“Just the Way We Are”
Ephesians 1:3-14
Is there anyone here that struggles with shame?
Do you ever feel as if you have let God down, to the point where you find it hard to believe that God could possibly love you?
If this is the case, you probably also struggle with despair, which is the absence of hope.
I think a lot of us deal with this junk, if not all the time, at least some of the time.
And it can be destructive, and it’s no fun.
In college I got in with a group of Christians who were very focused on works righteousness.
In other words, to stay in God’s good graces you had to do everything correctly or perfectly.
One of the many problems with this type of theology is that no matter how sincerely we try, we always fall short of fulfilling the requirements of the law, as in the law of the Ten Commandments and other laws found in the Bible.
There are always things we have done that we should not have done and things we should have done that we didn’t do.
The effort to be perfect leaves us isolated, focused on self, torn with feelings of guilt and shame, self-hatred…and oftentimes hopelessness.
I think this might be why many people give up on the church.
They might be in with a fundamentalist group that teaches a strict morality and an angry God Who is impossible to please.
And when they can’t live up to the demands of following this god they give up trying.
One day I was walking across my college campus feeling especially down and out about myself.
I believed that I had missed the mark
I had tried and tried to please God and it wasn’t working.
I even got to the point where I believed I had lost my salvation.
As I was walking and feeling bad about myself—feeling as if God couldn’t possibly love me—I happened into a record store…***Put up Screen of Record Store***
…for those under a certain age, there used to be stores that sold music on vinyl records, CDs, and tapes.
They were called record stores.
I walked into this campus record store, and the song playing on the speakers in the store was Billy Joel’s “I love you just the way you are.”***Put up Screen of Picture of Billy Joel***
At that moment, because of what I was wrestling with, it felt as if God were speaking to me through that song.
And God was saying, “Stop being so hard on yourself.
I love you just the way you are.
I created you.
I know you better than you know yourself.
I know you are not perfect.
I know your every weakness.
I know your every battle.
And I love you just the way you are.
Now, I don’t want you to stay where you are.
You and I have a long journey ahead, but I want you to know that I love you just the way you are.”
That was a real moment of epiphany for me.
It brought me peace and a huge sigh of relief.
It also enabled me to start loving myself again, and that’s because I became convinced that God loved me—no matter what!!!
(pause)
The Church in Ephesus had a hard time believing that they were loved by God.
Therefore, Paul talked to them a lot about God’s grace and love for them.
He told them that before the world began, God chose them, and that they were so special to God that God had adopted them to be God’s children and that it was God’s pleasure and will to do this.
And this adoption had not come cheaply.
They have been adopted and redeemed by the blood of Christ, shed on the Cross of torture and shame so that God could claim them as God’s own.
That is a lot of love.
And God has the same love for you and for me.
Before the foundation of the world, God knew you.
God had already planned to create you, and decided to have this amazing relationship with you.
It’s an wonderful and freeing truth, when we come to believe it and embrace it.
God chose us in Christ, and even when our plans don’t work out…
…Even when we fall short…
…Even when we don’t feel that we measure up and even when the world treats us badly or our friends or family abandon us we can fall back on this knowledge—that God has chosen us—God has saved us by grace through faith in Christ—and the choice to do this was not ours and it is not ours to take away.
Paul, the author of our Scripture Lesson for this morning, grew up reading the Old Testament. ***Put up Picture of the Old Testament***
That was his Bible.
And a prominent theme in the Old Testament is that Israel is God’s chosen people.
It begins with Abraham, whom God chose to be the father of many nations, and through whom all nations would be blessed.
That theme continues when Abraham’s descendants are rescued in Egypt.
In Deuteronomy 7:6 ***Please Put Scripture on the Screen***
It says, “You are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord you God has chosen you out of all the peoples of the earth to be God’s people, God’s treasured possession.”
And as God’s treasured possession they were called to bless others by being a light to the nations through whom God would make God’s Self known.
And Paul is telling us that in Christ, we have been chosen as well.
Sometimes we might think of being chosen as simply meaning we have a first-class ticket to Heaven, and we get to be at the front of the line.
But that isn’t what Paul is talking about.
Paul is simply telling us that we are the new Israel; we have been chosen to bless the world.
The church, the disciples Jesus calls are to be a light to the nations.
We have been chosen to do God’s work on this earth—to care for the poor and sick, to feed the hungry, to bring hope to the hopeless, to strive for justice and peace, and to do all of this in the name of Jesus Christ.
That is what we have been chosen for.
Paul also says, that we have been chosen in Christ to be holy and blameless before God in love.
And this is where many of us get confused and think that it’s up to us to get there.
There’s only one problem with that, and you’ve probably already figured it out.
Who among us is holy and blameless?
I’m not and I’m guessing you aren’t either.
And Paul reminds us elsewhere that none of us are.
The nation of Israel wasn’t.
The church isn’t.
And none of us as individuals are, either.
And that, of course, is why we need a Savior.
Jesus is the one Who IS holy and blameless in love.
We don’t always get it right, but Jesus does.
He is God’s beloved, in whom God is well pleased.
He is the light to the nations.
He is the promised descendent of Abraham.
He is the one in whom all nations, all peoples, are to be blessed.
And we who place our trust in Him are adopted into His family…and heirs according to God’s promise to Abraham.
Paul writes in verses 13-14 our Scripture Lesson of this morning ***Please put Scripture on Screen***
“In Christ you too were chosen. When you heard the Good News of salvation, the word of truth, and believed in it, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance, the deposit paid against the the full redemption of a people who are God’s own—to the praise of God’s glory.”
Only in Christ are we holy and blameless in love.
And that is grace—it’s a free gift.
Notice, though, that Paul doesn’t say “holy and blameless in moral perfection,” or “holy and blameless because we never drink alcohol,” or “holy and blameless because we never sin,” he says “holy and blameless in love.”
John Wesley,***Put up Picture of John Wesley*** the Founder of the Methodist Church, taught that Christian Perfection is all about love.
It’s to have a habitual love for God and neighbor.
It’s not some outward religious thing.
It’s an inward and spiritual reality that manifests itself in acts of love, not because it has to, but because that is what it does.
We don’t get there in this life.
But through Christ we can be transformed more and more into those who truly and with a warm heart love both God and our neighbors.
And that is what makes life worth living.
(Pause)
A researcher gathered a group of college students***Put up Picture of College Students*** together to ask them a number of questions and the one thing they all agreed on was that God was terribly disappointed with them.
This brings nothing but frustration, shame, guilt, and despair.
But God is not disappointed in any of us.
God loves us just the way we are.
That is the point.
What is the most famous passage of Scripture?
John 3:16.
And it says, ***Please put Scripture on Screen*** “God so loved the world that God gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
It goes on to verse 17 to say: ***Please put Scripture on Screen***
“God did not send God’s Son into the world to condemn the world but to save it through him.”
Later on in Ephesians Chapter 2 we are told that even the ability to have faith is a gift of God lest anyone should boast.
Again, God chooses us.
God saves us.
We don’t save ourselves.
Therefore, we can’t take away and ruin what God has freely given us.
No matter how you might feel about yourself.
No matter what you have done.
God loves you just the way you are.
