Sermon: Living as God's disciples

Who here has seen the movie Ice Age 2: The melt down.

In this movie there is a character called Ellie she’s a mammoth.
But she has a huge problem she believes she is a possum.
She has been adopted by some possums, hung out with possums and tries to do many things that possums do.
Like swing from trees…
Imagine for a moment me swinging upside down from a thin branch and you get the picture.

Later on the movie she becomes aware she is a mammoth then life make sense.
Her life is enhanced when she understands who she really is.

Likewise as we live our life in this world,
interacting with all sorts of people
and dealing with all sorts of situations.
Life will only make sense to us when we understand not just that we are Christians and what this really means.

And this is important if we are going to live as God calls us to live.

And our reading from Ephesians chapter 2 is a great help in this area.
It summarises some of the essential and foundational things about being a Christian.

The first thing Ephesians 2 reminds us is that God saves us so we can have a good future with Him in heaven.
From verse 4 we hear the following
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 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.

Can you imagine sitting at God’s right hand with Jesus.
With Jesus saying to the Father, I love this person next to me.
This is someone I died for.

And from John 3:16-17 we hear
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Think about what this means for you.

First of all God saving us shows his love for us.
Our relationship with God is one centred around love…
And as 1 John reminds us it is about God loving us first and we responding with love to him, love which he has given us.
It is a relationship where he desires to love you, not condemn you.
Now God doesn’t force us to love Him,
For those of you who have seen the movie Bruce Almighty there is a great scene in that movie that explains this.
Bruce has been given God’s power but not His wisdom.
And at one stage His girlfriend Grace will not love him back.
So He asks God, “How do I force someone to love me?”
And God’s reply, “Now you see my problem”

Scripture is so clear that God’s prime focus is to love and save us A Christian friend of mine says that his work colleagues view of Christianity and God
is far from that.
Usually it is them informing him he has done something wrong.
They believe that God is about only judging people and sending people to hell.
Do you know people like that?
People who only think God is about judging.

He is constantly looking at ways he can introduce them to God’s love.
And he has found the best way to do this is through His actions.

Secondly in God saving us for a future in heaven He gives us the opportunity to have a very long term view.
A long term view of life that goes beyond this life.
Ever experienced situations in dealing with others where you seem to be on a completely different path.
Often that is because you and the other person have a different view of life.
If you have a view of God saving you for a future with Him in heaven, this life is not the end but preparation for the future with Him in heaven.
Whilst
Situations in dealing with others whose view is limited to what they can get out of this life.
And when you are dealing with people who see this life as all that there is, then they are likely to be trying to get the most of life for themselves as possible.
Often they see themselves as the most important thing in this world.
And so we will experience conflict….
Galatians 5:17 says
For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.

The second major thing that Ephesians reminds us about is that God didn’t have to save us…
It is also important to remember that we don’t deserve to be saved and we have no hope of saving ourselves.
Listen again to Ephesians 1
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Yes God sees us as valuable…so valuable that he died for us
But remember it is not because we deserve it.
We don’t deserve it.
God doesn’t save you because you have worked hard,
He doesn’t save you because you have been on this committee or that committee,
He doesn’t save you because you know the right things or know the right people.
And He doesn’t save you because your parents are Christian.
There is nothing about you that forces Him to save you except one thing He loves you.
It is important to remember this.
Our human nature doesn’t like this….it likes to be independent and say things like I can do anything I put my mind to.
It likes to say I am good, I deserve this or that.
The truth is we rely on God for salvation.
Without God we are lost.
Now imagine being tossed overboard on a boat, and the boat disappearing.
And you are lost at sea.
You have no hope of saving yourself.
Your require help from someone else.
That is what our life is like with God.
We have no hope of saving ourself and we need God to save us.

Now think about how this affects how you relate to God and others.
For me it reminds me to be humble, to give thanks and credit to God for everything.
And when dealing with others.
It reminds me not to be prideful.
When I see someone else sin, especially those sins I detest it reminds me to take a step back and deal with them in the same way God has dealt with me.
With love.
With forgiveness as prime goal.
It doesn’t mean we ignore the sin, but we look at dealing with it in a way that encourages people into a good relationship with God.

There is also a 3rd major thing that Ephesians 2 teaches us.
Some people have fallen for the trap that because God has saved us and there is nothing we can do to earn salvation then they can put their feet up, do nothing else and drink beers or cups of tea.

Listen to what Ephesians 2 verse 10 says
For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Occasionally I come across some Christians who are scared about doing good and scared about encouraging others to do good….
They worry that they might create a culture of good works…
They seem to think that all good works are bad for the Christian faith.
There is no problem with good works…
God’s instructions to a young pastor through St Paul in 1 Timothy 6:18 was
“Command them to do good, to be rich in good deed, and to be generous and willing to share.”
And from Hebrews 10:24 we hear,
“Let us consider how we can spur each other on toward love and good deeds.”
Doing good is not a problem provided we don’t see it as currency to gain salvation.
Amongst my stuff somewhere is a small coin and note collection.
In that collection are some Indian rupee’s.
Now tomorrow morning if I was to take them down to the local milk bar to buy the paper it is highly unlikely they would accept them.
They would be useless.
Likewise if I was take all my good works to God and say I have now enough credit to salvation they would be useless.
Our good works are useless for salvation.
However doing good is what God wants us to do.
Not for the purpose of saving ourselves or to earn some credit with him.
But for the purpose of sharing his love and helping others to see his love.
We should aim to do as much good as we can.
And good not according to our standards, but God’s standards.

Doing good is a way of us reflecting God’s goodness in the world.
And that is very important.
Many of the people we are mixing with have little contact with the church and God.
In some cases there only chance to know the loving God that we know is through you.

And something that has been part of the Christian tradition ever since Jesus walked with the first disciples is that doing good by God’s standards is not just about not doing things but it is also about being active in doing things.

Martin Luther’s approach to explaining the Ten Commandment highlights this…
For instance the eight commandment says
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour…
And Luther goes onto say the bible says….
We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbour, betray them, slander them, or hurt their reputation, but defend them, speak well of them, and explain everything about them in the kindest possible way.

Now for me at times this is probably the hardest commandment for me to keep.
At times people get under my skin.
They gripe me.
But hearing and remembering it reminds me to step back and think before I open my big mouth.

And doing good creates opportunities to share more about God and His love
Often that is sometime in the future…maybe many years in the future.
In my previous job I loved my work, but it was in a difficult situation.
There were clashes of philosophies and cultures.
Our area was a fairly entrepreneurial area, needing to operate flexibly in many aspects of its business.
However we were part of a larger organisation that wasn’t so flexible.
And in fact many of the other parts of the organisation we dealt with had a very rigid approach to life and work.
Now this created some fireworks at times, there was conflict and pressures.
One of our junior staff at one stage had some major personal problems and compounding with our environment needed to have some time off.
At one stage she asked our boss to see myself and someone else who worked in our office.
This other person also happened to be a regularly church going Christian.
Our initial response was, ‘What have we done?’
And when we saw her she asked, “I can’t understand how you can be constantly happy and positive, and why are you always looking at ways to help, even though you seem like you are always under stress.”
Now for a start we had to remind her we are not always like that,
but it is interesting that is what she saw some of the good we were trying to do.
And this opened up an opportunity to talk further about who we really are, and talk a little about God.
Now this didn’t happen overnight.
We didn’t do good one day then she asked about it the next.
She had worked for us for about two years before this event occurred.

My encouragement for you this week is to reflect on Ephesians 2:1-10 read it each day…and begin to allow it affect your life, in how you see yourself and other.
It is one of those passages of scripture worth photocopying and keeping handy….
When someone asks you what does it mean to be a Christian?
Ephesians 2:1-10 is a great starting point.
It summarise three important elements about you and me…
1/ Without God we have had it…we have no hope of a new life
2/ God loves us and has made it possible for us to have this new life
3/ We are called to do good for others so that others can experience God’s love.
What a great summary of the foundational elements of the faith.
Let us pray
Amen