Fourth Sunday in Lent

SERMON - Poems Are Made By God!

INI

Text: Ephesians 2:4-10

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

In Jesus’ name, Beloved of God,

A young man was about to leave home for college. When it came time for that final talk with his father, he was expecting quite a list of reminders, but all his father did was put his hand on his shoulder and say, "Remember who you are."

That father had already given his son quite a legacy, so he did not have to send him away to college to find himself. His son would be well if only he remembered who he was.

Now we are in the twenty-first century, but we still occasionally hear someone wondering who they are, where they fit in (and we all want to fit in). People are seeking the answers both inside the classroom and outside of it. They want to know both where they fit in with those things around them in the world, and where they fit in with those things that are above them, the wisdom and power of God. All this is another way of saying that people want meaning and purpose for their lives.

Nor is this search for meaning in life restricted to college students. Middle-aged people find no zest for living when they lose purpose and meaning; older people feel useless and lose interest in going on when they do not fit in.

This morning, especially, we are interested in missionaries. Where do they come from? Where do they fit in? How will they fare? And our Creator lays before us just what we need to know, but first of all about ourselves, our Past, Present, and Future.

PAST

Our past is not so much fun to learn about. You see, He says, “we were dead in transgressions.” Dead? Yes, dead, even while we were walking around.

But as we look around, we see some very decent and upright atheists, some pagans we wouldn’t mind having for neighbors,some heathens who don’t overrun and vandalize their neighbor’s property.

Are they really dead before God? Some of them are easier to get along with than our fellow Christians!

Well, we do find people in various stages of decay. The daughter of Jairus was just a few minutes dead when Jesus arrived on the scene. She no doubt still looked tender and beautiful to her loving parents.

The widow’s son at Nain, however, was being taken out for burial, sometime after he had died, when Jesus met them at the city gates. And when Jesus just touched the stretcher, it was enough to stop the entire procession.

And Lazarus? When Jesus told the men to roll the stone away from his tomb, Martha said, “Oh Lord, he’s been dead four days now. There will be a stench.” But Jairus’ daughter was just as dead as Lazarus. She was so dead that all the people in the room laughed when Jesus said she would wake up.

Paul says that we were all dead, though to the human eye perhaps in different stages of decay. We were all dead to God, and we had no purpose in life.

Oh, in some things we had a “free will.” We could decide when to get up in the morning, what color socks or shoes to wear; we could decide to get in our car and head toward New Ulm, or Eagle Lake, or the twin cities; but we had no free will to come to God or do anything about the wall of sin that stood between us and God. We were dead. Our mind was hostile to God. And notice that even the apostle Paul, that renowned missionary, also includes himself in this dead past! “even when we were dead”

That was our past. We inherited it from our parents all the way back to Adam and Eve, whose children were born in their image. It is good to know our past, because then we know where not to turn for help in time of need, and we also see that no one could make himself a missionary.

PRESENT

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive (once more the missionary apostle includes himself) with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

Here is our present. We have been saved. How? By what God has accomplished even now. Now He has made us alive with Christ. How? By grace, because of His great love for us.

There is no room here for our great value. We were dead. But Christ came, lived the life we owed to God, and couldn’t live, died the death that we deserved, and didn’t dare to face.

And after He had satisfied all the Law of God in our place, as our substitute – God made Him alive again, still our substitute, and raised us with Him!

So, as in Christ we see the death we do not have to suffer, so also in Christ we see the life we do not deserve, but which is the free gift of His marvelous grace!

By grace you have been saved. We are not saved because we prayed so earnestly, repented so bitterly, turned over a new leaf, invited Christ into our life, made restitution for past sins, tried to do good, kept the law and obeyed the sermon on the mount, made a decision for Christ, or told others about Christ.

By grace you have been saved. God so loved the world, that He made the decision. Christ invited Himself into your death, to give you His life! Now you fit in with God, because He made you fit in. He made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – He raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms, in Christ Jesus.

What does it mean to be seated in the heavenly realms? Just what Jesus said as He was being raised up: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me....”

But we don’t have all authority, we say. Yet it is at our disposal. Because God sees us in connection with Christ, we are saved, and all things work together for our good. What would we do with all authority if not cause all things to work together for good?

Of course, we lack the wisdom to work things together properly; we lack the imagination to see the solutions, even if we could wave our finger and part the sea. But in Christ that wisdom is also at our service and all things work together for good. Remember – this is the God who turned the murder of His dear Son into the rescue of the human race! Could there be any problem, then, that He could not turn around?

And now we see where we fit in with others, too, don’t we? They are not all insane. And we don’t come from any better stock than they. We were all dead. We were all mission prospects! Nor did Christ die for us any more than He died for them. He died for all. Acceptable now to God, we can hold up our head though all men despise us; and sinners like everybody else, we know Who will raise them up, but we do not even have to stoop to lend a helping hand to the lowliest, as missionaries of our merciful God!

There is an old adage, “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” Well, God does better than that! He makes living missionaries of those who were dead in transgressions. “We are God’s workmanship.” Paul says our present situation is a poem to God. The word translated workmanship is also the word from which we get our English word “Poem.” Now we have purpose in life: not that the world should come to revolve around us, but that we may be a poem that glorifies God, its author.

A famous American poet once wrote “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” But this kind of poem is made only by God! We were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” We won’t even be able to boast of those good works, of course, because our eyes will be fixed on the object of our glory, our Savior God, and our feet will naturally fall into the good works that God has prepared like flag-stones in the life that lies before us. It is not that we don’t know what is going on in the world around us, but that we also know our glorious

FUTURE!!

The future can be summed up in one word: sight.

Now we often need to trust

• that all things work together for good

• that we are seated in heavenly places

• that we are acceptable to God

• that He is watching over each of His children

• that He is listening to each of His children.

• that we may rejoice in His great and gracious Word even though we may not see its glorious results.

But then we will see all these things, for in the coming ages He will “show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (v. 7)

After a reprobative intro, and resuscitative verses, the poems made by God have a resplendent outcome (with no conclusion)! Knowing past, present and future like this, we will know where to turn in time of need, and we will have direction in the various decisions we have to make in life. One thing is sure, we will not want to make any decisions that would leave us or others further away from the Word of His grace and the meaning, the purpose, the future that our lives have in Christ, for that is what we have to share with others.

Finally, God has made every believer His missionary, perhaps to children, or to adults, to friends, or to acquaintances. In every situation, may God grant us all this favor, to “remember who we are.” Amen.

—Professor Paul Schaller
Immanuel Lutheran College, Eau Claire, WI