The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, AD 2015
Ephesians 2:1-10
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Over twelve hundred volunteers spent the day outside in the hot midwestern sun yesterday ministering to the needs of thousands of the Metro East’s neediest. They handed out bags of groceries, cut hair, gave counsel for obtaining and keeping a job, bounced their kids in the play zone, gave out a free lunch, fitted people with new shoes, took family portraits, checked teeth, provided entertainment, and prayed with people. All this good work culminated with inviting these guests to decide to believe in Jesus as their Savior. Good motives, but a foolish, fruitless endeavor. Asking sinners to become saints is akin to asking dead people to climb out of their caskets and graves. Dead men make no decisions.
When Jesus had the grave of the four-days-dead Lazarus opened, He didn’t call into the abyss, “Lazarus, if you ask me to, I will raise you from the dead.” When He interrupted the funeral procession of the son of the widow of Nain, He didn’t tell the boy’s corpse, “If you ask me into your heart, I’ll be your savior.” When He corrected the mourners in Jairus’ house, telling them, “Do not weep; she’s only asleep,” He didn’t follow up saying, “If she sincerely decides to be alive, she will be.” When God brought Ezekiel out to the valley filled with dead, dry, sun-bleached bones, He didn’t tell him to lead them in the skeleton’s prayer. Son of Man, can these bones live? Prophesy to the bones. Word them to life. Jesus spoke Lazarus, the widow’s son, and Jairus’ daughter to life.
Your predicament, apart from this word, is that you’re dead. The Epistle today is your biography: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” That’s you. Or, at least, it was you. Though your heart pumped blood throughout your body, your lungs transacted oxygen for carbon dioxide, your synapses fired and your muscled contracted and relaxed, you were in fact dead. You were completely unable to do anything toward your salvation. You were as powerless in matters of salvation as dust-dry bones are to come together and grow flesh. Dead men make no decisions. They do not will themselves to life.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. Salvation cannot be a self-resurrection project. Dead men make no decisions. “But God.” There’s the Gospel. “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him,” you confess by saying the third article of the Apostles’ Creed. Left to your own reason or strength, your willpower or your desires. You’re just a corpse. It is futile to exhort corpses to live. It is pointless to tell rebels against God to believe in Him. “But the Holy Spirit.” There’s the Gospel again. But God. But the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified and kept you in the true faith. You don’t create faith. It’s a gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Faith is not your own doing. Dead men make no decisions.
Why do we care? It is really so bad to tell sinners about Jesus and encourage them to give their lives to Him? Yes. Absolutely. Here’s the problem with so-called decision theology: it undermines and contradicts both the Law and the Gospel. It contradicts the Law because it believes sin isn’t so bad as to have completely rendered you powerless and dead. Sin is serious, perhaps, but it doesn’t mean you’re completely unable to initiate your own salvation by means of a prayer or a decision, right? Wrong. And dangerous. But that’s not the worst of decision theology. Attributing to dead people the power to do something, to be the instrument of their own salvation, not only underestimates the potency of sin, it also denies the power of God to save you all by Himself. This contradicts the Gospel, the good news of salvation wrought completely by God, in spite of you. God’s Law is complete in its ability to condemn and kill. His Gospel is His power to save. Every time a sinner is exhorted to make himself a Christian, to muster up faith to believe in Jesus, he is encouraged to commit idolatry. And worse, he is told to found the confidence for his being saved on this work, his belief. Decision theology makes faith a work and is no different from the works righteousness of Rome.
Can God save you without your cooperation? Can He give you faith apart from the cooperation of your will? Can God do absolutely everything required to save you, to the exclusion of any contribution from you? If you say no, that’s idolatry. You’ve made yourself your own savior. And you’ve changed faith from a gift into a work. But who is immune from this kind of thinking? Who doesn’t want some credit? Who doesn’t want a share in the glory? This is your motivation, too. Every time you think you come to church because you should, you’re making faith a work. Every time you exhort your children to be good because God is watching, you’re making faith a work. Every time your prayers are more like the Pharisee’s than the tax collector’s, every time you compare your sins with others and count yourself righteous, every time you thank God that you aren’t like so-and-so with her notorious sins, you make faith a good work. Every time you do what you do because it feels right to you, you make faith a work, the product of your own imagination. Repent. Faith is a gift. This is not your own doing. Dead men make no decisions.
There is no boasting in this faith. There is no confidence in your doing it or having done it. But here is perfect confidence in the Lord’s having done it for you and to you. There is boasting in Christ, the Savior of sinners, whose mercy is such that it can even save someone like you. His Word is powerful enough to raise the dead. Such were you. But you were washed, saved, made you alive together with Christ Jesus and raised you up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward you in Christ Jesus.
Lazarus didn’t go to bed at nights after being raised to life wondering if he really, sincerely gave his life to Jesus. Jesus gave life to him. The son of the widow of Nain did’t worry how sincerely he asked to be raised from the dead. Jairus’ daughter didn’t ask to be raised from the dead every few years, punctuated by a little backsliding between. Formerly dead men don’t put their confidence in decisions. They put their confidence in the One who raises the dead. So may you. Don’t question whether you’re truly a Christian. Don’t wonder if you’ll be in heaven after you die and in eternal life with Jesus after His return. Know. You have been baptized. God did that, not you. Trust in Him. You have been absolved and forgiven. God did that, not you. Trust in Him. You eat the sinless Body of Christ and drink His Blood to forgive your sins and preserve you in faith. God did that, not you. Trust in Him. Trust in any of your works will keep you awake at night questioning your salvation.
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.