Fearless Sainthood

How are you doing with this idea of being called a saint? We’ve seen the incredible blessings God has given us in Christ, for His own glory. We’ve also seen the things Paul prays for saints, that they would continue to know God better and grow in understanding of our hope in Christ, the riches of us saints as God’s inheritance and His incomparably great power for us. Do you really think God can’t in a moment remake you into a holy person, and by His indwelling Spirit teach you to walk in His ways? The thing we fear—and it is right to fear it—is our own evil heart, and how easily we can twist God’s blessing into a curse among men. The real problem isn’t God’s making us holy, but our ego. So Paul here walks us through several ego-bashing points, in order to bring us into a right view of ourselves so that we can truly appreciate what God has done for us. From Ephesians 2:1-10.

We’re the Worst

The first thing Paul wants us to come to grips with is our own evil selves. Some of us don’t struggle with that view of ourselves. But there are some who do. Have you ever fished for a compliment? Have you ever asked for—subtly, of course, not directly—affirmation for some considerate or wise or skilled thing you accomplished? Do you feel like you need to be frequently, perhaps regularly built up, told how great you are, how appreciated? That’s actually the sign of an inflated ego and an ego that needs inflating. That’s the sign of someone who is unwilling to see themselves as God sees them.

So here comes Paul, with some soul-crushing words:

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 objects of wrath.

We get that we were dead in our transgressions and sins. We can admit that we did some bad things before we believed in Christ. We can even admit that we still occasionally fall into sin as believers!

But can you accept that before Christ, you were actually enslaved to sin? You were a child of Satan? That you were evil? Remember when Jesus said, “...You, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...”? (Matthew 7:11a, NIV84)

Perhaps you can’t remember back that far, because you were raised in the church and were taught from a young age what and how to do right. Perhaps you don’t realize how wicked you really were, growing up all those years ago, because you didn’t really know who God was and what He required of you. You did all the right things, as far as what you were taught was good and right, but you didn’t know God. Perhaps even to this day, you do not know God well and continue to justify things you’ve done that God condemns.

You think you must defend and protect yourself and your reputation and especially your own opinion of yourself, because otherwise how could you live with yourself? The world tells us—and the church has bought into the lie—that the only way to be happy is to have a good self-esteem.

But it’s that pursuit of self-esteem that prevents us from coming to grips with who we really are, confessing and renouncing sin and coming into a right relationship with God. Only in a right relationship with God can we actually find peace and love and acceptance that counts.

But you have to come to grips with the fact that you—apart from Jesus Christ—you—in and of yourself—are in fact an object of wrath. God is furious with you and would destroy you in an instant if not for His mercy and grace. Until you get that through your head and into your heart, you will not understand who God is or appreciate what Christ has done for you.

Paul, that great Apostle to the Gentiles, confesses, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature [flesh]. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18, NIV84). He says of himself, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9, NIV84). And once more, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15, NIV84).

So tell me about Paul. Was he so self-loathing that he just holed up and died? Or did his right understanding of himself before God lead to something amazing?

Going back to 1 Corinthians 15, we find our answer. He said, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9, NIV84). He immediately follows that with, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10, NIV84).

Do you see the power of understanding how wretched you are in yourself, apart from Christ? If you can see yourself correctly, if you can see how disgusting you are to God on your own, if you can see that God was furious with you apart from Christ. The only thing that separated you from those who will be condemned to an eternity in Hell is that God decided before the foundation of the world to save you. Not because of anything worthwhile in you, but because of His own glory and goodness.

You have to kill your ego. You have to come to grips that you are not worth your weight in salt or gold or anything else. Apart from Jesus Christ, you are a stinking pile of garbage that no one should ever want. (I’m borrowing from Paul’s own words from 1 Corinthians 4:13.)

I know that’s harsh, and if I or Paul left it there, you would have nothing left but despair. These things are true, but notice the verb tenses. Past. “You were dead.” “You used to live.” “All of us lived among them.” “We were by nature objects of wrath.”

If you stay in sin, following the ways of the world, remaining an object of wrath, then you should have nothing but despair. Though you tell yourself every day what a wonderful person you truly are, and you try to medicate with activity or drugs or accomplishments or debauchery, you cannot escape the end result of eternal torment.

The Lord, the LORD Almighty, called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth. But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! "Let us eat and drink," you say, "for tomorrow we die!" The LORD Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: "Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for," says the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (Isaiah 22:12-14, NIV84)

Do you want to avoid the arrogance, the hypocrisy, the holier-than-thou of confessing yourself a saint? Begin with recognizing who you really are without Christ: You’re the worst.

But God

But God. “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3, NIV84)

When you understand that all you deserve is eternal destruction, then God comes and saves you, your whole world should be turned upside-down. You no longer need anyone to affirm you. You no longer need anyone to praise you. You no longer need anyone to love you, because you have the greatest of affirmation, the greatest of praise, the greatest of love from God through Christ.

Crush my ego! Tell me I’m trash! Tell me how stupid and ugly and slow and fat and whatever else you can think of! It’s all true! I hear it in my head all the time!

And you know what? It no longer matters. Because the God of all creation, who could have chosen all the beautiful people and smart people and successful people and eloquent people—the God who made everything chose me. How can you not love Him?

When everyone around you takes you and casts you into the deepest and darkest pit—and you hate everything they hate about you!—then the most beautiful and powerful and glorious being in all the universe comes to the edge, looks in, and reaches His hand down to lift you out, do you understand what that does to a soul?

It sets you free from needing your ego puffed up. It sets you free from needing others to tell you what a great person you are. It sets you free!

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. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

Did you hear that?

• Because of God’s great love for us!
• God, who is rich in mercy!
• God made us alive—we were dead in our trespasses and sin—but God didn’t leave us there!
• We didn’t deserve His salvation—it was entirely because of God and from God—out of His grace!
• God raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenly realms in Christ! – God brought this stinking pile of garbage—washing me, making me into a golden chest of precious jewels—into His very own house and seated him right there together with His perfectly obedient and precious Son!
• God plans to show me even greater kindness and goodness and mighty things in the coming ages!

And it all had nothing to do with me. I did nothing to deserve God’s choosing and saving of me. I contributed nothing to help Him get me over the finish line. I did nothing, so how could I ever boast?

What do I have to boast about? Only that apart from Christ I am the most wretched of sinners, deserving eternal torment. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7, NIV84)

How do you avoid becoming the Christian version of Pharisees of Jesus’ day? Recognize that God saved you out of His love, as a gift, because there was nothing in you or that you could do to commend yourself to God.

What does this mean? Is there anything we need to do? Are we just to bask in this incredible favor and salvation? Are we saved to go on our way, doing whatever we desire, secure in the salvation Jesus brought us?

Aligned Response

¹⁰ For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

No, this is what it means to be saints: We are a new creation, God’s workmanship, created to do good works, which God prepared ahead of us, that we just need to walk into it. As we reviewed last week, this was always the goal and purpose of the New Covenant, to to make us people who do what is good and right out of the overflow of a heart that is filled with God’s Word, Will and Ways.

Back in Matthew, Jesus told His disciples,

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16, NIV84)

This is where you might get nervous again. Here we are, supposed to do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord, deeds which He prepares in advance for us to do. What if we get caught up in works? What if we get so good we think we’re so good and we start looking down on other people?

If you have been so undone by your own wretchedness, and so put back together by God’s grace—your natural response to such grace should be a love that desires to please the One who has been so good to you, to such an extent that you would hold nothing back! No limits. You’ll do and say and give up and take up anything He asks. You’re not doing good works in order to gain the praise of men or of God. You’re not doing them to make yourself look good. You’re doing them in response to His incredible goodness to you. Your good works no longer have anything to do with you and everything to do with Him, to bring Him praise and to show the world how great He is!

And then you realize that God is directing your steps and creating situations for you to do good to others and speak what is good and right—then He even deserves all the credit for your obedience. How can you boast about the good deeds you do, when He has arranged them all?

To be sure, you must recognize them and respond in accordance with God’s will and ways. Partly, that’s the job of the Holy Spirit, to help you see the opportunities and to guide your response, so again, God gets credit. But partly it is you growing in your understanding of God and His ways, so that you know the right way to respond to any opportunity to do good.

You do have a part to play, but the fact that you have been changed so that you desire to do what is right—that’s from God! The fact that you are growing in your understanding of what God desires and hates, learning these things from the Scriptures—that’s from God, who opens your eyes and heart to understand what you’re reading, and who recorded and guarded those Scriptures until they arrived in your hands.

All you bring to the table is submission to the will and ways of God. And the hands and feet, the mouth and breath—and even these were given to you! You didn’t make them!

You can’t get a fat head if you do all out of an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the election and salvation you absolutely did not deserve. Especially when every good deed is arranged ahead of time by God Himself!

Conclusion

If we have a right understanding of who we really are apart from Christ, about how wicked we truly are when left to ourselves, we will not easily exalt ourselves above any other person. And if in light of that we realize how precious it is to be chosen and saved by God the Father through Jesus Christ, then we should be so shocked and amazed and filled with gratitude. We know full well this change in us from wretched to righteous, from sinner to saint, was not done by us at all, but all the work of God. And if in gratitude to such miraculous love we respond in obedience, especially since we have been recreated in order to walk in God-ordained good works, then again, we have no reason to think highly of ourselves at all. We’re hopefully too busy thinking so highly of God and seeking to do anything and everything He arranges for us to do.

You don’t have to fear being a saint—but you do have to fear your own ego. Now is the time to put your ego to death. Accept the truth of who you are in God’s eyes apart from Christ. Be overwhelmed by the love of God in Christ to save you and make you His child, a holy child fit for His household. Grow in your understanding of what God considers right and wrong, and live to please Him by speaking up for His ways and acting in accordance with them.