Why on earth are we here? What is the purpose of life? Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose-Driven Life, said to TV news personality Bill O’Reilly that this is the key question that he hears over and over again as he goes around the country talking to people about their lives. And my preaching prof at PTS agrees with him. That’s why he assigned my study group one of the most depressing novels I’ve ever read in years, a book by Doug Coupland called Girlfriend in a Coma, whose basic message is "nobody believes in the future." Everything is meaningless, nothing is connected, there is no pattern or purpose to life. As Christians, this is the question we have to answer for the world.
But what if we can’t even answer it for ourselves?
What if when we look around ourselves we all agree with the author of Ecclesiastes?
"I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.... What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity." [Ec 1:13-15, 2:22-23]
Pretty depressing world view, isn’t it. But believe it or not, I LOVE the book of Ecclesiastes. Because it reminds me of how meaningless the world actually is -
if we don’t know Christ.
I’m sure you’ve all seen the popular advertising technique of "before" and "after" pictures. They’re probably most common for diet products, but I’ve also seen them for hair and make-overs. The "before" picture is almost always the least flattering picture possible - probably altered at least a little in Photoshop to make it look even worse. And the "after" picture is the exact opposite - the most flattering possible. The goal, of course, is to get you to spend your money on the not-too subtle assumption that you can purchase the same improvement that you see between the two pictures
Paul uses a similar tactic in this chapter of his letter to the Ephesians - but to a somewhat different end. He paints two pictures for us - one before Christ and
one after. He then brings it all together in verses. 8-10 and tells us what the goal of this comparison is. Before Christ, we
"were dead through the trespasses and sins in which [we] once lived, following the course of this world, 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." [v.1- 3]
That’s not a very flattering, picture is it. In fact, it’s hard to imagine it being much worse! The very first word Paul uses to describe us is dead. And although the usual "before" picture isn’t very attractive, deliberately so to get us to buy the product, at least there’s someone home. You may look awful on the outside, but the message is that the real you, the beautiful you, is within your reach. This before picture is much worse than that. Without Christ, we are spiritually dead, dead on the inside, no matter how much we pretty up the exterior with coats of paint and misdirection.
Paul’s second take on our before state is one of slavery, although he doesn’t actually use the word. The picture shows us being controlled by three things, which is the same as saying we are enslaved by them. We are shown "following the world, following the ruler of the power of the air, following the desires of flesh and senses."
Now what does that mean? First, the world. Our whole environment, our culture, our society, and even our laws work to keep us dutifully following the crowd. You name the sin, I can give you an example of how society encourages us to embrace it as a good - but you don’t need me tto do that, any one of you can create a similar list. Of course there are the obvious ones, lust and greed anger are stoked daily by shows glamorizing violence and casual sex and easy money. From Desperate Housewives to Wheel of Fortune, we are encouraged to keep our eyes away from God and on the cheap and tawdry pleasures of the moment. But the most insidious message of all is the one that says that breaking the rules - any rules - is the way to personal fulfillment. From "Have it your way" to "No rules - just right" we are encouraged to believe that we can chart a good course through life on instinct and impulse. Eugene Peterson puts Paul’s famous admonishment in Rom. 12:2, "Do not be conformed to this world" this way: "Don’t get so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."
Now the second voice that we follow is what Paul calls "the ruler of the air." This is of course a reference to the enemy of our souls, usually known by the Hebrew word for adversary, or Satan. While this isn’t the place for a detailed explanation of the personal nature of spiritual evil, Scripture takes it very seriously, and so must we. Ephesians talks more about the spiritual realm than any other NT book, for good reason. We are bit players in a cosmic drama, most of which is taking place out of our sight. We can choose to pretend these forces do not exist, and so be at their mercy, or we can be aware of them, and learn to distinguish between the pressures that force us away from God and the invitation that calls us into his protection. "The devil made me do it" is no excuse. We have been given a ticket out of slavery, and have only ourselves to blame if we don’t take advantage of it.
The third voice that we too often let seduce us onto the wrong paths is our own selves - not just our bodies, with their lusts and appetites, but our egos, our desire for power and attention and autonomy. It might seem strange to describe ourselves as slaves to our own desires, since our culture defines freedom as basically the ability to do anything we want; the problem is that the things we want are usually self-destructive. From crack cocaine to cheesecake, from eternal youth to trophy wives, we chase after mirages as if we were chained to them. Which, Paul says, we are.
Many of us worry about which one of the three we’re most susceptible to. Is it the world? Is it the flesh? Is it the devil? In fact it doesn’t really matter which, because they take turns playing lead. All three conspire to keep us from God. We need to confront each one in our ongoing search for holiness. And by holiness I simply mean learning to recognize the paths that lead us closer to God rather than the ones that lead us away from God, and then choosing to walk in them.
The "before" picture ends with what may be the most uncomfortable line in the passage: "we were by nature children of wrath." Just today I heard someone say, "we’re all children of God." I can’t even remember in what context - but the point the speaker was trying to make was that we shouldn’t distinguish between one belief system and another. And certainly we should treat all people with equal respect as made in the image of God. But the fact of the matter is that becoming God’s children takes two. The apostle John tells us that "to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." [Jn 1:12] We become children of God when we consent to the adoption, not before. Until then, our natural condition is very different. The Hebrew idiom "children of wrath" actually means "characterized by", and so what Paul is saying is that in our natural condition we only deserve God’s anger, God’s rejection. This is not a good place to be! Wrath is a very strong word, we don’t like to use it much, but what it means is that God’s perfect holiness and purity simply cannot co-exist with the unimproved state of our internal furnishings. The ensuing destruction is as inevitable as lighting a fire in a room with a gas leak. Ka-Boom!
The wrath of God. We don’t talk about it partly because it’s politically incorrect, but it’s also not a good motivator in the long run. We also can’t seem to wrap our minds around the idea that the God who loves us enough to die for us might also be the source of wrath and judgment. But it simply boils down to the fact that God’s perfect love hates the things that destroy us, that eat away our very souls, and if we can’t let go of them, we’ll be wiped out with them. A loving God cannot be ambivalent about evil, any more than a loving mother is okay with the drug dealer who destroys her son, or the loving father is okay with the scumbag who rapes his daughter.
We don’t think of people who don’t know the Lord along those lines as "objects of wrath" any more, do we? I do believe that God’s mercy is greater than we can imagine. But I also know that If we choose to live apart from God’s mercy, he will eventually let us do just that. The harsh reality is that outside of Christ, people are spiritually dead now, and will be totally dead permanently.
The "after" picture is just as beautiful, just as astonishingly and miraculously
transformed as the before picture was ugly and disheartening. One of the most beautiful words in the English language is "But..."
And that is how Paul sets the hook that will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, make the sale.
"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." [v. 4-6]
The first verse in this "after" picture places the focus squarely where it needs to be – on God. Paul zeroes in on both God’s love and God’s mercy. Each one is emphasized with adjectives: "great" love and "rich" mercy. And because of those two amazing characteristics of God, two things have happened to us: First of all, we have been made alive. Instead of the powerless self that used to be at the mercy of every voice and pressure that came our way, there is a living, thinking, seeing self who can begin to discern between good and evil, between right and wrong, between death and life.
Secondly, we have been raised with Christ. And to understand what Paul is talking about here, we need to glance back at the last part of chapter 1, which we looked at last Sunday, because this is about more than resurrection. Remember that everything is designed to be gathered together in Christ, under Christ, and that Jesus has the authority to subject all other powers in the universe to his rule because God has raised him up and seated him at his right hand. Well, now we discover that far from being under Christ’s feet, as part of the cosmic footstool, we are actually lifted up with him, sitting with him at the right hand of God and no longer subject to the powers that have been ruling over us for all this long time.
What a concept. Our name cards are on the head table. We have reserved parking spaces. We go to the head of the line. Who are we to get all this privilege, all this status? It’s simple. We’re God’s children. We are co-heirs, along with Christ, of the inexhaustible riches of the creator of the universe.
But why on earth or more accurately, why in heaven? would God do such a thing. The answer is "so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." [v. 7] God did it so the world would know what he is like. Do you realize that before Jesus, people didn’t know that God was love? They didn’t know that they were created to be in relationship with God? Most people believed they were the playthings of at best whimsical and at worst malevolent deities who didn’t care if you lived or died unless it amused them, like rolling the dice or watching gladiatorial games.
God saved us so that the world would know what He is like; when people look at us, what do they see? When we claim to be God’s children, what people need to see in us is "the immeasurable riches of his grace [expressed] in kindness ." Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, and for all God’s people through the ages, is that they would see God through us, taste something of His goodness and grace, and that would awaken in them a hunger for more.
The heart of the gospel shows up in the next verse. We shouldn’t have to be told that we didn’t earn this incredible gift God has given us. But for some reason we do. For some reason we need to be reminded again and again that it is God’s grace that we live on, not our goodness. It is our belief in that grace, the faith to see it at work, and the desire for more of it, that enables us to follow Jesus Christ into the very presence of God. It really is very simple: salvation is by grace through faith. What are we saved from? Death. What are we saved for? Life. Who does it? God. How does he do it? Through Jesus. How do we get it? By having faith. Not just by believing that what Jesus, and Mark, and Luke and John and Paul and hundreds of Christians since then have said. But by choosing to live our lives on that basis, by making our life choices on the belief that what Jesus has told us is not only true but Truth, and that life is to be found nowhere else.
And the final question is the one we started with.
What’s the point? So what?
The whole point is that God created us intentionally. We aren’t an afterthought, a byproduct of some more important process. On the contrary, we are "God’s workmanship." When you make or do something that is the crown of your career, are you proud of it? Does it matter to you? Does it give you pleasure to see it doing what it’s supposed to do? Does it give you pleasure to have people you love eating that special meal, trusting that nifty program, singing that heartfelt song? That is what you and I are: the craftsmanship of God.
Everything is created for a purpose. And God created us not just for him to admire, but for us to be productive. He created us to be creators after his own model, to make things that are beautiful, to make things that are life-giving, to make things that are good. We were created, very simply, "to do good works." Some people get confused by this, because our works don’t save us. It is God’s work that saves us. But he has saved us that we might know his joy in being, in our turn, assistant creators of life, of love, of truth and beauty and goodness. Good works flow naturally out of who we have been made to be by the craftsmanship of God. We are not saved BY works, but FOR works. So they are important. They are crucial
Until we fulfill our purpose, we cannot know the joy that God has created us for, any more than a song can be heard before it has been sung. But the good news is that we don’t have to invent our own purpose. God already has prepared for us the opportunities, the thrills and satisfaction of being caught up in the most important adventure ever imagined: the adventure of following Jesus Christ into
the future God has prepared. Do you believe in that future? Do you plan to be part of it?
