Sinners and Saints
Ephesians 1: 1 – 3; 2: 1 – 3
A king sits on a throne thinking about all of his accomplishments—the foes he has slain, the armies he has conquered, the cities he has built, all the things that he has achieved in the course of his life.
A prophet of God appears before him thinking of some of his less famous acts; and the prophet tells him a story.
“There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” (2nd Samuel 12: 1 – 4)
Then, the Scriptures tell us, the king
…burned with anger against the man and [he] said to [the prophet], “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
And then, I imagine there was a moment when the prophet and the king locked eyes, and even before a word was spoken, the king knew—he knew in his heart what that next word would be.
“You are the man,” said Nathan, the prophet of God.
And David, the shepherd king, is undone. For all that he has accomplished, all of his victories, all of his self-righteousness is eclipsed in this single moment where he stands exposed before God for what he truly is and what he has become, an adulterer and a murderer, just another bad king of Israel.
And we are not surprised. The history of humanity, even that recorded in the Bible, is, time and time again, the history of a people overtaken and overwhelmed by sin. In Scripture we read of the failures and faults of all, from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden to Noah to Abraham to Moses to the kings and prophets of Israel (David not least among those). And sometimes we are comforted, to think that the people of God who have gone before were really no different than we ourselves. But sometimes, we may be tempted to think, “If I had been there—if I had walked that path—if I had been in that one’s shoes, then things would certainly have turned out differently.”
But we must be careful, because in the moment that we begin to think like David, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay…” in that very moment the word of God stands before us as the prophet saying, “Truly; but it’s you. You’re the one. You have done this thing. You are no better.” Because the fact is, sin is endemic to the human race. It touches us at the very core of who we are, polluting everything that we think, and say, and do.
Didn’t we see this in Ephesians chapter 2 just a few moments ago? Remember? Paul wrote,
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.(Ephesians 2: 1 – 3)
As Martin Luther said, “We are all sinners, even in the best of lives.”
Or, if you prefer the old apostle to the old reformer, listen to Romans chapter 3.
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good, not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
And then, of course, John;
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
It seems pretty clear doesn’t it? We are all sinners. We have all sinned. In the words of Nathan the prophet, “You are the one,” and so am I. So are we all.
The words of an ancient liturgy echo the truth across the centuries, “I confess to God the almighty, and to you, my brothers and my sisters; I have sinned to my own fault in my thoughts, and in my words, and in the deeds that I have done, and in what I have failed to do.”
We are all sinners, even in the best of lives, and we must all pray, together with the publican, “Lord, have mercy…”
But here’s the thing. Even though Ephesians chapter 2 highlights the fact that we are all sinners, telling us
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air…gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
that’s not where the book begins, and it’s not where it ends. Paul did not address this letter “to the vile, disgusting sinners who are at Ephesus.” He did not write “to the totally depraved who are faithless in Christ Jesus.” No. That’s not how he saw the church and it’s not how he addressed her. Rather, as we saw a few minutes ago, he wrote,
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
That’s right. “To the saints…” “To those who have been set apart for God in Ephesus…” “To those in Ephesus who are holy in Christ Jesus…”
Because it’s true, sin is endemic to the human race. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” but even that verse isn’t really about sin. What Paul actually wrote, in its context, is
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus
So as often as we’ve used Ephesians 2 and Romans 3 to prove the point, “we are all sinners”, that’s not really Paul’s point. He would, rather, point us in a different direction. He would have us understand that in spite of the fact that “all have sinned”, and “there is no one righteous, not even one…” there remains over and above all that a righteousness which comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, for we are not justified by the works of the law—we’re not justified by our goodness; we’re not justified by our theological knowledge—we are justified “freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” So in Christ Jesus, we are no longer defined by the length and breadth and height and depth of our sin. In Christ Jesus, we are defined by the length and breadth and height and depth of God’s love and mercy and grace.
And this is the point—in Romans and in Ephesians, and all through the Scriptures. This was Paul’s prayer:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This why, right out of the gate, when Paul writes “to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus”, his spirit and his words soar and lift us far above the desolation of our sin. We’ve seen it and, if the Lord is willing, we’ll consider it together at a later time. Paul wrote,
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
And over and over and over again in this precious little book we are reminded not so much of who we were, but of who we have become in Christ. For
because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are [his] workmanship…
And I think, if I could leave you with just one thing this morning, it would be that. Learn to see both yourself and one another in this way, as sinners and as saints, for we are all both. The playing field is level. We are all sinners, “There is no one righteous [that is, in himself], there is not even one.” Not one of us can claim to be better than another. Not one of us can claim any righteousness of our own. But still, in Christ, we are all saints; sanctified, holy, set apart to God and to his service.
But it’s this way of seeing that’s so important to our life together in the church of Jesus Christ; this ability to recognize that while we all share the same history—we were, “by nature” objects of God’s wrath—still, in Christ and by his grace, we have, according to the Scriptures, become partakers of the divine nature. This is why Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians,
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Because if we stop seeing each other from a worldly point of view, if we stop ranking ourselves on a scale of human righteousness and trying to determine who stands higher and who lower, if we stop worrying about who’s the greater or the lesser sinner, if we stop passing judgment and comparing ourselves to ourselves for a little while, then we may find that we have the freedom to actually see Christ in one another; we may find, looking through the eyes of grace that we can discern his body in the people who gather in his name.
Even David who fell so often and so hard that he is held up in the Canons of Dort as an example of the serious and outrageous sins by which some may be carried away is not remembered so in Scripture. No. When Paul remembers his life in Acts chapter 13, he doesn’t point to either the giant or the murder and adultery that came later. He simply recalls that God testified concerning him,
‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (Acts 13: 22)
And that’s enough, because the shepherd-king’s righteousness was never his own any more than yours or mine. He found hope in God alone and for all his faults and failures—for all his sins, even the serious and outrageous ones—he was received by God as righteous in Christ Jesus; as are you; as am I.
So, standing here together at the beginning of this new chapter, there’s something that I must share with you we stand as sinners and saints—not “either/or”, but “both/and”. We are all sinners, you and I, even in the best of lives, and chances are, ours are not the best of lives.
Of course, this is a dangerous statement for a pastor to make.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of Pastor Inqvist, the Lutheran minister in the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota who longs to let his congregation know that he’s really no different, and certainly no better than any one of them. He wants to stand up one Sunday morning and say, “People, I have a confession to make…” But he knows that as soon as the words are out of his mouth, the congregation’s first thought will be, “Oh my, he’s had an affair…” And their second thought will be, “I wonder with who?”
Nevertheless, I have a confession to make here at the beginning of our walk together. I am just like you, and we are all sinners; so, it won’t always be easy. It won’t always be smooth. There will be times when we let one another down. There will be times when we fail to live as the saints that we have become, but still, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and in Christ, we are right with God and heirs to life everlasting. So we may stand together as sinners and say, “I confess to God the almighty, and to you, my brothers and my sisters, I have sinned to my own fault in my thoughts, and in my words, and in the deeds that I have done, and in what I have failed to do.” But we may also stand together as saints, confessing with that great multitude whom no man can number, gathered from every nation, tribe and language,
“Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.”
On April 18th, 1581, the great reformer Martin Luther stood before the diet of Worms and said, “Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” Even so, by the grace of God, may we, the body of Christ, the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth, make our stand in Christ and upon his grace, and learn to see one another as sinners made saints, forgiven and righteous in the precious blood of Christ Jesus our faithful savior.
Peace [be to you all], and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. (Eph. 6: 23 – 24)
