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Our Only Hope

Rev. Doug Pratt — June 27, 2010
 

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Introduction and Scripture

As an introduction to our scripture text for today, from Ephesians 2, let me share with you a bit of my own personal history. Following some major personal disruptions in my life in my early teens, including the divorce of my parents, I found myself included in the activities of a youth ministry in a Presbyterian church in my hometown. And, most unexpectedly, I was confronted with the twin realities that I really needed God in my life, and that Jesus Christ—God Himself who took human form—actually loved me and wanted to be with me. And so I placed my faith in Him, asking Him to forgive me for all the wrongs I’d done and to enter into my heart. Then I began to read this book, the Bible, to figure out Who He was and what I had done.

When I got to college (a secular liberal arts school), I was still a new Christian and not very firmly anchored in my understanding of my faith. I decided to take a Religion course my first semester, hoping to find there a safe haven to continue nurturing my beliefs. What a surprise it was to learn in the first class that the professor was an avowed skeptic whose intention was to tear apart any confidence we had in the reliability of the Bible. He informed us that he had written his doctoral dissertation on why he believed Paul did not write the Letter to the Ephesians—or many of the other letters attributed to him. He explained that his research had concluded these books were probably written by committee, or by anonymous secretaries and scribes. His primary “evidence” was the fact that some of the words and concepts used by Paul in Ephesians are not found in any of his other alleged letters.

It was a rough going that first semester, as we were required to read only books that shared our professor’s caustic and belittling view of the Bible, and were told that all “reputable scholars” shared the same philosophy. It was almost a year later before I began to discover the abundance of intellectual and reliable scholarship that upholds the Bible’s accuracy and truth—and thus began my own mental journey back to a solid faith.

I realize now, years after my college days, how shallow and absurd were the arguments proposed by my professor and others against the New Testament and its dependability. I have sat in hundreds of committee meetings and have seen what something written by a committee looks like. It’s an exhaustive and painful process for a committee to write a single sentence. And I’ve read enough literature produced by the work of human genius to be able to sense the presence of a brilliant mind at work, as we have in Ephesians and the other letters of Paul. And I’ve seen, in the limited writing I have done, that an author or pastor needs to be constantly developing new ideas, employing new words, and explaining things in fresh ways. That’s the essence of the creative process. For so many reasons, I am confident that the book we are studying is a product of the brilliant mind of a man named Paul, one of the true world-class geniuses of human history. And, more importantly, I am also convinced that these are not just Paul’s words, but reflect the mind of God.

As we studied a portion of Ephesians chapter 1 last week, we will move on to a sampling of part of chapter 2 today.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Lost …

Consider these highly improbable scenarios:

He was a top aide to one of the most powerful Mexican drug lords, operating in the wild and wooly border city of Tijuana, where killings and drug smugglings, kidnappings and intimidation are a part of daily life. He himself carried an automatic pistol on his waist, and had emptied it towards his enemies more times than he could remember. And one night he couldn’t sleep as his conscience tormented him with the guilt of the lives he had taken or seen ruined. He called out to the God whom he had heard about as a child, pleading for mercy and promising to escape from his gang the first opportunity he had.

He was a producer of pornographic films, operating out of a dingy warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. His films were the lowest form of degradation, for young women and men alike—most of them starry-eyed and naïve, who had come to Hollywood seeking fame and ended up in shame. For the producer the low-budget films were very profitable—allowing him to maintain his fast-paced lifestyle of Malibu beach house and cocaine and parties and multiple partners. And one morning, coming off an especially raucous night-before, he walked out into the waves and decided that his life was empty. “God, I need help. I need a new start.”

He was the capo of one of the New York area syndicate families. His climb to power in the mob stained him with the numbers game, with bribery of public officials and union heads, with the protection rackets, with contract killings and kneecappings of rivals, with prostitution, and with smuggling. He had carried them out ruthlessly, and his name struck fear in the hearts of all who knew him. But the burden of his conscience pressed on him in his sleepless nights. He remembered hearing his mother’s prayers for him when he was a boy. He remembered once wanting to make her proud of him. “Is there any way out of this cage I’ve built for myself? Can I find God? Can He find me?”

He was an instructor in a school for terrorists and suicide bombers in a remote mountain village in northwest Pakistan. He had for years been fed a spiritual diet of hatred for all who are perceived as the enemies of radical Islam. He had abandoned his home and family far away in Jordan, forsaking all contact with them, in order to try to earn the approval of his master Allah, and perhaps to gain salvation under his stern justice by killing many of Allah’s enemies. And then one day, on a furtive trip to a major city to pick up a shipment of undercover weapons he had a conversation in a coffee house that opened his closed mind to a new possibility. He met a man who gave him a New Testament, and told him that he had discovered the teachings of a man named Jesus, who showed a different way: a way to love rather than hate. This was a new thought to the terrorist instructor, and he decided to read the book for himself.

He was the captain of an 18th century English sailing ship, making lots of money hauling cargo back and forth across the Atlantic from Africa to America. The cargo was human beings, packed into the hold, naked and chained, on their way either to death at sea or to human bondage. And one night while crossing the sea, caught in a brewing hurricane and his ship tossed in every direction, he realized his true spiritual condition: if he was about to stand before God, he would have nothing but crimes against humanity on his record. His only hope, he concluded, was to plead for mercy. He could never repay his wrongs, but perhaps—if God spared his life from this storm—he could return to England and start on a new course.

I don’t know if any of the first four scenarios have occurred. Perhaps they have. But the last one is absolutely true.

… and Found

It’s the story of a man named John Newton. Once a slave trader who profited richly from the sale of other children of God, he became an Anglican pastor, a crusader for the abolition of slavery, and the author of dozens of popular Christian hymns—including the quite-autobiographical Amazing Grace. “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

On a tombstone in an old cemetery in England you will find his epitaph, which he himself composed just before he died:

JOHN NEWTON, CLERK [preacher]
ONCE AN INFIDEL AND LIBERTINE,
A SERVANT OF SLAVES IN AFRICA WAS
BY THE RICH MERCY OF OUR
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST,
PRESERVED, RESTORED, PARDONED,
AND APPOINTED TO PREACH THE FAITH HE
HAD LONG LABOURED TO DESTROY.

This scenario of a dramatic redirection by God’s mercy also unfolded in the life of the man who wrote our scripture text for today. The Apostle Paul, once a man dedicated to spreading violence and terror by attacking the followers of Christ, suddenly reversed course and became himself a follower of that same Lord.

What changed Paul and John Newton? It was the powerful force of grace. And this is the focus of Ephesians 2. Verse 5: “It is by grace you have been saved.” And again in verse 8, in case we missed it the first time: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.”

Dead in Sin but Alive in Christ

The beginning of the chapter tells us why grace is so necessary. When we hear dramatic stories of degradation followed by redemption—such as John Newton and Paul—we’re inspired. But many of us who have not chosen such dangerous or notorious pathways content ourselves with self-assurances that “I’m a good person.” We can even fool ourselves into thinking that we might just be able to be good enough to earn God’s love and approval by all our good deeds. But this is a delusion.

Paul shatters our bubble of self-righteousness by stating bluntly in verse 1: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” And he makes it clear that the verdict is universal: “All of us...” (verse 3). Every person here, even the most religious, even the ones among us who never rebelled against our parents or disobeyed our teachers, who always tried to do things right and follow the narrow way—even the best of us have sinned in deeds, in words, or in thoughts more times than we can ever count. Even good deeds can be done out of a sinful and self-centered heart.

Imagine that Paul is an ER physician in his lab coat, stethoscope around his neck, informing us of the diagnosis for the human race. We are not spiritually healthy; we are not just sick; we are not even terminal. We are already dead, flat-lined. We can’t get better on our own, and we can’t save ourselves or treat ourselves. We need a resurrection, a whole new life to be infused in us.

Verses 4 and 5 spell it out unmistakably: “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” This is not something we could possibly earn, no matter how good we have tried to be. It is something that can only be given to us, not purchased or earned, because its value is priceless.

The Work of Grace

The process of recognizing our need for God’s grace is part of the work of the Lord within us. It’s a psychological fact: we have to see our true problem before we’re willing to receive the only solution to that problem. No one will take medicine until they’re convinced they’re sick and need the power of those chemicals to be healed. We have to receive and understand the bad news before the good news makes sense to us.

John Newton experienced this. That’s why the second verse of his song Amazing Grace says: “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieved.” The first step of the work of God in his life was to teach his “heart to fear”—that is, to convince Newton that he was “dead in his transgressions and sins.” And thus it was merciful on God’s part to drive his guilt and hopelessness home to him.

Our natural tendency is to react to pangs of conscience and inner guilt by seeing them as negative emotions. And modern pop psychology will tell us to forget our guilt, or drown out its message with reassurances that we’re okay. But feelings of discomfort within can be wonderful gifts from God—if they get us moving towards the Lord in repentance and lead us to open ourselves to His forgiveness and a new start.

Most of us have at least one member of our immediate family—maybe a parent, maybe a son or daughter, maybe a brother or sister or grandchild—who is right now living apart from any recognizable faith. And because we love that person, we, of course, pray for them. If they are involved in a lifestyle that is very far from the teachings of the Bible, we may even feel prompted to pray that they’ll be protected from danger and from negative consequences. But sometimes God uses painful things.

He uses failures, health difficulties, and personal and financial problems to get a person’s attention and convict their conscience. Though it may not seem so, it can actually be a loving act to pray that God will let enough pain and difficulty into their lives to awaken a person’s conscience and prompt them to turn around. It was a hurricane at sea that God used to get John Newton’s attention. That was the “grace that taught my heart to fear.”

Living in reliance on God’s grace is not something we must do only at the beginning of the life of faith. It is also what sustains us all the way. Some of us who have grasped the necessity of grace for our salvation have made the mistake of thinking the Lord intends for us to travel the rest of the Christian life in our own strength. But we can’t. We need His grace every step of the way. And John Newton recognized this as well. That is why in verse 4 he describes the journey through life in these terms: “Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” In other words, every step of the way we are dependent on the Lord. Just when we think we can handle life’s problems in our own ability, another “danger, toil or snare” comes that is bigger than we are. The Christian life must begin with a total reliance on grace, and that reliance must continue all the way to the end … until “grace will lead [you and] me home.”

The Answer to Our Plea

In the first of the Star Wars series of films, released in 1976, George Lucas introduced us to a dramatic moment of conflict in “a galaxy far, far away.” As the Evil Empire has completed the construction of its ultimate weapon (the Death Star) and is prepared to wipe out the final traces of freedom, one courageous woman stands defiant. As Princess Leia is about to be captured, she records an urgent message on one of her robots, in the desperate chance that her plea might be delivered. And this message, locked into the memory bank of R2D2, unleashes the chain of events that destroys the Empire and restores democracy and order. Does anyone remember her urgent plea? “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope.” That message rekindled the fire of the old Jedi knights and brought about salvation for their worlds.

We could modify the words of the Princess slightly to state the true condition of the human race. “Help us, God; you’re our only hope.” If we trust in ourselves, we will perish. In fact, Ephesians tells us, we are beyond hopeless and are already dead spiritually … unless He breathes new life into us.

That’s why, for 2000 years, the message of the Gospel has been so powerful in transforming lives … because grace is our only hope.