Audio Recording
Last week I talked about our Christian family story,
the story of God’s pre-Creation plan to adopt us as his very own children. Our story as Paul lays it out in Ephesians
1:3-14 is that God planned even before he laid the foundations of the creation
that God the Son would become a human, Jesus of Nazareth, and that in and
through him by the bonding work of the Holy Spirit God would unite all things
in heaven and on earth in him. Included
in that story is God’s pre-Creation plan to adopt us as his very own children
in Christ Jesus and apportion us an inheritance with him. As God’s creation is good, we will do good
works in it to the praise of God’s glorious grace. All this is just because of the Trinity’s
good pleasure and will, indeed his love.
In chapter two here Paul begins with acknowledging
that there is a problem that might threaten God’s pre-Creation plan: we humans
are willing participants in Death.
There’s a rogue power at loose in the air, so to speak, that we follow
by following our passions and desires, by living “my way”. We don’t get this in the English translation,
but in verse two here where Paul mentions “the course of this world”, the word “course”
in Greek is aeon meaning “an age” or
the “life force” of an age or the “spirit of the times”. If we capitalize Aeon, it becomes the name of
a god stated in a way that sounded like one of the gods the ancient followers
of Gnosticism believed in. The “Aeon of
this world” is what Paul is talking about and it is an evil power who deludes
us by pleasure and clouds our minds so that we follow in its way by living “my
way” to our own demise and destruction. It
is the way of death.
Paul calls those who follow the “Aeon of this world”
“sons of disobedience”. The Greek word
for “disobedience” is apeitheia. It sounds like apathy – unfeeling,
uninterested. It also sounds a bit like
atheism, which means “without God”. But
neither of those words are its root. Its
root is peithia, which means to be
persuaded, believing, convinced. A-peitheia is the word the early church
used to describe those who refused to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that
he is Lord and Saviour of the world, the Son of the only True God. So it’s not just disobedience that Paul’s
talking about here. It is a lifestyle of
blatant refusal of the love of God that he has so obviously revealed in and
through Jesus Christ. Humanity’s apeitheistic way of life, no matter what
spin we put on it to explain ourselves and our “way of life”, is the way of
death. To be a son of Apeitheia following
the “Aeon of this world” is to be a child of wrath.
To give an example of the “Aeon of this world” as it
persists today, I find it ironic that at funerals today it is becoming popular,
especially if the deceased was a man of successful stature, to play a recording
of Mr. Sinatra singing his classic hit “My Way”. The lyrics are as such:
“And now, the end is near and so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll
say it clear. I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life
that's full. I've traveled each and every highway.
But more, much
more than this, I did it my way.
Regrets, I've had
a few, but then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had
to do. And
saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway.
And more, much
more than this, I did it my way.
Yes, there were
times, I'm sure you knew when I bit off more
than I could chew.
But through it
all, when there was doubt I ate it up and
spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way.
I've loved. I've laughed and cried. I've had my fill,
my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside I
find it all so amusing.
To think I did all that and
may I say not in a shy way
- Oh no, oh no,
not me - I did it my way.
For what is a man,
what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things
he truly feels and not the words of one who
kneels.
The
record shows I took the blows and did it my
way.
Yes,
it was my way.”
“My Way” sung by Mr. Sinatra at a funeral just smacks of
irony. The Bible’s explanation for why
there is death and suffering and evil in the world is that we humans choose to
be our own gods who do it “my way”. “My
way” is the way to the grave in which we all will lie, so why glory in it?
Verse four begins with two of the most powerful words in
all of history and they are not “my way”.
They are BUT GOD. God has
intervened in our “my way”-ing ourselves to death in a very surprising
way. God’s pre-Creation plan is not
thwarted by our willing participation in death because God is rich in mercy and
acts in love towards us and saves us by grace. Let’s look back at Esther for a moment and
think about grace.
King Ashuerus showed grace to Esther and eventually saved
her people from Haman’s plot to annihilate the Jews. The king saw Esther standing outside his
chamber door dressed up and looking pretty.
Even though she was his wife, she couldn’t just go in there for assuming
right of entrance to the king was punishable by death no matter who you were. Yet, the king sees her and extends the royal sceptre
to her giving her access to himself, and he hears her request, and he acts for
her benefit. Such is grace.
I think we have lost the true Biblical definition of
grace. We like to say that grace is unmerited
favour and confuse it with the courtroom idea of a judge finding someone guilty
of crimes punishable by death and yet takes pity on him and waves the
punishment saying Jesus’ death served in its stead. Yet, the Bible’s definition of grace does not
originate in the courtroom. Rather, it
comes from the royal throne room. Grace
is like when a royal figure, and in our case God, takies pity on a person and
invites her into his presence where he extends his favour to her, listens to
her request, and acts in beneficence for her.
Turning back to Ephesians and Paul’s mega-monumental BUT
GOD, God has shown us this royal throne room grace. God has seen us standing outside his chamber
not dressed in our royal robes looking pretty like we deserve something but
rather looking like the walking dead who have wasted the life he gave us on following
the “Aeon of this world” along the course of “my way”. Paul’s mega-monumental BUT GOD is that in his
great love even while we were dead God has caused us to live again together
with Christ Jesus – by grace we have been saved. God has saved us, delivered us from death and
the way of living that leads to it. Our
new reality in Christ is that God has raised us up together with Christ Jesus
and seated us together with Christ Jesus in the heavenly realm where faith is
now the way of life in which we live. Furthermore,
through us God is and will continue to demonstrate to the world that is under
the influence of the “Aeon of this world” the immeasurable riches of his grace
through acts of beneficence to us in Christ Jesus in the ages or aeons that are coming. And yes, Paul did
just make a play on the word aeon. An aeon
is no god. It is simply a period of time
that is in God’s hands. The new aeon we
live in now and forever is filled with God’s grace – with access to God’s
presence, God’s favour extended towards us, and his acting for our benefit.
Paul is saying that in us in Christ Jesus there has been a
fundamental change in the nuts and bolts of human existence. We in Christ who by nature were children of
wrath bent on self-destruction are now by grace the adopted children of
God. By God’s gracious acting and not
our own we are the one’s who have been saved from death and are created anew to
live in Christ Jesus through faith. Our
way of life is no longer the “my way” that leads to death, but rather the “in
Christ” way of faithfulness. Instead of
living apeithetically, we live peithetically convinced that in his love by his
grace God has made us to be newly created for the good works that he had
planned for us to do before he laid the foundations of Creation.
To close, our song can no longer be the funeral durge of
“My Way”. Rather, we have a new song and it goes like
this:
'Tis so sweet to trust in
Jesus, just to take Him at His word,
Just to rest upon His
promise; just to know, thus saith the Lord.
How I love to trust in Jesus,
just to trust His cleansing blood.
Just in simple faith to
plunge me ‘neath the healing cleansing flood!
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust
Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
Yes, I've learned to trust in
Jesus, and from sin and self to cease,
Now from Jesus simply taking
life and rest and joy and peace.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust
Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
I'm so glad I learned to
trust Him, precious Jesus, Savior, Friend,
And I know that He is with
me, wilt be with me to the end...
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust
Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
The thing we must remember is the power of that mega-monumental BUT GOD. No matter how dark and twisted or painful life can get there is always the BUT GOD...God's intervening graciously, himself, his own presence with us, lavishing his favour upon us, and acting for us. God graciously acts to save when we are in the midst of life's twists and and turns...Oh, for grace to trust him more. Amen.
