Surrendering to Freedom

                                           Ephesians 2: 1-10

 

          In our journey through the Essential Tenets of ECO, it was only a matter of time before our path merged with the essentials of the Reformed Tradition. Today, we look at the fourth, and perhaps the most sublime, of the Essential Tenets of ECO: God’s grace in Christ. To look at the subject of God’s grace is to look right into the eye of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. To do that is to attempt to answer a very fundamental question. Theologian Shirley Guthrie suggests that in order to deal with grace, we have to ask the question: What does it mean to be a Christian?

          Well, that’s just silly.    We all know the answer to that question. What does it mean to be a Christian? Why, it means that…well, you know, it means that we want to be Christian! I mean, we want to be good. Well, not exactly, but obedient. Don’t we? I mean, you know, Christ died for us and all, and we should be, you know, Christian! We’re sinners, and Jesus fixed that problem. And then, we get saved, Because we believe. Because, well, you know what it means.

          What does it mean? What did Christ do? What did he change? What does it mean to be a Christian? We Christians share a belief in God. In that shared belief, we realize that we sin. We sin a lot. Even when we come to a saving belief in God, we continue to sin. And we are aware of that. So how do we get right with God? That’s another question. How do we get right with God? The more we get to know the nature of God, the more we realize how far we are from it. That’s one of the key points in ECO’s articulation of God’s grace. It states that our world is disordered, that we and all things are subject to evil and misery, that this state comes from our rebellion against God’s will, that no part of human life is untouched by sin, that what is natural to us is not very trustworthy as a marker for Godliness. Put another way, ECO restates Romans 3: 23, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

           Martin Luther is credited with the start of the Reformation. He was a tormented man who spent his life trying to measure up until he read the Bible for himself. He found the words of Ephesians 2 and other such passages and he finally understood. He understood that his guilt was unnecessary, that his attempts to work his way to heaven were futile. God already had him covered.

          Well, we don’t do that. Really? We Americans take great pride in our work ethic. Look at how hard we work. When we’re not working at our jobs, we work to stay fit, to look young. When that doesn’t make us happy, we can criticize others to build ourselves up, or even criticize ourselves to show our piety. Or we can try to out-good everyone else to show our merit for God. Martin Luther became a monk; we become workaholics or obsessed with our agendas. What’s the difference? Either way, either century, we are trying to do it our way.

          Ok, so we’re wrong with God. Again, how do we get right? We don’t. He does. The apostle Paul named this principle Justification, the act of getting right with God. We can keep reading from Romans 3. Go on to v. 24, which says that we are “justified by his grace as a gift.” Guthrie says it this way: “We are justified—made right with God—not by our own effort to climb up to God but by God’s free grace in coming to us.” We can’t earn it. We can’t buy it. We can’t barter for it. It’s a gift, a gift that we must accept by faith. When we can grasp this, that without God we are reaching for something we will never attain, that without God, all our efforts, all our work, amount to nothing more than grunting and groaning---then we can begin to see the joy and freedom that comes from being justified. And justification brings us freedom. We no longer have to worry about measuring up. We are there by God’s grace. We are right with God.       

But we have to get ready first, right? You can’t get into the club without doing something. Wrong. Read on in Romans 5. Verses 6-8 state that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” He died for us, for me and you, before we ever even acknowledged him as our Savior! ECO says that the union of Christ with the Holy Spirit brings us into right relation with God. We are his children, more surely than our children are our own. We don’t have to believe in God first. It’s not a reward. It’s a gift! How do we get right with God? We are justified—in Christ.

Is that all there is? Actually, no. There is also Sanctification. Sanctification is the process of getting right with God. Now, wait a minute. We just said that Justification is the act of getting right with God, and now you say that there is a process as well. Yes, there is a process, but it needs to be distinguished from the act. When we are justified, we are made right with God by the grace of Christ. Right then, right there. Think of it this way. Because Christ died for us, we are justified. Because we believe in that and choose to live for him, we become sanctified. It is God working within us through the Holy Spirit, helping us to leave the sin in our lives behind and move to the freedom of walking with God. Remember how ECO says that God receives us as his adopted children? That comes from Justification, being accepted by God. Through Sanctification, we begin to live as God’s children.

Why do we need Sanctification since we are Justified through the grace of Jesus Christ? That’s what Paul said, isn’t it? By grace we are saved through faith, not from our own works. True enough. But James tells us that faith without works is dead. How do we balance these competing statements? We don’t, because they don’t compete. The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as Christian faith without Christian action. If you trust in a thing, don’t you act on that trust? Of course.

So…in a way, the difference between Justification and Sanctification is the difference between immaturity and maturity. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that when we were children, we spoke as children, we thought as children, we reasoned as children. That’s Justification. Then, when we became adults, we gave up childish ways. That’s Sanctification. Justification is the acquisition; Sanctification is the development. Sanctification is what we look like when we become grownup Christians, not Christians who are grownups---grownup Christians. Paul tells us again in Ephesians 4: 13: “…until we attain to …mature manhood…so that we may no longer be children.”

How do we get there from here? Follow the leader. We have to get to God. We don’t have the ticket, but Jesus does: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except through me” [John 14:6]. Follow the road. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” [Romans 10: 9]. Jesus is the only way to the adoption which God has promised us.

What does it mean to be Christian? I think it means to follow God. Above all the voices, over all the other roads, we follow our leader. We stay on the road. We need to surrender to the freedom that lies with the grace of Jesus Christ.

By grace, we are saved…through faith.