We have said that Paul is telling the Ephesians (and us) what it means to be in Christ.  He’s writing to people who are following Christ.   Who are we in Christ and how then should we live in Christ?  On this Thanksgiving Sunday, we look at a passage which evokes gratitude.  We said last week that to be in Christ means to have our stories grafted into God’s larger saving story.  When my story is caught up in God’s larger saving/delivering story, my story becomes rooted and grounded in, characterized by, grace. So we are thankful for God’s grace.  God’s grace has given us a whole new way to walk.  God’s grace has brought us from death to life.   From darkness to light.  From blindness to sight.  Is it any wonder that we sing of once being lost, and now being found; of once being blind, but now seeing?  Is it any wonder that the waiting father in the story that Jesus told said to his older son, “But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and come to life, he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:32)

To live in Christ is to have my story changed.  To live in Christ is to be brought from death to life.  Let’s ask for God’s help as we look at the words of Paul to the church this morning.

You’ve come a long way, Christian.  Perhaps it would be better to say, you’ve been brought a long way.  We’re talking about what God has done, how far God has brought us.  Before Paul writes of who we are, he writes of who we were.  Somone has said that before the gospel is good news (or before the good news is good news), it’s bad news.  This is where we were.  This is how we walked.  We were dead.

“You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived (in which you once walked), following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.  All 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.” (1-3)

We weren’t literally dead.  Death here is a metaphor for life without God; existence apart from God.  We heard the same sort of thing in God’s instructions to Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:17).  They didn’t die on the spot.  There was a breakdown in their life with God (communion with God, fellowship with God).  This was the beginning of God’s grand plan to bring us back to him.  We are called to remember our former state, not to inspire guilt or fear or sadness or shame, but to ever more deeply come to know and be thankful for what God’s grace means in our lives.  “You were dead” in the way you once walked, writes Paul, following “the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air (Satan, the accuser, the liar, the deceiver).  “The course of this world” simply means a life lived apart from God, in contrast to a life lived in acknowledgement of Christ as Lord, acknowledgement of God as foundation, love of God (remember “I love the Lord” from Psalm 116), love of humanity and love of God’s creation.  It is to contrast a life motivated by the desires of the flesh and senses – broadly meaning the desires and impulses of a self-centred life. We see evidence of this kind of living all around us.  John Stott described it like this:

“Wherever human beings are being dehumanized – by political oppression or bureaucratic tyranny, by an outlook that is secular (repudiating God), amoral (repudiating absolutes), or materialistic (glorifying the consumer market), by poverty, hunger, or unemployment, by racial discrimination or by any form of injustice – there we can detect the subhuman values of “this age” and “this world”.

I have to say once again at this point that Paul is writing here to followers of Jesus.  It’s perhaps only on the other side of the cross and our dying with Christ and being raised by Christ that we can appreciate former disobedience and language describing us as “by nature children of wrath.”  If you’re not a follower of Christ and you’re hearing this, you may say “Child of wrath?  I do my best to be a good person, give to charity, rinse my recycling etc.”  It’s perhaps only on the other side of the cross that we can more fully understand this kind of language.  At the same time, the Holy Spirit plays a role in convincing us of our sin, of our messing things up, of our need for God.  I would only say at this point, as we consider being brought from death to life in Christ:

Do you ever find yourself saying “This isn’t living.”

Do you ever find yourself saying “There must be more to life than this.”

We’re talking about being brought to life in Jesus, and we mean it.  We come to the turning point in verse 4.  The good news is always bad news before it’s good, and we’ve heard the bad news so that we who are in Christ may be thankful.  Here’s the good news – “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…” (4—5a)  In Christ, sin, going our own way, death, separation from God does not have the last word.  But God.  Someone has said that these words “but God” are two of the most powerful in the Bible:

Joseph to his brothers – “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Gen 50:20 (NIV)

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26

“You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” Acts 3:15 (NIV)

“But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“All 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.  But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (4-7)

What can we do but give thanks?  What can we do but give thanks to God for God’s grace?  What can we do but give thanks for the love of God?  God has made us alive out of the great love with which he loved us.  It’s always been about God’s love and it’s always been about grace.     “By grace you have been saved” Paul interjects in v5 and then repeats the thought in what may be one of the most well known verses in this letter – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”  It’s always been about God’s love and grace.  No matter how undeserving or unlovely we are, God loves us.  In the story of God, it’s always been about God’s love and grace.  Listen to how Moses describes it to the ancient Israelites, the people through whom God would work out his salvation for the world – “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you – for you were the fewest of all peoples.  It was because the Lord loved and kept the oath that that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharoah, king of Egypt.” (Deut 7:7-8)

It is because the Lord loved you that he brought you from death to life.  Let us not get boastful. Everything is grace.  Anglican Archbishop William Temple put it like this, “All is of God: the only thing of my very own which I can contribute to redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.”

This is who we are, made alive in Christ for the praise of his glory.  To make God’s ways known.  The gospel is bad news before it’s good news, and then it’s very good news.  One of my favourite Christian authors is American Frederick Beuchner.  He describes the gospel as tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale.   A tragic or inescapable situation.  An unlikely hero or transformation or turn of events.  An unimagined outcome.  Here’s what he says:

THE gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror… what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven... That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn't believe them or doesn't want them or just doesn't give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen… Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. It is impossible for anybody to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth.

We who are in Christ are called to live this truth.  “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life (or to be our way of walking).”  Last week we heard “You have the power of Christ in you.”  This week, “You are what God has made you!  You are God’s handiwork!”  Created in Christ for good works.  One might say at this point “You just said we are saved by grace through faith, not the result of works.”  Faith and works, what we believe and what we do, are not a dichotomy and they’re not one of those paradoxes of our faith.  They’re more like two sides of a coin.  The gratitude that we have for being brought from death to life, the love that we have for God who first loved us; these are to look like something.  God chose us that we might be holy and blameless before him in love.  God has prepared a walkway for us.  Let us walk it.  Someone has said that works are not the ground of salvation but its goal, it’s fruit but not it’s root.  We have been brought to life for the praise of God’s glory.  To make God’s ways known. 

We talked about this purpose last week, and Paul will get into more details later in the letter.  For today, good works are not just accomplished by professional Christians or formalized work like we do together in the acts of service in which we take part as a church (though they are that).  We’re talking about words and deeds that are reflective of God’s grace and love; these words and deeds start with those closest to us.  Our homes.  They go out from there.  Our schools.  Our workplaces.  Our shops.  Our libraries.  Our commutes.  These goods works are not the condition of us being brought from death to life, but the consequences for we who have been brought from death to life.

They are a reflection of our gratitude.  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! Amen