just said in Romans 5, Paul, wouldn't they take advantage of the situation and live like the dickens, knowing they were 'safe and secure from all alarm'?"

That's a fair question. But it reveals a basic misunderstanding of the nature of God's saving grace. Paul's response is unmistakable: "Certainly not? How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?".

Someone confronted Martin Luther, upon the Reformer's rediscovery of the biblical doctrine of justification, with the remark, "If this is true, a person could simply live as he pleased!" "Indeed!" answered Luther. "Now, what pleases you?"

Because we have misunderstood one of the gospel's most basic themes, Martin Luther's statement looks to many like a license to indulge one's sinful nature, but in reality it touches upon the motivation the Christian has for his actions. The person who has been justified by God's grace has a new, higher, and nobler motivation for holiness than the shallow, hypocritical self-righteousness or fear that seems to motivate so many religious people today.

If we want to escape a zombie like existence, faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to live. Faith in Jesus, who trusted God implicitly, creates a life of salvation. It is a life that requires sacrifice, but most Christians have found that the sacrifices are worth it because God blesses our every good deed. Sometimes it is in ways we can quantitatively hold onto, and in other ways we are blessed with a richer spirit, a happier home, and a more peaceful existence.

Peace and happiness have nothing to do with our physical well-being. If it did, those I have previously mentioned would be gloriously happy as they submit their will to all their fleshly pleasures. But they aren’t happy deep down. They are lost and many of them are deeply afraid of life. Christians do not live without problems or illnesses, but the peace we have comes from God. It is a happiness that resides and is directly given by Jesus Christ in what he did for us on that cross.

We are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. That means, no matter what the world throws at us, no matter what pain we experience now, God can and will make it right. Our physical death is merely the end of one chapter to our new life in Christ. What that means for all of us that were once dead, is that the world has no hold on us anymore. Sure, we can experience brief pleasure in that triple chocolate sundae with sprinkles or going out on the town and getting drunk, but these are momentary, fleeting, and empty pleasures.

The true gift, the true pleasure in a Christian’s life is that no matter what today holds, we know our tomorrow rests in God’s hands. We are loved; we are forgiven for our sinful ways; and we are saved. Praise be to God: Father, Son and Spirit!

Amen.