Sermon Title: Guilty as Charged
Text: Ephesians 2:1-10
Date: August 17,2003
Scripture Introduction:
In typical fashion, the young husband and father rushed out the door and on his way out gave his wife and young child a kiss and grabbed the sack lunch on the counter by the back door of his house. He jumped into his car and before long the projectile was hurtling down the Inter State in Grand Prix style.
He wasn’t the only one traveling well over the speed limit, after all this was the way each weekday morning began. As he came over the hill, there off to the side was the highway patrolman. There would be no excuses this morning. As he zipped by the speed trap in the company of at least twenty others, he watched in the rear view mirror as the patrolman picked up his microphone and soon after that the blue flashing lights began their pulsating warning. Twenty cars speeding along, which will be the one this morning?
It didn’t take long for him to realize that the highway patrolman picked out his sharp little red coupe and as he pulled over he began to think about being late for work, the financial consequences as well as what excuses he might offer up. After he had pulled over, he watched as the patrolman walked up to the drivers side of his car, the creases of his freshly starched uniform barely moving as he drew closer. Looking out from over his sunglasses the patrolman asked for his driver’s license. “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
He quickly ignored the question and explained that he was running late, and after all he wasn’t going any faster then any one else, in fact this seemed to be the way things were every morning. Nobody follows the speed laws exactly anymore did they?
Son, I am not going to give you a ticket this morning, but I will give you a warning and tell you that you need to slow down. I clocked you at 25 over and in this state that qualifies for reckless driving. I’m giving you this break and hope that you learn a lesson, you see not to far from this very spot several years ago, a young man was obeying the speed limit but the drivers around him showed total disregard. The accident that followed due to their recklessness caused him to lose his life although he wasn’t guilty of a thing. That young man was my son. Slow down and have a nice day. The officer returned the young man’s license and the walked to the patrol car, got in, turned off the lights and merged into the traffic and disappeared over the next hill.
The remainder of his ride to work was uneventful but within the speed limit. Nothing had ever touched him so deeply. Nothing had ever had such a tremendous impact on him. All of the facts and figures, grizzly pictures on the evening news had slowed him down before, but this morning a pact was made, a pact was kept and he watched his driving from that point forward. What a difference, nothing that he had done, but the death of an innocent young man and the forgiveness and grace of another.
Let us look at one of the greatest accounts of forgiveness found in:
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 ¶ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
God’s Word written for God’s people
Prayer for Spiritual Enlightenment:
I. Deliverance
AS I thought of the Scripture reading, I started to imagine all of the examples of being found guilty, Paul tells us 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
What are some of the phrases that we might use to convey this event, caught “red handed”, caught “with your hand in the cookie jar”, I think we could go on and on. In the illustration, the man speeds by the patrolman and sees the guilty verdict registering on the speedometer. I can remember a time when my mother was baking cookies for a special occasion. She left the room with the instructions that I not eat any of the cookies. Upon her returning, she asks if I had and with cookie crumbs falling from my mouth, I told her no.
I think of some of the wonderful testimonies I have heard over the years. I think of the testimony of a man at the first church I pastured in. He was a huge man, tall and of a muscular stature, intimidating to many who didn’t know him well. He had hands that were so big they could cover my face completely. Without fail, when as opportunity came to testify for the Lord, he would stand, and with tears flowing from his eyes, he would raise his hand heavenward and tell of the miry clay that he was rescued out of. Even in the midst of his sinful life, he told of God’s wonderful mercy where when he was helpless on his own, Jesus stretched down his arms from heaven and pulled him out of the mire that his life had become.
The fact that he was delivered from his sinful ways, while he was still living in the muck and the mire made quite an impression on the man. The fact that even though his formidable stature could be seen as threatening to any who would come in contact with him, he realized it was nothing that he did or could have done that freed him from that life of sin. He knew about the gift of God that he had received and he knew the price that was paid. Paul writes in this letter to the church in Ephesus that we are caught in the act by our creator, and are without excuse for what we have done. It doesn’t matter if everyone else is doing it. It doesn’t matter if disobedience is the prevailing attitude among those in the society in which we live. It doesn’t even matter how much we hear that scientist are trying to prove that certain behaviors are natural or that their tendencies might be genetic. If we do what we ought not and for whatever reason that it might be, we are just as wrong.
II. Delivery
How then do eyes that have witnessed such a grand deliverance view the plight of others as they fumble and bumble through the process of finding Jesus?
I can almost imagine the thoughts that run through some of the minds of those that were saved but have very selective memory about the time that surrounded their deliverance. Perhaps they almost envision perfection upon their pleas at the altar.
Don’t they see the fact that as slick as those sinners are, that God can see exactly what they are doing? Don’t they see that unless they change their ways they are hell bound and hopelessly lost? Who do they think they are fooling? Why, I remember when I was lost, I headed down to that altar and I gave everything to Jesus. Didn’t Paul write in this text, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” You see the attitude that I just portrayed was displayed by the same man, who with tears running down his face, hands held heavenward said it was the Lord, not him, who pulled his lost and helpless life out of the miry clay.
Has he forgotten the boasting part. He looks at the sinner and says they, they, they, and their, their, their. He looks at his experience and says, I, I, I and me, me, me. Has the meaning of boasting changed?
Don’t they know that they are helpless on their own. I headed straight for the altar and I set things straight. The young husband and father in our opening illustration showed the change that had taken place, a change that he hadn’t purposely set out to put into practice of his own, but was the result of the story of the grief stricken father as well as his compassion and desire for a change in the young man.
III. Delivered
In the emotions that overwhelmed the man as he described his awesome delivery from a life that was mired with sin, it seems difficult to understand the lack of connection between himself as delivered sinner and the struggling sinner searching for delivery. It can go deeper. In an attempt for the church to reach out to those struggling to find Jesus, perhaps the delivery can be forgotten. The lighthouse can be left peaceful if the lamp is left unlit.
To often, I have seen those that have grown comfortable in their salvation look with scorn upon those that have not yet fully experienced the love and the life of our Savior. We see the scorn of the faces of some as the t-shirt clad man walks into the sanctuary in search of something that he has no words to describe. We see the disapproval of the saintly matrons of the church family as the jean clad single mother, somewhat disheveled in appearance, carrying two small, screaming, shabby clad children enters their sterilized Christian world.
We hear of the boards concern for youth outreach for fear of damaging the hallowed fellowship hall walls. We hear of the concern for danger to those in the community outreach team in their attempt to do a pizza party on the block where the unwanted children roam and then the justification for that concern with the uttering of a single statement. “They had their chance”. Yes, the same man made that comment as well.
At that point, does he also not fall under the charge of the statement of Paul, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Doesn’t his very own quotation come back to his mind. “Don’t they see the fact that as slick as those sinners are, that God can see exactly what they are doing?” Doesn’t he see that the same condemnation awaits him as those that he has dismissed as lost sinners?
Conclusion:
Caught with a hand in the cookie jar. It can happen to those within the walls of the church just as the one who runs with the ways of the world.
We know beyond a shadow of doubt, that when Jesus enters our lives, it is not the things that we do that saves us. It wasn’t the speeder in the opening illustration that caused his inward change but the story and the mercy of the patrolman. It wasn’t anything that the man whom I spoke about during his time of testimony could have done on his own, it was the grace of God. In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul instructs them that indeed they were lost in their transgressions and only through the grace of God are they delivered.
If this is so clear in the examples we see around us and clearly mentioned in God’s Word, why do we fail to see the needs of those that remain lost? Why do we fail to see them through the eyes of ourselves prior to our relationship with Christ? Why do we justify these attitudes with the solution that we found our way to the altar, so why can’t they.
And after we settle into a comfortable relationship with our Lord, we attend when we can, give what we have to give, and serve where we can serve, why is it that the dirty offend us, the struggling sinner upsets us, and the inappropriately dressed infuriate us. How dare they come into the house of God in such a manner. Do we think that we are immune to the consequences of sin because of our saintly status in church? Are our iniquities invisible through the process of Christian longevity?
Let me share a final story in closing.
A Crude Lifesaving Station
by Theodore Wedel
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and their money and their effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Now some of the members of the lifesaving station became unhappy, in time, however, because the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable, suitable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. And so they replaced the emergency cots with beds, and they put better furniture in the now enlarged building, so that now the lifesaving station actually became a popular gathering place for its members. They took great care in decorating it beautifully and furnishing it exquisitely, for they found new uses for it in the context of a sort of club. But fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, and so they hired lifesaving crews to do this work on their behalf, and in their stead. Now, the lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decoration and symbols - there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold and wet, half-drowned people. They were dirty people and they were sick people, some of them with black skin, some with yellow skin. The beautiful new club, as you might imagine, was thrown into chaos, so that the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where these recent victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside the main clubhouse.
At the very next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities for being so unpleasant, as well as for being a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose, pointing out that, indeed, they were still called a lifesaving station. But these few were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. And so, they did just that.
Now as the years passed, the new station down the coast came to experience the very same changes that had occurred in the older, initial station. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station had to be founded to restore the original purpose.
Well, history continued to repeat itself, so that if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a great number of exclusive clubs along that shore.
Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown!”
Call to Commitment:
Are we careful not to lose sight of our deliverance? If we do, then we might not be of help to those that are in need of the deliverer. We might become more interested in our comfortable surroundings then the purpose that brought us there. Let that attitude fester and the iniquity that is thought shielded by the walls of the church is laid open and naked before the eyes of God. Let that not happen.
Let us pray!
