For the Love of God: Our Life Expression to His Exquisite Love

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10)

True salvation does produce a response from the Christian! While we know that salvation is by grace through faith, we cannot escape the reality that this salvation proves itself out in peoples live in a particular way. A full reading of Ephesians 2 definitely communicates this to us.

To understand the writings of Paul, we must understand the context and culture to which he was writing. Otherwise, we will misread Paul through the eyes of our 21^st century setting. This is the major problem with the contemporary church and modern theologians. We miss the true meaning of the themes and times and thus misapply it to ourselves.

For example, Paul addressed things by taking into consideration his Jewish audience because of their particular worldview.  They saw themselves as the ethnically chosen people instead of the people through which God would choose people to Himself. Instead of recognizing that the Messiah would come through them for the whole world, they thought only of themselves. Paul wrote everything He was given from the Holy Spirit to communicate that God was not ethnically limited but rather had a plan to redeem the whole world through His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, they (the Jews) defined things in a particular way as to work and its result. They focused their attention on the things that made people distinctively Jewish and therefore part of the covenant people of God. However, Paul was outlining a new way that would define this new covenant people. And he also made it clear that this new covenant people was based upon salvation by grace through faith. There is now no distinction between Jews and Gentiles if they come in through Christ Jesus.

This changes the whole way we look at the works to which we are saved. According to the Jews, there were customary and cultural rituals that revealed the people of God. However, according to Jesus and Paul, a new set of evidence is given to reveal the sons of God.

Christ and Paul moved things from religion to spirituality!

This changes the whole way we look at the works to which we are saved. It is no longer and actually never was the righteousness of men. It has always been through faith. This is proven by how Abraham was seen in the eyes of God. God chose Abraham and Abraham responded in faith. We are told that Abraham was considered righteous because of his faith, not his works or special effort of any sort.

But the Jews either misunderstood this major point or considered the law as the determining factor that caused them to stand out from all other people. Yet we do know that there were moral and legal laws in other civilizations. For example, the Babylonian King Hammurabi wrote a code of law that included many seemingly biblical ideas on morals and his writing took place before Moses wrote the Bible’s first books. The oldest known law code is that of King Menes of Egypt. It is called the Law of Tehut and dates to about 5200 years ago. Menes administered justice and issued edicts which were designed to improve food production and distribution, guard the rights of ruling families, improve education and enhance knowledge of the natural world through geometry and astronomy. Another ancient law code is the code of Ur-Nammu from the reign of King Shulgi (2095-2047 BC). It covered family and inheritance law, rights of slaves and laborers, and agricultural and commercial tariffs. This code prescribes compensation for wrongs.

But what distinguished the Jews from other civilizations was not the law but the placement of their faith. The Law of Moses was the law of God, but faith in Jehovah as Creator of the universe and the source of all good was to be the distinguishing issue.

This is where we start with our understanding of life. God is our source and in Him do we place our faith. From there all other things proceed. Christ came to incarnate the Word so that our faith would not be in a code of ethics or morality but in a person who personified such things. Otherwise, all we would have is religion! The coming of Christ and the writings of Paul were intended to move things from religion to spirituality! From genuine spirituality and faith in the person of Jesus Christ, all good life would come forth.

When we read, as we did last week from the New Testament, we understand that …

“… we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

This kind of life is produced from the love of God and motivated by our love for Him and what God ultimately will bring forth in the world!

We live according to the new order founded in the new covenant in anticipation of the way God’s world WILL be. We work in humility, expressing mercy and pursuing justice (making things right) because it’s how things should be, but in doing so we also demonstrate the character of God and show to the world the reality and hope inherent in the world to come. In short we do it because it matters now and also because it signals a beautiful reality to come.

So in conclusion, we are loved into the faith and in response to this love – we love in return through surrendering to the great benefits that God offers us. Our lives are to be living sacrifices to the will and purpose of our heavenly Father.

Embracing these truths and realities will make all the difference in the way we conduct ourselves in life. It will make a radical difference in the way we parent and carry out our marriage commitments. It will free us to love and serve our neighbor and our co-workers.

God loves us so much that He has called us into His marvelous light. The question is, “How much do we love God in return from grateful and appreciative hearts?” “What response do we give Him to the precious blessings He offers us through salvation?” “What proof is there that we are part of the new covenant community that God has established through His mercy, grace and love?”

Embracing these truths and realities will make all the difference in the way we conduct ourselves in life. It will make a radical difference in the way we parent and carry out our marriage commitments. It will free us to love and serve our neighbor and our co-workers.

God loves us so much that He has called us into His marvelous light. The question is, “How much do we love God in return from grateful and appreciative hearts?” “What response do we give Him to the precious blessings He offers us through salvation?” “What proof is there that we are part of the new covenant community that God has established through His mercy, grace and love?”