“Asking for Directions”

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Give us, we pray, O God, thoughts higher than our own thoughts, prayers better than our own prayers, powers beyond our biological possibilities, that we may spend and be spent in the preaching and hearing of Thy Word. Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Ephesians. Listen. Ephesians 2.1-10.

You were dead through the trespasses and sins ²in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. ³All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. ⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

Every once in a while, my beautiful wife can be unreasonable. Recently, this came up while we were driving somewhere. Well, I was the one driving, technically. And I knew where we were going, mostly. I was on the correct road, the signs showed us exactly that. But none of it looked familiar to Melissa. So, and this is the unreasonable part, she wants me to stop to get directions. I am a man. We don’t do that. Granted, while I was on the right street, we were in Georgia. And as you all know, streets change names, and the street you are on, while the name of the street you are looking for, is often not the street you are looking for, as was the case when Melissa decided to be so unreasonable. We went several miles in the wrong direction. But, we were making good time.

Paul makes a powerful statement in the first three verse of today’s passage. We live in a world where human beings, left to themselves, not only choose the wrong direction, but remain cheerfully confident that it is in fact the right one. Indeed, and men will tell you, don’t give us directions, we know the way, and we are very confident of just that fact. Why would all these other people be on this road if it weren’t the right way? I’ve actually heard someone use that as a good excuse as to why they won’t stop for directions.

When God acted in Jesus the Messiah, God not only enacted some serious self revelation, but God also revealed fully what genuine human life was like. And that revelation about true human life is this; it is to be deeply self-sacrificial. Simply going after what you want will lead you at best to a selfish life, and at worst will lead you to ruin. The problem is, even if one recognizes this, what can one do about it? If you are already ‘dead’, as he writes in the first few words, already heading down the wrong way on the wrong road, with no hope of turning off, let alone turning back, and apparently on that road like a man, none of whose species ever ask for directions, what hope can there be?

If the problem is that the nature of humans is to be selfish, and the habitual behavior of the whole human race leads us on the fast road toward death – the ultimate destruction of our humanness – the answer provided by God is a way through death and out into a new sort of life entirely. Of course this is achieved through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the king. Paul sees the people who belong to Jesus as being somehow ‘in’ him, so that what is true of him is true of the people in him. Jesus has been raised, and therefore so have they. He has been installed in glory, in the heavenly realms, and so have they. This is the secret truth of the life of all those who belong to Jesus.

The main thing Paul expresses is the sheer, almost unbelievable, magnificent kindness of God. In four short verses, 4, 5, 6, &7, Paul writes this in several different ways. God is rich in mercy. God has loved us with a great love. God’s sheer grace saved us. God’s grace is rich beyond all telling. God has lavished kindness upon us. Whenever anyone says, or implies, that God is out to get us, or is an angry God, or is a bit stingy, or mean, or small-minded, or petty, look at these verses and think again.

Of course, lots of people who are making good time but in the wrong direction want to think of God exactly like that, angry, stingy, petty, or mean, just as people who are enjoying their drive don’t like it if someone tells them they’re going the wrong way, and they should turn around if they want to get to where they want to be. But the crucial factor here, as it always is, is Jesus himself. Take away his resurrection, and for all anybody knows the road to death is not only the only road there is, but it is inevitable that we all travel it. Put the resurrection back in the picture, or, in other words, see the proof that God in Jesus Christ has defeated death, and you can realize two things. First, there is another way then the road to death. Second, you are urgently summoned to turn and follow it.

Recently, friends of ours had a peculiar experience. They were out at a nice restaurant for their anniversary. They had just finished a nice dinner, a decent bottle of wine, and were picking the plate clean of desert while waiting for the bill. So they asked for the check. Their waitron informed them that it had already been taken care of, by someone in the downstairs eating area. Puzzled, he went downstairs to find out what was going on. A client of his firm was downstairs, had seen our friends, knew it was their anniversary, and had told the waitron that he would like to pay their check. Our friends told the waitron that they couldn’t accept, and would pay for it themselves. They thanked the generous person, sat down with him for a drink, paid themselves, and then went on home. Seems pretty straightforward right? It’s what I would have done. I’m sure it is what many of you would have done too. It is so natural to want to pay for ourselves. It’s the right thing to do. It is in our nature. It is commendable. Which is what makes grace such a stumbling block. The analogy breaks down because my friends, like you and me, can afford to pay for a night out, even a nice one every now and then. Our brokenness is something that we simply cannot afford to pay for, even though we may try.

Maybe a better analogy is this. When I was young, maybe around 7 or 8, we used to walk from our house to a local convenience store, right on Briarcliff road. Nowadays you would never let your kid go to a place like that without adult supervision, much less off of a major road, but the times were different then. My friends and I would be playing in someone’s yard and one of us would decide to go to the Baptist church and buy a Grape Soda, in a glass bottle none the less, or to that convenience store for some candy. We all got modest allowances, and when you are 7 or 8, what better way to spend allowance than on sugar? I have a distinct memory of a 100 grand bar. It looked yummy, as does all candy to a child of that age. And I’d tried most all of the selection the convenience store had to offer. The problem was the price tag. 100 grand was a lot more than the 50 cents I received each week in allowances. It would mean a lot of chores around the house. 10 cents per paper bag of pinecones picked up meant, carry the 1, well, more than I could calculate or wrap my mind around at that age. Even if I saved up, the extravagance would never be able to be rationalized. It could be the best tasting candy bar ever, but for that money, how many 35 cent Milky Way bars could I buy? About 285,000. So, the price was just too much, as intrigued as I was. I told all of this to my two friends, who agreed with me wholeheartedly. The cashier was trying not to fall off of his wooden stool. Keeping laughter in is difficult business. He offered to buy three 100 grand bars, one for each of us. “You’ve got that kind of money?” “Sure thing kid, why not.” And do you know what I said. “No thanks, that’s too much. Besides, I can’t accept candy from folks who aren’t my parents.” “Okay kid, have it your way.” And we walked back home.

Maybe we go down the wrong road of selfishness, or perhaps it is the tempting road of wanting to earn our standing before God, but both are the same road; it is the road of death, of non-acceptance of God’s grace. Accepting God’s grace in faith is not an easy road, for it does mean denial of self. We must not be selfish, nor may we follow our desire to pay our own way. And without a doubt faith comes in, because you will regularly question if this is enough. Is it enough to just accept God’s love, don’t I have to be a better person? Sure, we all can grow into more self-sacrificing people, and there is value in that. But it doesn’t get us any further down the right road. In fact, it can be a dangerous thing, tempting us toward getting good enough for God’s acceptance on our own. How can we move toward a life that is received as a gift?

Maybe the bigger question is this. What happens to people if they don’t grasp the fact that our entire life, including but not limited to our salvation, is God’s undeserved gift? I think they either give up on God altogether, or they become like the Pharisees and Sadducees, forever working on becoming good enough, and forever condemning those who don’t measure up to their standards. Fortunately for the rest of us, it is only God’s standards that matter, only our ability to accept grace. It’s just that easy. Amen.