Delighting in Belonging to Christ - by John Zuidema

Text: Eph 2:1-10; (Heidelberg Catechism - LD 1 Q&A2)

Singing: BOW 435; BOW: 188; BOW: 345; BOW: 416; BOW: 443

Beloved people of the Lord Jesus Christ;

Last week Sunday morning I spoke about the privilege of knowing that we belong to Jesus Christ. From God's word we were reminded that we were not bought by silver or gold, but by the precious blood of Christ, God's very own Son. Now that gives us great comfort. To know that every moment of every day, we belong to Christ and should the Lord call us to himself, then we will be with our Saviour God.

And then to consider if you will that this was all planned and approved before time began. That is what Paul writes in Ephesians 1:4. It's reason for praise and thankfulness for God's electing love. Now this morning I want to follow that up by asking, "Do you live in the joy of that comfort? Do you delight in belonging to Christ? I ask, for sometimes, Christians can be the most depressing people to be around.

Instead of being people who are full of hope for the future, all they focus on is the negative and how terrible things are with them and the world around them. There is just no joy in their lives. Depressing to say the least! Why is that? I suggest it is because they don't appreciate fully what they have been saved from and who they have been saved by and what the result of such a great salvation actually is!

Congregation to have the joy of Jesus and the Gospel as something that is real and living in our life, you need to know something. And it is not only head-knowledge that I am referring to, but a heart-knowledge that is important. Someone said to me this past week that for a long time he was a Christian on the outside - it was something that was written on his jumper or shirt, but it wasn't on the inside. The heart is where it matters.

So many people know it up there [head] but they have nothing in here (heart). There are plenty of people who have heard about Jesus and that he was crucified and rose from the dead, but it doesn't mean anything to them. Congregation to live and die in the joy of belonging to Jesus you need head-knowledge; but you especially need heart-knowledge and that means you need a real and living relationship with Jesus Himself.

Paul in Ephesians 2 mentions three things for us to appreciate that we belong to Jesus Christ. First we need to have an understanding of how great our sin actually is and how hopeless our situation actually was. Paul writes here that we were dead in our sins and transgressions. I have this DVD at home called "Amazing Grace". In that DVD the author explains what this deadness actually means and interestingly he admits a mistake that he made in the first series of this DVD.

In the first series he had this guy lying on a hospital bed in an emergency ward with all sorts of tubes and leads running out of him on a life-support-machine. But in this new series, he has the person lying in an open coffin. He wants to make it clear that there is absolutely no hope for that person to come to life again. He is not on a life-support-system with a little bit of hope, he is dead! He needs to be buried!

That is what Paul is saying in verse one. We may be physically alive and walking around, but spiritually we are as dead as a person lying in a coffin. We cannot help ourselves to be saved! And the reason why we are like that is simply because of our transgressions and sins.

Now in Christianity, this idea that we are dead in our sins and cannot save or help ourselves to be saved is one of the hardest things to get across today in a real and meaningful way. First, who wants to admit they are sinful? Who wants to admit they have done evil in the sight of God? Who wants to admit they have been disobedient to God's law? For that matter, who even wants to admit there is a higher power to whom we have to answer?

The world teaches that everyone is basically good. It's not true. Open your eyes, the evidence is all around us that this is not so. People everywhere are contaminated with sin. They may not be as bad as they could be because of God's common grace, but in God's eyes they are sinful.

The measuring bar of what is good or alternatively what is sinful are not our courts or the legislators, but God's law. To not love God with all our heart is sinful. To not love our neighbour is sinful. That is our transgression and sin. To steal, murder, commit adultery, bear false witness, coveting, it is sinful.

Yes I know that many in the world don't see it this way, but they don't set the standard, God does! Same sex partners isn't just an alternative lifestyle. Abortion isn't just a choice. Adultery isn't just an affair. Premarital, teenage sex isn't just a natural expression of love. All these things are sinful and because of that we are like dead men walking in God's eyes.

We may not like admitting it, yet if you really want to appreciate belonging to Jesus Christ then you need to know what you have been saved from! If you don't know or admit that you were guilty before a holy and just God, then you will not understand the joy of the comfort of belonging to Christ!

You will not realize that you need to be saved from God's wrath for that sin. You will then not realize you need Jesus Christ and hence without him you are lost for an eternity and there will be no comfort for you! So that is the first thing. To delight in belonging to Christ you need to know and experience first-hand that you are a sinner. True joy, yes it may seem like a contradiction, involves knowing how great our sin is before a holy God. True joy involves falling on our knees before God and confessing our sins before Him and praying for grace and mercy on account of our sin.

Now please understand, we are not any better than the alternative lifestyle person or the adulterer, or the thief or the murderer. Paul actually mentions that at one time we all the same in God's eyes – sinners worthy of his just punishment. So let's not point the finger at each other. We are no better than the next sinner.

However, please don't despair for I want you also to know how you are set free from all your sins and misery. Isn't that what is also mentioned in our text? "B­ut because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

For us to live in the comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ we need to know the Saviour God has supplied. We need to know what grace is. And grace is to know Jesus as your Saviour. God's Riches At Christ's Expense. We don't just need to know 'of' him, but we need to embrace him as the Saviour.

Most people you speak to on the street have heard of Jesus, they may even know a little about him – that he died on the cross and rose against the third day. But head knowledge alone will not do. We need 'heart' knowledge. We need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit that what Jesus did 2000 years ago at Calvary he did for me.

The Holy Spirit needs to assure me that all God has done for me through his Son at Calvary sets me free from my all sin and misery. The debt has been fully paid and it was all done purely by God's grace and mercy.

Jesus' death and resurrection sets me free and it is not something done by the works of my hands or the anguish of my soul or the depth of my prayers or the devoutness of my worship. If we wish to enjoy belonging to Jesus Christ then we must know Him as our Redeemer.

We must know He is our only way to be right with God. We need to realize that it is not the stars, not our horoscopes, not our yoga or meditation, not our good works, not our long prayers or sermons, not our family, not our denomination, not even our worship style that will save us.

We must know Jesus as our Saviour and no other! We must know that at just the right time He was crucified and his blood was shed and He died to make payment for our sin. That is the only way we can have peace with God. That is the only way we may know that God no longer sees us as His enemies but now as his children that are dear to him, for we are dressed in the righteous clothes of His Son. That's the only way to enjoy belonging to Jesus Christ.

Finally to experience the joy of the Christian's comfort, we must know how to thank God for such deliverance. Save someone from drowning and see how thankful that person is. Thankful people live thankful lives. That's Paul's point in the remaining verses. In response to the great salvation we have, we live thankful lives and we do the very things that God has already planned for us to do! In fact they were especially prepared for us to do them.

That is also Paul's point in Rom 12:1 - "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices ..." Let's put a different slant on it. "Since you were drowning in God's wrath for your sin, and now saved because of what God has done for you through his own Son, live thankful lives."

As far as the Apostle Paul is concerned and what is summarised for us here, saved sinners want to thank and praise God for their deliverance. This is not man centred but God centred. To live in the joy of knowing that you belong to Christ, then you must know how to live thankful lives for such deliverance.

And the Scriptures remind us that our chief purpose in life is "to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." But none of us are able to do this unless we first know our sin and who our Saviour actually is and how to respond in thankfulness. So to live and die, don't forget the dying part, in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Christ and the Gospel, we must know our sin, our Saviour, and our service.

Now we have to be careful for to emphasize anyone of these at the expense of the other two is to distort the Gospel and to rob ourselves of a full measure of Christian joy. To put all your emphasis on a knowledge of sin and misery is unbalanced. Some people say that the minister's calling is to make the congregation feel guilty and miserable and ashamed of their sin. Yes, that is part of our calling, but we're not allowed to make the good news of forgiveness in Jesus Christ an after thought. That's wrong. The gospel is good news!

Alternatively if all the stress is on forgiveness and salvation and little or nothing is heard about confession and repentance then that is equally unbalanced. We will never know the depth of God's love and mercy if we don't know the depth of our sin.

And equally dangerous, are those that put all the stress on service. There is such a thing as a social gospel. In the finish love for God is replaced by love for man and salvation then becomes what we do instead of what God has already done for us in Christ.

So Christian, delight in belonging to Jesus Christ. Yes, know you are a sinner, know you are saved, and know how to live thankful lives of service. Not just up in your head, but may it be written on your heart!

And if it is not yet written on your heart, I pray that God's amazing grace to us in Christ will soon make in-roads in your heart so that you too can enjoy belonging to Christ. Amen.