Ephesians 2:1-10 ‘Don’t waste your life1’

John Piper was speaking at a Passion Conference in 2000.  He had just told the story of two women, Ruby and Laura, both in or near their eighties who had spent their lives devoted to serving others, and who died as missionaries in Cameroon.  Their death was not a tragedy he said, because they had given their lives away to something that mattered.  Then he continued, ‘I have got a little article here from Reader’s Digest.  This is a tragedy.  The title of the article, “Start now.  Retire Early!”’

‘Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the north east five years ago when he was fifty-nine and she was fifty-one.  Now they live in Punto Gorda, Florida where they cruise on their thirty-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’

‘That’s a tragedy’, Piper exclaimed, ‘and there are people in this country spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it … With all my heart I plead with you, “Don’t buy that dream”.  The American Dream.  A nice house.  A nice car.  A nice job.  A nice retirement.  Collecting shells, as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the Universe to give an account of what you did.  “Here it is Lord, my shell collection!”  Well, not for Ruby and not for Laura.  Don’t waste your life!  Don’t waste it!’

God has prepared works in advance for us to do.  There is no spiritual retirement as long as you can pray, love, speak and listen.

Think about your non-believing friends.  Without Christ they are dead in their transgressions and sins, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air (the devil), gratifying the desires of the sinful nature and deserving God’s wrath.

Think about the good news of what God does for sinful people.  In Christ you have been made alive, you have been saved from condemnation, you are deeply loved by God, you have a glorious eternal future ahead of you, you are God’s masterpiece and God has prepared great works for you to do.

Surely these great works involve going into the world and making disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded (Matt. 28:19-20).  This is a commission that we are to fulfil together. 

We live in the world of the living dead (1-3)

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is not at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh, and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 

John Stott writes, ‘we should not hesitate to reaffirm that a life without God (however physically fit and mentally alert the person may be) is a living death, and that those who live it are dead even while they are living.’

Christianity traditionally speaks of our three great enemies as being the world (that is society rebelling against God), the flesh (meaning our sinful nature) and the devil.  For those who are not yet in Christ, these are actually controlling forces in their existence.

These verses tell us that before we encountered Jesus we followed the thoughts of the world.  People live in an echo chamber where people are told what to believe.  But what they are being told to believe is at variance with what God’s revealed word tells us.  However, don’t be frustrated when they buy into the group thing of our anti-God society.  They don’t have the spiritual ability to reason independently.  Pray for them!

They are dead.  They need a miracle.  Imagine I tell you that we are going to go out with John’s sketch-board to preach the gospel.  You say that you would like to come along and help.  I say, ‘I will meet you at the cemetery.  We are going to preach at those graves and see people come to life.’  You would probably think I am mad. 

It is as mad to think that we can reason with our friends or speak to them on the streets and expect them to become new creatures in Christ without God doing a miracle.  That is why we are called to preach the cross of Christ, because it is the power of God to those being saved (1 Cor. 1:18).  That is why we have to root all our efforts to speak about Jesus in prayer, because we can’t persuade anyone with out own wisdom.  I think that two of our weaknesses as a church are that we are not doing enough in the way of evangelism and we are not praying enough together.  In truth those two things go hand in hand.

God loves ugly people (4-8)

The first three verses of our reading are sobering, but they are not the end of the story.  But God is how verse four actually begins.  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for us, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

For all eternity, people are going to marvel and praise God for the fact that He saved sinful people like you and me.  They will look at us and say, ‘Isn’t God so kind?’  He has raised us up with Christ Jesus.  We may live among the spiritually dead, but we have been made spiritually alive.  We have been raised with Christ.  There is a sense in which we have participated in His resurrection.  We have new life, which comes with new desires and new loves.  He has seated us in the heavenly realms in Christ—because we are connected to Christ there is a sense in which we are already in heaven.

All this should make us humble.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourself, it is a gift from God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  Becoming a Christian is by grace through faith.  Grace means to be treated not as our sins deserve but according to God’s loving kindness.  Grace is God’s unmerited, unearned and undeserved favour.  Faith is a translation as the word for to believe or to trust.  We simply put our trust in promises of the gospel.  We can’t even boast about our decision to trust God, because dead people don’t exercise faith.  The whole process from beginning to end is a gift from God.

Why does God bring so many spiritually dead people to life in Christ?  He does so because of his great love for us.  God’s glory and God’s love go hand-in-hand.

Don Carson asks us to picture Charles and Susan walking down a beach hand in hand at the end of the academic year.  The pressure has dissipated in the warm evening breeze.  They kicked off their sandals, and the wet sand squishes beneath their toes.  Charles turns to Susan, gazes in her large hazel eyes, and says, ‘Susan, I love you.  I really do.’

Now what does Charles mean?  He may be saying, ‘Susan you are everything to me.  I can’t live without you.  Your smile knocks me out from fifty metres.  Your sparkling good humour, your beautiful eyes, the scent of your hair – everything about you transfixes me.  I love you!’

What he most certainly doesn’t mean is, ‘Susan, quite frankly you have such as bad case of halitosis it would embarrass a herd of unwashed, garlic-eating elephants.  Your nose is so bulbous you belong in the cartoons.  Your hair is so greasy it could lubricate an eighteen-wheeler.  Your knees are so disjointed you make a camel look elegant.  Your personality makes Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan look like wimps.  But I love you!’

Carson then asks what God means when he says he loves us.  He does not mean, ‘You are everything to me.  I can’t live without you.  Your personality, your witty conversation, your beauty, your smile –everything about you transfixes me.  Heaven would be boring without you.  I love you!’  That is not what He means, no matter what sort of therapeutic god people present you with, or ‘Jesus is my girlfriend’ songs they sing.

What God says to us when He says that He loves us, Carson explains, is, ‘morally speaking, you are the people of the halitosis, the bulbous nose, the greasy hair, the disjointed knees, the abominable personality.  Your sins have made you disgustingly ugly.  But I love you anyway, not because you are attractive, but because it is my nature to love.’  He says to us, ‘I have set my affection on you from before the foundation of the universe, not because you are wiser or better or stronger than others but because in grace I chose to love you.  You are mine, and you will be transformed.  Nothing in all creation can separate you from my love mediated through Jesus Christ.’  His love is all about His greatness and nothing to do with our worth.

God has made us for a new way of walking (10)

In verse two we saw that before we were raised to life in Christ we ‘walked’ (literal translation) in the ways of the world, and following the prince of the air and living for the passions of our sinful nature.  Now we read that we are ‘to walk’ (literal translation), in the good works that God prepared for us beforehand to do.  We have not been saved by good works, but we have been saved for good works.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  The Greek word translated ‘handiwork’ meant a work of art.  It could refer to a statue or song or poem or painting.  We are God’s masterpiece.  This is true of you as an individual Christian for you have been washed in Christ and now have His Spirit within you.  This is true of the church, as His radiant bride.  He has prepared works in advance for us to do as individual Christians, and He has prepared for us to do together. 

Conclusion:

Do you remember Bob and Penny, with their early retirement and their mission to collect sea shells?  God has saved us for more than that.  Are you never struck by how pointless everything can seem?  What does anything matter if we are all heading for the grave?  Who cares about our collection of sea shells?

We were dead in our transgressions and sins but we have been raised to life in Christ.  We should be the most grateful and humble people, because all this came through God’s loving grace.  And He has called us to a new way of walking.  Don’t waste your life!