Ephesians 2:4-10 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Lent 4 March 11, 2018 “Rejoice in the Greatness of God’s Grace”
Grace. Clearly it is a very important word in the Bible. It also gives our congregation its name. But have you really thought about what that word means? Could you define it for someone? Many of us probably could. We’d say something like, “Grace is God’s undeserved love for sinners.” And that’s a fine definition. But defining the word grace and really understanding and appreciating it are two different things. Some have used grace as an acronym to understand the meaning better. They say Grace is G-R-A-C-E God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. That’s a great reminder that God’s grace led him to pay a price, and that we benefit from it. But it still doesn’t necessarily speak to our hearts about what grace really means. Grace is what sinners need, what they long for deeply if they only understand the hopelessness of their plight. It is what only God can give and what he wants to give freely to us. Grace is what you need when you are an Israelite in your wilderness camp and a venomous snake slithers near. It’s what you need as that serpent strikes and sinks its fangs deep into your flesh. That’s when you think about, when you remember your grumbling and your complaining. And you know that you deserve this fate. You know that you deserve to die from that wound because you did again what you have always done. You forgot God’s goodness. You acted selfishly and thoughtlessly. You turned your back on God even though he had never turned his back on you. And as your vision starts to blur and as you struggle to fill your lungs with one last breath of air—Grace is seeing a bronze serpent hanging high on a pole, and you look at it and know that God loves you even though he shouldn’t. And the sight of the metal serpent becomes clearer and sharper, and you realize that it is getting easier and easier to breathe again. And you know that you didn’t do anything to make God love you, because you were already as good as dead. But God loved you anyway, and he saved you again. That’s grace. That’s what brings us together around God’s Word week after week. It’s what leads us to rejoice even as we contemplate our sins and our Savior’s death. It is the heart and core of the central message of all of Scripture, a word that we should never tire of hearing and on which we do right to meditate regularly. That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, leads us to do in the words from Ephesians chapter 2 that provide the basis for our sermon. As you think on these words today, rejoice in the greatness of God’s grace. Rejoice because God’s grace brought us from death to life. In our Old Testament example of grace, life from death is clear and obvious. Without the intervention of the bronze serpent, the Israelites were perishing. But by God’s grace, they were kept alive. This very same theme of life from death is found in our verses today. These verses come from a summary of God’s plan of salvation which makes up the first part of Paul’s letter to Christians in the city of Ephesus. It is a plan that God had from eternity to rescue his people. In our lives, that plan plays out as God by his grace brings us from death to life. That contrast is one that Paul uses not only in these verses, but elsewhere in the book and in other places in the Scriptures as well. We were dead. It is true of every Ephesian, every Christian, every person today. When we are conceived and born into the world, we are dead spiritually. We are dead in our sin. Remember Jesus’ words to Nicodemus from today’s Gospel (John 3:14-21)? In the conversation that came before, Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. It was not that he had to enter into his mother’s womb a second time, but that he required a different sort of birth. We come into the world spiritually dead. We inherit the sinful nature of our parents, just as they inherited it from theirs. And just as surely as a dead person cannot do anything to improve his position, so also those who are spiritually dead can do nothing to help or save themselves. And this is true even if unbelievers try to fool others by their actions. People who are spiritually dead may appear to be good, spiritually alive, even among the most outwardly impressive people we have ever met. But those who are spiritually dead are inwardly full of sin and decay, and without change will be apart from God forever. That’s why I need grace. That’s why you need grace. And God gives grace. “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy” – see how term after term is piled together to accentuate God’s