The hardest thing for a Chinese person to read in this
passage is not the bit about sin.
It’s not even the part where it talks about the
devil leading us into sin. And while I do think that many of the aunties
and uncles in church today might be shocked at the mention of death in verse 1 – where it says, “You
were dead in your transgressions” –
and they will go, “Choi! Choi! How can you talk about death during Chinese New
Year?!” Still, that may not be the hardest thing for us to hear today.
No, I think the hardest thing for an Asian person to hear and
understand is Chapter 2, verse 8.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
Ephesians 2:8
It’s saying this: Salvation is free. The word Paul uses is
“grace”. He calls it “the gift of God.”
A Chinaman hears that something is free and he goes, “Free?
Is there something wrong with this ‘free’ gift?” In a culture which puts a
premium on hard work, receiving something for nothing – or for free – just sounds lazy. There must be a catch. There must be something wrong with it (Like
the expired food section in the supermarket).
Or the other extreme might be that we hear that something is
given away for free and we tell our kids, “Take! Take! Ask for some more!” Like
the big banquet of Chinese food we are going to have right after this. We see
the roast duck and go, “Wah! Take as much as you can!”
As Asians, we have a hard time understanding the value and the
purpose of something that is free. Because nothing in life is free. That’s what
our tradition, our elders and everything in our own experience teaches us. Either
we work hard to earn that good life and
we work hard to earn that money. Or we take
advantage of every opportunity – get as many red packets while you still
can, fill up the plate with as much roast duck and char siu before it all goes
– so as not to waste that opportunity. Why? Because our culture teaches us: Nothing is free. If it is free, either there’s a catch or it’s not going to
last forever.
But when the bible talks about God’s free gift of salvation,
it is describing the most valuable thing we could ever receive from God. This
is the most expensive, the most costly and the most precious gift that God offers
us in Jesus Christ. And it comes to us for
free.
Or to be more exact, the bible says, it comes to us by grace.
Grace means
undeserved love. It is giving the best that you have to the worst person
you know. That’s what God did for us in Jesus Christ. He gave the best gift to
the most undeserving people. And that is how verse 1 begins.
You were dead
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you
used to live when you followed the ways of this world and ruler of the kingdom
of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
Ephesians 2:1-2
Ephesians 2:1-2
Who is Paul talking about? You. “You were dead,” he says. Not that guy over there. Not the embarrassing
uncle who turns up once a year at reunion dinner. You. You were dead in your
transgressions and your sins.
But you might say, “I’m not dead. I came to church. I had
cornflakes for breakfast. I updated my Facebook status.” That is, we think that
death means lying in a coffin buried in the ground six feet under (and
therefore being unable to update your Facebook status). But verse 2 says you
used to live (or, literally “walk”) in
death. That is you can be physically
alive and yet be spiritually dead
to God. One of the biggest insults in our Chinese culture is to say, “That
person is dead to me.” (In Cantonese we say, “Lei hoi seii ah” – Go and die!)
What does that mean? It means that I’m not going to acknowledge you. I’m not
going to greet you. When you come to reunion dinner tonight I am not even going
to look at you. You are dead to me.
That’s what the bible means by death. We are unresponsive to God. We live this life
given to us by God, but we live it as it there is no God. The way we eat our
food, the way we go to school, the way we talk to our friends reflects a life
that says: God is dead to me.
Now I do apologise for the language. It’s not nice to wish that
someone were dead. But isn’t the bible describing something true? Don’t we see this
every year at Chinese New Year? Everyone should
get along. Everyone should be loving.
And yet, everyone gets stressed during Chinese New Year. When the family is
gathered, when everyone is together – that’s when the most hurtful words come
out; that’s when selfish actions do the most damage. We can’t help ourselves. This
condition of spiritual deadness hits home not simply when we are alone at the
end of the day and we feel dead tired – that’s not what it’s talking about.
It’s when we are most alive and joyful when our hate-filled thoughts and
unloving actions are the most obvious. We can’t run away from it. We might put
on an act to hide the truth. But all the bible is doing is being honest about who
we are and what we do – to one another and to God.
Paul says there are three reasons for this. Three reasons
for our spiritual deadness: (1) the world, (2) the devil and (3) the flesh.
“When you followed the ways of this world,” verse 2 reads. You
look around you and you say, “That guy’s doing it, why can’t I?” Other people
are acting this way, so it’s OK for me to act this way as well.
“When you followed… the ruler of the kingdom of the air.”
The devil deceives us into rebellion. That’s why verse 2 goes on to describe
him as “the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” The devil
has one single purpose: to get men and women to say, “No!” to God. “I will not
obey.” He makes us question God’s goodness. He makes us doubt God’s motives.
That’s what he did with the first man and woman in the garden of Eden. “Did God
really say that?” Hmm, God can’t be serious, right? “God knows that if you eat
this fruit you will be like him, knowing good and evil,” meaning God is just
being selfish; he doesn’t want to share this knowledge with you. The devil says
the exact same thing to us today – he is now
at work, it says at the end of verse 2 – in those who are disobedient.
And finally, verse 3: “All of us also lived among them at
one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its
desires and thoughts.” We follow the world. We follow the devil. But here it
says, we follow the “cravings of our sinful nature.” It’s saying, even if you
locked yourself away from every bad influence in the world – which is what a
lot of Chinese parents try to do out of sincerity and out of fear as they try
to protect their kids from Justin Bieber and rude Channel 4 TV shows like the “Inbetweeners”
– It’s saying that even if you did all that, there is still an enemy inside of
you. We follow the cravings of our sinful nature. Our natural instincts will
always, always lead us in a direction away from God. Sin and death is encoded
into our spiritual DNA. It’s who we are.
That’s why verse 3 ends: “Like the rest, we were by nature
objects of wrath.” It’s just a fancy way of saying: God is angry with us. He
has every right to be angry. Now, I guess I could put that in a nicer way and
say something like: We have natural destructive tendencies that lead us down
the wrong track – but that would be a lie. God is angry when he sees me sin,
when he sees you sin. And God has set a day when he will personally punish all
who have sinned. “All of us” lived this way. “All of us” were objects of God’s
wrath.
This is news for some of you. Maybe no one has ever told you
that God is angry with the way you live you life. You think that as long as you
try your best God will do the rest. You think that if no one can see God will
leave you be. You think that everything is OK now so it will all be OK in the
end. The bible says you are dead. Dead in your sins. Dead towards God.
Following the world, following the devil, following your sinful nature –
following everything and anything except God. God is angry with you and that’s
news for some of you.
But the good news of the bible is this: God is also loving.
But God
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made
us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace
you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
Ephesians 2:4-5
Everything changes. Before, we were dead but now God made us
alive. Before, we were objects of his wrath but now we are objects of his love.
And the turning point of this change is grace.
“It is by grace you have been saved.”
And if you remember, I said at the beginning that grace
means undeserved love. Grace means giving
the very best to the very worst. When God saves, he is showing his love to the
worst people on the planet. “Even when we were dead in transgressions.” God is
like a dad who adopts the worst kid in the orphanage – the one who always gets
into trouble, the one who doesn’t want to be adopted, the one who looks at his
new dad and says, “Huh, I don’t need you. I wish you were dead!” – and God says
to him you will be my son and I will be your Father and I will love you.
God does this out of his great love. Not because of who we
are but in spite of who we are and because of who he is. God is love, the bible
tells us in 1 John 4:8. It even tells us, “This is love: not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
God sacrificed his own Son so that we might be adopted as his sons and
daughters in his family. That is what it means when the bible says the God
loves us.
Another thing I said in the beginning was that this is hard
to accept. Change? What change? We Chinese are very practical people. If
there’s a change that works, we’ll change. No problem. Whether it’s upgrading
to a new phone or changing our favourite brand of soy sauce. If you can show me
a better product; if you can show me that it works; I’ll change!
But the hard thing is this, and I wonder if you’ve ever felt
this way, you look at the Christians around you and say, “There is no change. I
am Chinese, they are Chinese. I rush for the food. They also rush for the food.
In fact, I think in some ways I am better than these so-called Christians. I
work harder. I am nicer to my mum and dad. Yah, sure they have a nice party
once a year and it’s fun to join them for Chinese New Year. But change? Come
on. What change is there to see?”
Should Christians change? Yes, they should. Should they be
different, more loving, more compassionate, more patient? Absolutely. But you
see, that’s not grace. That’s effort. Grace means these Christians here were
just as sinful as you – if not more sinful than all of you – when God called
them. Grace means that no one deserves to be saved.
And most of all, grace does not mean a changed life. Grace results
in new life. It is a life that is lived with Christ. Look at verse 6:
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly
realms in Christ Jesus.
Ephesus 2:6
Ephesus 2:6
Verse 6 is saying “Look! Look at the change!” But look
where? Not here on earth. Not at the Christians. Verse 6 is saying: Look to Jesus. God raised Jesus up from
the dead. God appointed Jesus Lord over all things. The bible is saying: If you
see Jesus, that’s where you see the real change in happening the Christian – we
are made alive with him, we are raised
with him, we are seated with him in the heavenly realms.
Look to the Christian and all you should see is a big sign
that says “Work in progress”. Some people need whole lot of work! But God is working
in the life of the Christian to change him to be more like Jesus. But look to
Jesus – that’s perfection. He is the destination. He is the end point.
And the amazing thing is, because Jesus is already died on the cross, because Jesus already rose from death and because Jesus is already seated in heaven at God’s right hand right now, the bible says that’s where the Christian is. We are already in heaven, we are already raised, we are already perfect. If you are in Christ, that’s what God sees when he looks at you – perfection! Why? Because if you are in Christ, God looks at you and he sees Jesus.
Oh, you might still sin. In fact the truth is you will definitely
sin. But Jesus paid for that sin. You will make mistakes – big, huge,
embarrassing mistakes. But Jesus paid for every single one of those mistakes –
past, present and future – when he died on the cross, so that as far as your
salvation is concerned, everything is paid for. It’s like turning up at the
restaurant and before you order a single thing off the menu the waiter comes to
you and says, “It’s all been paid in full.”
And get this: this displays God’s grace even more clearly
than if you were perfect right now. If you are a non-Christian here today, you
are not meant to look at the Chinese Church and go, “Wow, everyone here is
perfect. Perfect people, perfect food, perfect sermon (yeah right!)” But I hope
you will look at the Christians here and be amazed, “How on earth did that guy
become a Christian? Who let that person into the church? What is that idiot
doing preaching up in front?” And then I hope that you hear God’s word speaking
clearly to you, saying, “It is by my grace that these men and women have been
saved,” and your heart goes, “Whoa!” Not at us, but “Whoa!” at God. You go,
“Whoa! Jesus died on the cross to save these
guys? Why would he do that?”
To display the glory of God’s grace. You see sinful people, you see Jesus’ perfection and God’s spirit opens
your eyes so that you see clearly the grace of God.
Grace as the means,
and especially, the end of salvation
In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches
of his grace, expressed in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:7
Ephesians 2:7
Verse 7 says that the purpose of salvation is to display “the
incomparable riches of God’s grace” in Jesus Christ. Grace is not simply the means
of salvation, it is the endpoint of
salvation. I’m guessing that might be something new to many of us today.
We will often hear that Christians are saved by grace. But what the bible is teaching
us here is an even greater truth: We
were saved for grace. God saved
us so that he could clearly display a very awesome thing; a very amazing thing
that captures all who God is – his power, his glory, his transcendence, his
righteousness – that one thing which God wants to display and God wants us to
behold at the end of time is… his grace!
Meaning: this is not an evangelistic sermon – at least not
primarily. This is a worship sermon.
How do you praise God fully for who he is? How do you worship God such that he
will accept your praise? You focus on the grace of God displayed on the cross. “To
the praise of his glorious grace” – Chapter 1, verse 6 reads, then adding these
words – “which he has freely given us (or literally, ‘graced us’) in the One he
loves”. We praise God for his grace in sending
Jesus to the cross. Grace is not simply the means of salvation; it is the
endpoint of salvation.
Paul is writing these verses to believers. He is not speaking
to non-Christians asking: Do you know how
to be saved? Rather he is addressing Christians: Do you know what you are saved
for? You were saved for the praise of
God’s grace. That’s your purpose in life - that others might look at you and
give all the credit and all the glory to God. The focus is not on you – on your
salvation –the focus is on God – his glory and his grace!
And it’s when we don’t know this that we end up focussing on
ourselves. We lose sight of grace, and we boast about our works.
Not by works, only
by grace
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can
boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Ephesians 2:8-9
This then, is the opposite of grace. It is the opposite of
God’s free gift of salvation, which is works. It is the opposite of worship,
which is boasting. And if we’re honest, it sounds completely opposite to our
Chinese culture. Why? Because as Chinese we take pride in our hard work. As
Chinese, we boast that we are not afraid to put in the hours to get the job
done. Salvation is by God’s grace, not by works.
And yet, look to the very next verse, and there we see that work
is good! What’s going on?
For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared for us in advance to do.
Ephesians 2:10
Ephesians 2:10
So, the bible isn’t saying that Christians should run away
from work. If anything, it gives us a new motivation to work – and to work hard
– because God’s the heavenly boss man. It even says there that God has prepared
works for us “in advance” – meaning, there’s always something for us to do! But the bigger picture is that God
invests a new meaning into work. For us as Christians, it’s worship. It’s a response to God’s grace shown to us
on the cross. It is a fruit of our salvation.
What work isn’t –
as verse 9 clarifies – is the means to our salvation. We could never earn our
salvation. The one and only basis of our salvation is God’s grace. God did all
the work through Jesus’ death on the cross. He conquered death and sin and the
devil.
This is important because God hates boasting. Boasting
steals the glory away from God. Boasting implies that we earned our way into
heaven, that we were worthy to be saved; and that’s completely false. That is
completely offensive to God.
It all comes back to our understanding of God’s salvation
through God’s grace alone. And as I said right from the beginning, this is
hard. For us as Chinese, that’s hard. For us as the Chinese Church, that can be
especially hard; because it can be all too easy to start out wanting to serve
God in ministry, to start out wanting to help by cooking for today’s Chinese
New Year feast, in practising for the performances, in teaching at Sunday
School – but to end up boasting of
our own works by saying, “Come to my church. The people here are so nice. The
food is fantastic. The children in Sunday School are so well-behaved.” These
are not bad things, of course, and I am personally looking forward to the siu
yok (roast pork) afterwards! I do
want our Sunday School kids to grow in obedience and in love. Yet in all this, we
may unintentionally be drawing the focus back to ourselves. We end up boasting
about our achievements. We end up singing our praises.
Paul brings the focus back to God. He reminds us: We were
objects of wrath, we were sinful, we were helpless – but God was merciful, God was loving and God saved us by sending Jesus
to die for us on the cross. When the focus is back to God’s grace, only then
will we see our sin. When focus is back to God’s grace, only then will we find
our assurance in Christ. When the focus is back to God’s grace, only then will
God receive all the glory, all the power, and all the praise.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
Ephesians 2:8
Only by grace can we enter
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavour
But by the blood of the Lamb
Into your presence you call us
You call us to come
Into your presence you draw us
And now by your grace we come.
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavour
But by the blood of the Lamb
Into your presence you call us
You call us to come
Into your presence you draw us
And now by your grace we come.
