Being Clear As To Your Identity

Fourth Sunday in Lent
Light of Christ Anglican Church

Rev. Michael J. Moffitt, March 10, 2024

SCRIPTURE Ephesians 2:1–10

Several years ago I went to a foreign country where Hinduism comprises 81% and Buddhism 8% of the people. Christianity comprises 1.76% and is hated by many people so the laws there are very strict on evangelism or proselytizing. As I entered through customs the agent asked me the purpose of my visit, which I said was to visit a friend. I had to give him the address of where I was staying, and I was asked about my occupation. I told him that I was clergy. His face hardened and he excused himself and went through a door behind him. At that moment I realized that I would have been better off telling him that I was a retired truck driver, which was true.

After a few minutes he returned and processed my entry. The next day a man showed up where I was staying and identified himself as a Christian pastor. He was standing next to my friend, so I assumed they were acquainted. He was cordial but wanted to ask me questions about my visit and wanted to see the room I was staying in under the guise that a friend was coming to see him. Perhaps this would be a place he could stay.

Well, my friend didn’t know him and made it clear that we needed to leave. How did he know that I was there? Other than my friend there was only one other person who knew of my visit, the customs agent. I was reminded that I was not in the United States and would find little help if I was arrested. No one cared about my nationality but only what I did while in their country.

A few days later my friend and I went to visit a very large Hindu temple compound that is over 2,000 years old. As I entered I felt a presence all around me and a sense of warning. There were many people there who were visiting and many others who were there for outdoor cremations. This felt like enemy territory.

As we were walking I saw a man who was considered a Hindu holy man. He was dressed in dirty garments with very long dirty hair and beard. As I looked over at him I found him smirking at me. We stood eyes locked and gazed at each other for a few moments. At that moment I realized that the spirit within him recognized the Holy Spirit within me. When I arrived in the country it didn’t matter that I was an American, but at the Hindu compound it greatly mattered that I was a Christian.

I had no fear of the spirit that indwelled the man, I knew his master is a liar and that Jesus defeated him when he conquered sin and death. I also knew that I had no reason to be arrogant because it was the power of the Holy Spirit who was my defense, not me. At that moment I remembered how much it matters that we know who we are in Christ Jesus.

Our passage from Ephesians 2:1–10 is all about knowing our position in Christ and how that gives us the power to do whatever God is calling us to do. This is where the power to live the Christian life comes from and it reveals how we are to access the power.

We are beginning the fourth week of the Lenten journey where we are focusing on the cross of Jesus Christ. The first week we looked at the importance of obedience to the commands of God and we considered the example of Noah’s faithfulness to the command of God to build an ark. Essentially, it took Noah and his sons 120 years to build it to God’s specifications and bring two of every kind of animal into it. He gave up a huge portion of his life in obedience to a command from God that initially made no sense. There had never been a flood nor had there been rain. Genesis 2:6 tells us that a mist came up from out of the ground to water the earth. Noah’s decision to obey God saved him and his family when the flood waters came.

We saw that Jesus was our perfect example when he submitted to John’s baptism of repentance as a sign of his obedience to the will of the Father though he had no reason to repent.

The second week we looked at the example of Abraham’s obedience to the Lord’s command to sacrifice his only son Isaac even though he was the son of promise. Abraham chose obedience because he trusted in the word and promise of the God that he followed without question. God did not let him follow through with the sacrifice of his son but instead provided a ram for the sacrifice.

This was the foreshadowing of what God the Father was going to do through his Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus, in obedience to the Father's will, became the sacrifice for our sins and because of that we should follow him out of grateful obedience. We saw that Jesus told the crowd with him, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34. In other words we are also to follow the will of the Father, by living in faithful obedience to his word no matter the cost.

Last week we considered Romans 7 where the Apostle Paul wrote that the law of God was holy, righteous and good because it reflected the will and nature of God. Even though that is true, Paul wrote that he was unable to perfectly keep the law because of the sin nature that was still a part of his human condition. For all of his understanding and love of the law, he could not keep it in his own strength. He had discovered that even though the law was holy, it had no power to save him, only to show him that without Jesus Christ he had no hope.

Today, we will be considering Ephesians 2:4–10. Let’s begin by briefly considering what Paul taught leading up to this point.

In the first chapter Paul showed that the greatest example of God’s power was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now he demonstrates how that same power can transform our lives from death to life. Paul began the second chapter by pointing the Ephesian Christians to their condition before they encountered Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord,

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Paul wanted the Ephesian Christians to remember that before they encountered Jesus Christ they were the walking dead who were stumbling along, following the one who would lead them to the hopelessness and despair of an eternity facing the wrath of God. Even though they were physically alive they were spiritually dead.

One of the greatest lies that Satan has perpetuated upon man is making them believe that they are doing just fine without God and are free to follow their own desires without consideration of consequences. When confronted they often rise in moral indignation and question the right of the confronter to judge their actions. Good and bad, right and wrong are considered individual decisions and the consideration of God’s law or the good of others is irrelevant.

The seventeenth-century revivalist and theologian, Jonathan Edwards, described those without Christ as “although dead, the sinner nevertheless walks about actively in sin. He is dead towards God, but he is alive to all wickedness.”

Paul was reminding the reader that those who choose to follow this path “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Paul was showing that those who walk according to their own desires and refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Savior and Lord show themselves to not be God’s children but children of wrath.

In Ephesians 2:4–6 Paul taught that because God is rich in love and mercy there would be a positional change in those who by faith bowed their wills to the Messiah. They would by God’s grace be changed from being dead in their trespasses and sins to being alive in Christ Jesus. The result is that they would be raised up and seated with Christ before the throne of God.

The first two words in this section are the most important, “But God.” These two words sum up the whole power and story of the gospel. They tell what God has done and how he has intervened in what was otherwise a hopeless situation. Before God moved on our behalf we were stuck in Ephesians 2:1–3, and—left in that condition—we were destined to be objects of God’s holy judgment and wrath.

It is vitally important that we describe who this God is because there are many viewpoints as to the nature of God. Some see him as a benevolent grandfather type who just wants everyone to be happy and to treat one another with kindness. Some view him as really wanting to help us but basically can’t do much, or he is just indifferent to what happens to us. There are many viewpoints about God that are inadequate and conflicting. It is the tendency of the unregenerate heart to fashion a god after their own imagination, but that is not the God that Paul is writing about. He is the God of the Bible, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God of glory that Paul revealed in chapter one of Ephesians. He is the God who is creator and sovereign over all of creation. Nothing occurs without his permission and there is nothing in the universe outside of his knowledge and control.

Theologian James Montgomery Boice wrote in his commentary on Ephesians,

Nothing is more important in Paul’s opening description of God’s great plan of salvation, unfolding over the ages, than that God is a moral God. He is not indifferent to issues of right and wrong, justice and injustice, righteousness, and sin. On the contrary, it is because of his opposition to everything sinful that his great plan of salvation was devised and is being executed. Sin will be punished; righteousness will be exalted in his universe.

God’s wrath against sin flows from his holiness and that is why the human condition without Jesus Christ is so frightening. This is God’s universe, and he does not have a “live and let live” attitude toward those who oppose him. This is the God of whom Paul is writing and this is the God that we need, even though once we didn’t know it. Instead of coming to him to find new life and righteousness, we were prone to run from him to wickedness and spiritual death.

“But God”! What a wonderful statement! It was God who was unwilling to leave us in the desperate, deplorable state that Paul describes at the beginning of this chapter. We were unable to save ourselves because we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were no more able to help ourselves than a corpse is in breathing new life into itself. We were enslaved to sin and were those who ran toward our own desires and were by nature children of wrath. “But God”! Within these two words lies the beauty and wonder of the Christian gospel. We were without hope, but God intervened to save us and through Jesus Christ dealt with all the guilt and shame that our sins brought upon us.

Why would he do this for those who had been so prone to reject him and his word? Paul writes that it is because,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

God did what only he was able to do and that is to set us free from death and sin. This is one of the most common themes in all the Scriptures. In almost every question or struggle that we have it is God in Christ who intervenes.

Paul is clear in our passage that God does all these things because he is merciful, and he loves completely, in a way that we can’t fully understand. We offer him nothing that he needs, but we desperately need him.

Paul asserts that God’s grace, his undeserved favor, is the reason that we can be saved. We don’t deserve it and there is nothing we could possibly do to earn our way into his kingdom. He offers us salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ simply because he wants to and in spite of ourselves, he loved us.

The truth is that without the power given us by the Holy Spirit we can’t begin to lift ourselves up out of the depths of our sin, “But God” can. Ephesians 2:6, “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”

In verses 5–6 we see that in Christ the believer has been made alive… raised…seated with Jesus. These three events refer to what actually happened to Jesus: his resurrection, ascension, and enthronement at the right hand of God the Father. Paul assumed a union between Christ and those for whom he died, those who have come to trust him—so that what is said of the Redeemer can be said of the redeemed. What once historically happened to Jesus also happened to those who have come to him by faith, but it has happened to them in a mystical and spiritual way. These things will one day happen in a physical way at the resurrection, but for now the believer experiences these realities in an inward way and in a newness of mind and heart.

A good way to understand the implications of this is to consider Jesus’ teaching on the connectedness of the vine and the branches in John 15. There the vine receives directly from the branch the needed nourishment for growth. By being attached to the vine, the branches benefit from all that the vine offers. We can also see in Jesus’ prayer for those who would believe in John 17:22–23,

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Paul is teaching that we are positionally, spiritually seated with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. Again not in the future but right now. Because we who are in Christ are spiritually seated with Christ, who is seated next to the Father, we have an opportunity to be in the place of intimacy with Jesus and access to the Father. Don’t misunderstand this. This is not theoretically true but is spiritually true to the point that who we now are in Christ is a sealed deal in the mind of the Father. It’s as if we who are in Christ are actually present seated next to Jesus in the throne room of heaven. It’s that much of a reality. I’m afraid that often because we don’t understand our position in Christ as those who have been made alive, raised up, and seated with Jesus, we miss the relationship and the power that is ours through Him. The next few verses give us a clearer understanding of how important it is that we live into who we are in Christ.

Let’s read verses 7–10,

…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The place that God has brought us in Jesus Christ is a place of intimacy and revelation. It’s where God opens up his heart and that is where we are now. Now God is speaking to us intimately through his word and by his Spirit. This is how he has chosen to show us the greatest kindness both now and in the coming ages. Paul makes it abundantly clear that all this has come about because of God’s amazing grace and mercy. It wasn’t because of something that we did. We have no reason to boast because it is totally by his grace. We are to reveal his handiwork to those who have yet to know or understand who God is. We have been created in Christ Jesus to continue the work that Jesus started while on earth. Everything that we need is at our disposal—God’s power, authority, strength, wisdom, love, compassion, and mercy are all ours. Why? Because we have become a family and have all the blessings and tools of the heavenly kingdom for our use. When we focus on the fact of our position, it will change how we pray and how we live.

A wonderful example of how this works is found in John 6:1–15. Jesus feeds 5,000 men and however many women and children were there by making five barley loaves and two fish stretch into a meal for probably over 10 thousand. This was something that only God could do. Then to fully make the point, twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered up after everyone had their fill.

The disciples’ job was to move in faith and do what Jesus commanded by distributing the bread and fish and then gathering up the leftovers. I can only imagine what it was like for them to experience that. Jesus continually showed them his power and authority and after Pentecost they finally got the point. They were to reveal the power and the authority of Jesus in their everyday lives because in the Holy Spirit they were in the most intimate position being seated with him in the Heavenly places and they had full access to all that the kingdom offered.

This is the great privilege that Paul had in mind as he wrote this section of Ephesians.

Christianity is not a mere doctrine or merely, a sense of having been forgiven or believing that God will forgive you. Christianity is Christ alive in his people. Colossians 1:27, 

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

In closing I want to give you an example of something drastically changing through one important event. Probably 30 years ago Teresa and I took in a 15-year-old girl and her 1-year-old daughter to live with us. She was a schoolmate of our son and one of her sisters had been a schoolmate of our daughter. She had gotten pregnant, and her mother kicked her out of the house. She was living in a filthy unfurnished room with just a mattress. Ben was concerned and asked if I would go with him to see the situation.

Our daughter was at college so there was an extra bedroom. So we took her and the baby in to live with us. Though the baby, Sierra, was 1 year old she was still drinking formula out of a bottle. She was malnourished yet refused any other food. Her mother said there was nothing she could do about it because she always closed her mouth and wouldn’t try anything. So at dinner I placed Sierra in her high chair next to me. Teresa had taken a part of our dinner and pureed a bit for Sierra. I took a spoonful and tried to get her to open her mouth to try it. She closed it and put her head down with her chin on her chest. Her mother was smiling with an “I told you so” expression. I placed my hand on top of Sierra’s head and pulled it up and off of her chest.

When she opened her mouth to scream I stuck the food in her mouth and held it closed pulling the baby spoon back out. She started to resist but then she got a surprised expression on her face, then chewed and swallowed the food. Then she opened her mouth for more. She never went back to the bottle because she found something much better that was nourishing. It was the beginning of her growing and developing normally. At that point she wasn’t walking or investigating everything but in no time she was alive, running around and laughing.

I’ve found that our relationship with God to kind of be like that. When we invite Jesus to be our Savior and Lord he fills that empty place in our lives that changes everything forever. It begins with acknowledging that we need a Savior. If you want to talk more about this I would be honored to sit down and chat.

Let’s pray.