Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be
the propitiation for our sins. (1 St. John 4:10)

            A friend in college, mindful that I was headed to seminary, ventured what he considered a troubling question: Why would a loving God send anyone to Hell?

          In response, I offered a better question: Why would a holy God send anyone to Heaven?

          Last week we studied the human condition – dead in sins and trespasses – as St. Paul described it in Ephesians 2:1-3. If you and I take those verses seriously, as we ought, we will have the answer to my friend’s question of why God would send anyone to Hell (the reason: we all deserve God’s punishment for our sins).

          Yet those verses raise a truly baffling question: Why would a holy God send any of us to His holy Heaven? Is it even possible, after what we examined in verses 1-3, for you and me to go to Heaven?

          The answer, thank the Lord, is yes. And the reason for our redemption? Paul outlines it in verses 4-10: our salvation in Christ is rooted in God’s love, rests in God’s gracious work in Christ, and results in transformed lives that are to the praise of His kindness.

          Take Ephesians 2:1-3 seriously, and you and I should not even mention the word “Heaven” – much less question why anyone wouldn’t go there. Take Ephesians 2:4-10 seriously, and all you and I should do is praise the God who, in His love, makes Heaven a reality for us in Christ.

          Our salvation, first, is rooted in God’s love.

          As many pastors have observed, the first two words of Ephesians 2:4 are the sweetest in all of Scripture, for they signal the dawning of hope for the believer in Christ. Although you and I were children of wrath, dead in our sins and trespasses and without hope, God the Father did not leave us in our miserable estate. When we were without strength, God intervened by sending His Son to be the payment for our sins and to turn away His righteous wrath from us.

          The question lingers, though: Why? Why did God intervene? Why did Christ undergo the whole course of his humiliation?

          The answer might floor you.

          You and I tend to believe we’re smarter, thinner, prettier, you name it, than we actually are. When it comes to our salvation, we naturally think that God saved us because of something within us – some charming quality or “special” ability.

          St. Paul, however, offers the true reason God rescued you from the path to Hell: because of His love and merciful character, and definitely not for anything you were or had done. Because of His rich mercy and kindness, and not because of your deserving, the Father sent the Son to redeem you from your sins.

          Here we have a clear picture of the love of God: the sending of His Son to redeem those who once were the children of wrath, who actively rebelled against Him. From his incarnation to his death, our Lord Jesus suffered under the weight of the curse so that it one day might be lifted from you and me. You understand, the unbelieving world thinks the love of God is some kind of “divine permissiveness” by which “God” approves of every system of belief and every lifestyle.

          That is not divine love.

          From the earliest of times – see the characterization of the Lord in Exodus 34:6 – the Lord revealed Himself as a loving God to His people, rich in mercy to them. He didn’t choose them because they were the mightiest or biggest of peoples. They certainly didn’t deserve His kindness; they actually deserved His wrath for their unbelief and transgressions. Yet the Lord demonstrated His patient and perfect love in redeeming all the faithful – and this demonstration of true love ultimately required the life of His Son, Jesus.

          You and I have disqualified ourselves for Heaven, with our love for false gods and for the “course of this world.” Yet our Father has forgiven us in Christ.

          This is love. It flows only from Him. And His love and mercy alone are the reason you, today, are a child of God.

          Second, your salvation rests totally on God’s grace to you in Christ – not on your own efforts.

          The fact is, though, scores of people in Greene County miss this point. It’s because we dismiss Paul’s teaching about humanity in 2:1-3 that we dismiss God’s grace in favor of our own works. Yet the apostle goes to great lengths in this famous passage to exalt the grace of God in our salvation and to abase the pride of humans.

          Note the radical contrasts in these verses: we who were dead in sins have been made alive in Christ; we have been raised from the dead and seated with Christ; we who were the children of wrath have been saved from God’s wrath.

          And just as important, note who is doing the action in all of those verses: God. It must be God who has saved us, because you and I were dead in sins and therefore totally unable and indisposed to come to Him or to offer the perfect obedience He requires to enter Heaven.

          Grace, as we previously have seen, is defined as God’s undeserved goodness to you and me in Christ, when we actually deserved His wrath for our sins. Grace sums up the Christian life. Grace by definition excludes works or merit on your part: even your church attendance, giving to charitable causes and visitation at the nursing home cannot gain you entrance to glory. Salvation is of grace, and even faith – the instrument by which you and I receive the saving righteousness and atoning work of Christ – is the gift of God. It is not our work; in fact, you and I are God’s workmanship – His poem!

          This gracious salvation is effected, Paul writes, “in Christ” (another theme of Ephesians). When Christ was raised from the dead, you and I were forgiven our sins because of his effectual work at Calvary and raised in him. When he was seated at the place of power and of preeminence in Heaven (see 1:19-23), you and I were seated with him – so that we might call on our Almighty Father and know the power of Jesus’ victory in all of life. Even our post-conversion, sanctified lives are the work of God’s grace and power and not our own doing.

          Again, many people in our area – and in the professing church – think they contributed something to their right standing with God. They think their faith in Jesus is a work, and that God accepts them not only for Christ’s atoning work on the cross but also for their “good deeds.” This cannot be. You are God’s work; your own works merited Hell for you.

There is, then, no room for boasting in the church, however – except

in Jesus.

          Third, your salvation results in a transformed life that exists for the praise of God’s grace.

          Paul in this text says your salvation has at least two purposes: the demonstration of God’s kindness in Jesus, and the transformation of your life from one of disobedience to one of walking in His holy ways. For one, your God-ordained and gracious salvation demonstrates the kindness of God in Christ, not only in your lifetime but indeed in “the ages to come” – in all eternity. St. John in the Revelation describes glorious scenes of worship in Heaven in which believers from all nations, tribes and languages gather around the throne of God to praise Him: each and every one of us will be a testimony to the kindness of God, who sent His Son to spare us from Hell. Even now, you and I are living testimonies to God’s kindness; we cannot help but think of St. Paul, whom God transformed from Saul the murdered to Paul the apostle of grace by His kindness in Jesus.

          Another purpose of God’s grace in Christ is that you and I might be His new creation, “His workmanship in Christ Jesus,” for the purpose of doing the holy works that He prepared for us to do. Here in Greene County, plenty of professing believers contend all one must do is walk an aisle, pray a prayer and be baptized – and then he can live the rest of his life however he pleases. True conversion, however, always bears the fruit of Christ-like living and of increasing holiness.

Compare your former life, described in verse 2, with your new life in Christ: you have been re-created to do the works of God. The Lord predestined these works from all eternity and makes them possible by the empowerment of Jesus, and the fact is that you have been saved by God in Christ to manifest His holiness.

          Jesus said you and I are to be salt and light in the world so that others might see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven. And when you and I walk after the Lord, we are witnesses to this sin-shattered world of the hope of Christ, of the power of Christ – and of the kindness of God in Christ.

          I am borrowing my words from the Anglican evangelical Melvin Tinker: the question is not, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” but rather, “Why do good things happen to bad people?” For that is what the Gospel of grace is all about: the best gift of God, salvation in Jesus, given to undeserving sinners such as you and me.

          This world overflows with unkindness. Whether it’s someone cutting you off in traffic, or an employer firing you unceremoniously and unfairly, or wars and rumors of wars, we live in a bitter world. Your very existence as a Christian, though, is a demonstration of God’s kindness, of His rich mercy and undeserved love.

          I say to you, as I did to my college friend years ago, study Ephesians 2:1-3. Then take a long look at verses 4-10.

          Then you’ll start to understand love – and the questions will turn to praise, and to obedience.