Gifts of Grace: Rescue

This is part 4 of a sermon series on Ephesians. Previously I have said my prayer, like Paul’s, is that “… the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:18-19a). We need enlightenment, because our gospel is too small. [1] By this I mean we muddle along with a gospel that is a tiny fraction of the totality of what God has available to us.

In part, we have our church vocabulary of words like saved, witness, repentance, holy, righteous, inspiration, perfect, or love. We think that we know what these words mean—and we use them regularly when we talk about church or spiritual matters—but we make the gospel small in two ways. First, our church lingo has different definitions for these words than the world does. When we talk about a witness, for example, we mean something different (or should mean something different) than the world does when it talks about witness. We throw around these terms without realizing that the world does not understand what we’re talking about, and our gospel becomes confusing gibberish to the very people we wish to engage in conversation. Second, when we think we know what these words mean, we fail to realize that God may be doing much more than we give him credit for. For example, if we think reconciliation means rebuilding a relationship like it used to be, but God is reconciled to us by making our relationship better than it’s ever been, we are the poorer for underestimating the power of God in our lives.

In today’s text, Paul says twice, “by grace you have been saved,” and we think we know what he is talking about. But what if God is doing more than we realize? What if there’s more to being saved than we think? Wouldn’t we want to know what we’re missing out on?

Ephesians 2:1-10

Commentary

v2 An elaboration of what it means to be spiritually dead can be summarized by one word: disobedience.

v3 Disobedience is expanded upon by two ideas: self-gratification and wrath. We tend to see the end of v3 as calling the spiritually dead “objects of God’s wrath”; however, the phrase here can just as easily mean “wrathful beings.” That is, we, when we are self-indulgent, we are belligerent, spiteful, and downright nasty to those who get in our way.

v5 We talk about “accepting Christ,” or “asking Jesus into our lives,” but this verse presents a different picture. Here God does all the work while we are dead—presumably unable to help ourselves.

Notes on being saved: in v5 & v8, the tense of the phrase “you have been saved” means something like “having once been saved, you are still being saved.” Sozo, the word translated as saved, also means healed, rescued, pulled from danger, or renewed.

v8-9 This elaboration of v5 spells it out: whatever sets our lives right is wholly thanks to God.

Application

When I was a child, my family used to go to my grandparents’ cottage on the Chesapeake Bay. From this seafront home, we would go out every day and sail, ski, collect sharks’ teeth, build sand castles, & swim. The surf wasn’t much by Atlantic (or Pacific) Ocean standards, but there was a mild undertow and a mild chop to the waves. As young children, we were absolutely forbidden to go in the water alone. Before breakfast, or after meals, if we begged enough, sometimes we were permitted to wander the beachfront alone, usually for the sole purpose of looking for sharks’ teeth at low tide; but the surest way of ending up in house arrest, confined to the screen porch while everyone else went to the beach, was to go in the water alone. The water, even at its early morning mildest, was simply too dangerous.

Technically, I was not alone when it happened. My mom and dad were sitting on the beach, enjoying the sun. I do not recall where my sisters were (I was only 4 or 5, and my brother was not on the scene yet). I was playing in the (mild) surf, jumping into the water, and turning around and dog paddling into shore under the watchful eye of my folks. And then it happened … a jump too far … or a surf that pulled me a bit farther from shore … and I could not touch the bottom! Rather, I should say, I could not touch the bottom reliably. As I bobbed in the waves, sucking in salt water, the crest of each wave would pick me up off the sea floor, and during the trough between each wave, I could just barely feel the bottom with my toes—and my toes brushing against the sandy bottom told me that I was being pulled out into deeper water …

This is where we are when we are spiritually dead. We are powerless to help ourselves. We flail about. We have just enough sense to (sometimes) to realize how bad it is, but we cannot change a thing. And unless a power greater than ourselves reaches into our lives, we are good as dead. However, we are quite capable of taking others down with us. If my sisters had been around, being as feeble swimmers as myself, I would have grabbed them in terror and taken them down with me. That is how it is for beings of wrath; our survival is all that matters, but ironically we can do nothing to assure our own survival.

Of course my father rescued me. It seemed like forever, my eyes looking desperately to the shore, my father rising, coming down the beach, and pulling me up and out of the surf. He carried me up the beach and sat with me on the beach blanket, caring for me even as I shivered and hacked up briny phlegm. He told me what had happened and he gave me advice about what to do if it happened again. But I understood—better than I had before—why it was dangerous to go in the water alone.

When we talk about “being saved,” that’s church lingo. Non-Christians don’t get it, and we shrink the mighty acts of God in our lives down to one: getting a ticket to heaven. God has come to change how we live today, not just where we live in eternity. A ticket to heaven that changes nothing in our lives today is dubious, and non-Christians are right to call us hypocrites when we claim a mighty Savior without the evidence of saving grace in our lives.

If my father had come into the water and merely kept my head above the waves I would have been saved—but I wouldn’t have been as grateful or as happy. Rather, I was rescued. I was completely removed from trouble. I was cared for. I was coached to play differently. I lived differently as a result.

Love Lifted Me

I was sinking deep in sin,
far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within,
sinking to rise no more,
But the Master of the sea,
heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me,
now safe am I.

Love lifted me!
Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me!
© 1912 James Rowe & Howard E. Smith

Points to Ponder

Is Paul’s concept of being saved a one-time event or a life-long transformation?

We tend to read v8 as referring to our faith. In the context of these verses, does it make sense—in the midst of our inability to save ourselves—that we can correctly exercise faith in Jesus? Is it possible that the faith Paul is speaking of if God’s faith, God’s faithfulness to act?

Re-read v4-5. If God made us alive when we were spiritually dead, what is the chance that God will abandon us during trials when we are spiritually ill? That is, can you screw up so bad that God will not help you?

God is continuing to save you. Remember, the word “save” also refers to healing, rescuing, pulling from danger, or renewing. Where is God working to heal you? Pull you from danger? Renew you? Where are you going to live differently as a result?

End Notes

1 - Author Mark Buchanan makes this point in a 1/30/08 article in Christianity Today titled “Singing in Chains.”