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HURDLE # 1 – YOU, ME, AND EVERYONE ELSE!

When I was in high school I went out for track thinking that with all the different events in track & field that there would surely be a place for me. But I quickly found out that the shot put was too heavy, the bar for the high jump was too sensitive, the pole for pole vaulting, if you weren’t careful, could vault you into the sand for the long jump, and on the track itself you were expected to run fast which didn’t fare well for someone who didn’t even walk fast.

I did, however, discover that I could handle the high hurdles better than my towering competitors. I found that if you simply ran under them instead of trying to go over them that they really didn’t present much of an obstacle. The coach, as you can imagine, wasn’t impressed. He, not wanting to discourage me, and yet not wanting to put up with me, suggested that football might be the sport for me. Now that I look back on it, I think the coach was trying to set me up for another educational experience!

All kidding aside, each hurdle in track needs to be vaulted over as one runs the race. When it is done right, when the hurdles are cleared in such a manner that the runner doesn’t break stride it ought to capture our attention and receive our applause. For negotiating hurdles properly, so as to win the race, is not easy.

This is what we see happening in the second chapter of Ephesians. God, in the course of his saving work, faced two major obstacles. The first was the lost and pitiful condition of mankind. The “fall” was so great that you, me, and everyone else lost our ability to respond to God. The lost condition of mankind was the first hurdle that God had to overcome.

The second major obstacle that hindered the saving work of God was the chasm between the Gentiles and the Jews. This division, this breach, kept the vast majority of people away from the knowledge of God. Ephesians two (2) shows us how well God, the father of all glory, cleared both hurdles! It is something that ought to capture our attention and receive our gratitude.

In vv. 1 - 3 of Ephesians 2, we note the first obstacle to overcome, the pitiful condition of mankind. It reads:
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.

This is such an unflattering picture of you, me, and everyone else that many refuse to accept it while others attempt to water it down. Those who don’t accept it, or won’t believe it, fail to have a realistic view of themselves. What is worse, they also fail to have a right view of God and all his glory.

That said, here is the truth about you and me before the salvation of Christ. First, we were dead. Yes, dead. If you came up to a high school kid who was getting ready to go out for football, excited about the challenge of tackling a new sport, and told him he was dead in his transgressions and sins he would think you were some kind of nut. I ought to know, for I was one of those kids who thought the preacher on the corner of the plaza was some sort of nut.

In outline form, here is what Paul tells us about the condition of mankind after the sin of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. This is what was true of us before we were saved and it is what is still true of many of our neighbors across the street and around the world. Without Christ:
I: We are dead. We are
a. powerless.
b. odorous.
II: We give evidence of being dead. We
a. commit transgressions.
b. deliberately sin.
c. are enslaved
1. by the world.
2. by our self-centered nature.
3. by the devil.
III: We reap the inevitable consequences of
our sinful behavior. We are
a. objects of wrath.

Paul tells us that apart from the saving work of Christ we are dead. If we are dead, if Paul is correct, it means two things. First, and foremost, it means we are powerless to respond to anyone or anything. If we were laid out in a morgue with a tag around our big toe, the greatest standup comedian in the world would not be able to get a laugh out of us. A grieving parent, regardless of their actions or words, could not get a response out of their dead child. Dead people are powerless to respond to anyone or anything.
And what is true physically, is also true spiritually. When we are dead to the things of God there is nothing anyone can say or do to compel us to respond to spiritual matters. We may attend church with them, we may actually listen to the message, but apart from the work of God’s saving grace we are powerless to respond for in a very real sense we are dead. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that being dead is a significant obstacle to anyone who is trying to give us life! It is not what anyone of us would call a small hurdle.

Furthermore, we are odorous. To put it bluntly, no matter what we do or say, as dead people, we tend to stink up the place. We stink at developing healthy relationships, at telling a decent joke, at putting in a full days work, at parenting, and at every other human endeavor in this world.

For no matter how hard we try, we tend to always slide toward being self-centered and that tends to stink things up. Of course, our selfish odor may not be evident right away, but give it about four days and I can guarantee you that it will reach someone’s nostrils. If you don’t believe me, just ask Mary and Martha about their brother Lazarus. You can even ask Mary about Martha, or Martha about Mary and get a whiff of the same stench given off by Lazarus.

During this period of time in our lives, our pungent odor manifested itself in transgressions and sins. The first word comes from a Greek word meaning to “miss our steps.” If we’re walking down a set of stairs and we miss a step we are said to have transgressed the stairs. We didn’t mean to, but we did and as a result we twisted our ankle. Transgressions are where we don’t intend to do anything wrong but we do and we end up being hurt and, as is more often the case, hurting others.

Sin, on the other hand, is deliberate. Sin is where we choose to be disobedient to our parents, a teacher, our boss, or anyone else in authority over us. Or, it may be a choice to be disobedient to what our heart is telling us is the right thing to do in a particular situation. It is the wrong intentions, deliberately so, with the hope of a right result. Of course, the right result never materializes for that is the deceptive nature of sin.

Now what is interesting to note, what only hindsight tells us, is that during this time we were actually enslaved by three masters that cooperated with each other. We were enslaved by the world, by our fleshly nature, and by the devil.

We were squeezed by the world into its mold. That is, we were pressured in a number of ways to go with the flow of things. Advertising bombarded us relentlessly, movies spelled out the values we ought to adopt, secular music reinforced those values, yellow journalism dumbed us down, entertainment kept us too busy to think, and the dancing temptations mesmerized us without ever showing us their true cost.

Of course, the world wouldn’t really be a problem if it weren’t for our fleshly desires. But, the lust of our eyes and our pride of life tell us the world is more attractive than it is in reality. Our self-serving passions, our inordinate desires, urged us to go after what the world offered us on a silver platter.

Then, behind the glitter of the world was someone we didn’t even know we had a relationship with - the devil. He thought of himself as our master, but like credit rating agencies he made himself as unobtrusive as possible. Nevertheless, his deceptions obscured our thinking and his whispered lies influenced our wills. But his greatest skill was in giving us the feeling that he didn’t exist and that we were our own master.

In the meantime he played us like a fiddle. He played us not because he had an interest in us, but he had an interest in using us to discredit God. He blinded us to the truth and seduced us to travel deeper into the world of sin for the sole purpose of hurting God and damaging His reputation within the world.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to discover that we were objects of wrath. This wrath, God’s wrath, isn’t a case of bad temper; it isn’t a result of spite; it isn’t personal animosity toward us in particular; and it isn’t an act of revenge. It is simply God’s perfect, righteous, and settled hostility toward evil. It is the law of inevitable consequences. It is allowing sin to play itself out to its bitter end.

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

In outline form, here is what God did and what he is presently doing in our lives.
I. Because of God’s great love, he
a. made us alive with Christ.
b. raised us up with Christ.
c. seated us with Christ in the
heavenly realms.
II. Because of God’s saving work, we
a. are on display.
b. are his workmanship.
c. have been created to do good works.
God’s grace is everything for nothing for those who deserved the worst. Out of his mercy and grace, with his mighty power, the same power he used to raise Christ from the grave, God quickened our spirits and raised us from the dead. In raising us from the dead, he did with us what he did with Christ. He put us back into business. He put us back in the same circumstances we had been previously but with the ability to demonstrate the power of a new life, a resurrected life!

What is more, he seated us with Christ. That is, he seated us above every title that can be given not only in the present age but in the age to come. This means we can rest, we can be at peace, for there is no one who can threaten or abuse us. Sure, Satan may whisper his lies to us, as in the past, but he no longer has any power over us other than what he can accomplish by bluffing us.
We are now, and will forever be, a vivid demonstration of the grace of God’s character. Though we are far from being what we will be in the future, we are already on display so that the glory of God’s grace will be visible to the present age. In the meantime, he is teaching us, training us, and putting the paint in just the right places to produce a marvelous masterpiece, a personal poem, that will forever tell of his glory.

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