Sunday 26th
January 2014
Bible
Reading: Ephesians 1:1-14
The New Testament uses many different titles to refer to
Christians - disciples, followers, believers, brothers and sisters, soldiers,
workers and many more. Those of us who have given our lives
to Jesus are probably comfortable referring to ourselves by those titles.
One of the most frequent titles Paul uses to refer to Christians
is the word saint. In fact he used it at least 60 times. Yet, despite the fact it is used so often, we
are wary of referring to ourselves in that way.
The title of ‘saint’ in some circles is reserved for men or women
who have been especially recognised as especially devoted to God and who are
known for their great holiness and good works. Some believe that there are some
Christians who are so exceptional in faith and great deeds that after their
deaths we can call upon them to intercede for us and work miracles for us.
Whilst we, who are not in that tradition feel that that is a
mistaken approach there is still a lot of misunderstanding about the title
saint. We have become reluctant to talk about ourselves as saints because we
think that in doing so, we are being too full of ourselves, that we are putting
ourselves on a pedestal. We associate sainthood with perfection and we know we
are far from perfect so we think that the title can have little to do with
us. But, if we are Christians, being a
saint has everything to do with us and if we understand it correctly, it is a
title that gives us security, reassurance and purpose.
From the frequency with which he uses it and the way in which Paul
uses "Saint" in his letters we can take it to simply mean a believer,
someone who is a professing Christian.
Whilst we think of only using the word saints to refer to
people who are exceptionally flawless in character and deeds Paul uses the
title to address any group who are believers. For example he called the
believers at Corinth, saints but also called them immature, worldly and quarrelsome.
The word saint simply means “set apart”
We have misunderstood that to mean a person who is set above
others.
The big problem
affecting every human being on the planet is that they have rebellion in their
hearts against God, which causes a breaking down of their relationship with Him
and results in being set apart “from” Him.
The gospel is that Jesus came to bring us back home to
God so that the separation can be over.
Eph
1:7 says, “In him, (that is Jesus) we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of
God’s grace that he lavished on us.”
The word redemption comes from the slave market. In the NT times people were openly sold into
slavery. A slave could be bought back (i.e. redeemed and restored to their
family for a price. The slave had no means of paying the redemption price
themselves but relied upon the generosity of someone else. We rely upon the generosity of Jesus to pay
the redemption price to free us from sin so that we don’t need to be set apart from
God any longer. A saint is simply a
sinner who has been set free.
The office of sainthood is not gained but given. It’s not what we have done with our lives but
what Christ has done for us.
There is now a new life to live. The relationship changes from a person having
been set apart from God to being set apart to be with God.
But does that mean that saints are people who have simply
exchanged one kind of tyranny for another?
No of course not. Ephesians 1:5 gives us the amazing statement that we have been adopted by God, “In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to His pleasure and His will.”
We are set apart from sin in order to be set apart to be with God.
But how do we know that we really now belong to God? How
can we be sure that we have the right to call ourselves saints?
Paul tells us we can know it because we are sealed with
the Spirit. Saints are people who are sealed
by the Spirit.
Ephesians
1:13-14: “And you were included in Christ when you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were
marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing
our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession - to the
praise of his glory.”
Ephesus was a port trading mostly in timber. The dealers
bought the logs at the harbour and put their seal on them. They would not
immediately take the wood away with them but leave it to be collected later by
a servant who would know which timber they had to take by recognising their
master’s seal. In ancient times people who were devoted to a god had a sacred
emblem of the cult tattooed on the body. Slaves had their owners seal burned
into their flesh.
But Paul says that the mark by which
someone shows they belong to Jesus Christ is not a physical but the inward
presence of the Holy Spirit.
Whilst Paul’s illustration is connected with ports and
cargo but God never sees us as goods and chattels. Our belonging to God is
always in the context of loving
adoption into His family.
The Bible teaches us that it is the
Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus to us He encourages us and convicts of the need
to surrender our lives to Jesus. When we have made that surrender to the claims
of Christ as our Lord then the whole transaction is endorsed by the Holy Spirit
coming within us.
It is this that makes us officially Christian.
Romans 8:9: 'If any man has not the Spirit of
Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” You can't be a Christian without the Holy
Spirit. He is like a stamp of ownership.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is what
makes us authentic, real saints and not merely people who try to practice a
religious code of ethics.
The Bible promises us that we can know that we belong to
God.
Romans
8:16: “The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s
children.”
When the Holy Spirit comes to live
within us the character of Jesus starts to be evident. There is a family
likeness. Our lives start to resemble His.
The word “saints” is from the Greek word hagios, which
means “holy” or “sacred” or “set apart”.
Saints are also people who “set apart”
for God’s service.
All religions have sacred places, sacred rituals, sacred
vessels with which to perform those rituals. The point is about a thing being
sacred is that it must not be used for anything else at all, otherwise it’s
sacredness or holiness is lost and it has to be consecrated all over again.
A tennis racket is not sacred because it is only used for
tennis or a hoover because it is only used for cleaning carpets. Things are
called sacred only if they have to do with the worship and service of God
because God Himself is sacred. God is totally unlike anything or anyone else,
not only in power but in His purity and goodness.
When we become rescued sinners who are adopted into God’s
family, the desire is placed within us by the Holy Spirit to be totally
dedicated to God and useful to Him. It is important we get the order right.
We are not called to strive to be increasingly useful to
God so that one day we might earn the title saint. You can never be a saint
until you’ve recognised that you are a sinner.
2
Timothy 2:20-21 “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and
silver but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for
ignoble. If a man cleanses himself form the latter he will be an instrument for
noble purposes made holy and useful to the Master and prepared to do any good
work.”
The simple message of these verses is that all of us are
called to be of use to God in His household.
A pastor called Kyle Hite writes,
“Each of us in some ways carries
this haunting feeling inside of us that we are worthless. Each of us at some
point in our lives looks around at the competence of people in this world and
compare ourselves to those around us and say there is no way that I could do
that. We regularly wrestle not with whether or not God has work to be done but
whether or not God is right in asking us to do it.”
Paul is not suggesting that God only wants to use the
multi-talented, the superior intelligent or the good looking superhero but we
do need to be dedicated and clean.
Most of us have some special dishes that we use only for
special occasions. On other days we use our everyday plates, cups, saucers and
glasses. But there are some vessels in our house that we wouldn’t use to serve
food to our guests at all.
We wouldn’t give our guests the dog bowl or the cats dish
to eat from? It would be unthinkable for
us to serve soup from our children’s potty.
Paul’s argument is that just as you wouldn’t use such
vessels to offer food to a guest, neither should it enter our heads to serve
God with lives that are not completely cleansed and dedicated to Him for His
use.
We need to consecrate our lives to Him entirely.
In practical terms, that means that we decide to live
purposefully to glorify God in all aspects of our lives.
It means we will do our job for His glory. We will relate
to our family for His glory. We will worship for His glory. We will work in the
Corps and in the community for His glory. We consecrate ourselves for Him and
His glory.
That’s our part but God has His part.
When we consecrate ourselves to God entirely, the Holy
Spirit will come to fill us entirely, setting us apart and empowering us to
live the life we have committed to living.
We cannot be a useful vessel for God on our own.
We need the Spirit to give us the motivation and the
ability to live for Him. He cleanses us, making us vessels fit for noble
purposes.
We will always be
sinners saved by grace but that is not all we are.
The Bible now states that those who are in Christ are now
saints.
If we think, that all we are is sinners, then that is how
we will act but if know we are already saints then we will live our lives from
the security of knowing that we belong to God, that He has already chosen us to
serve Him and He will provide the cleansing power to fulfil that calling,
despite all our brokenness and flawed humanity.
There is a large stained glass window in Winchester
Cathedral which was has an interesting history.
At the time of the Reformation, the Roundheads stormed
into the Cathedral, destroying the religious symbols. They wrecked the stained
glass window depicting saints. The immediate response could have been to sweep
up the broken fragments of glass and throw them away but instead the people
picked up the pieces and leaded the shattered glass fragments back in the
window frame. However they made no attempt to put them back as they had
been. Rather they put them back just as
they found them and now, 400 years later, the sun shines through the same
beautiful colours but of very mixed up saints.
This is really a parable because all of us have failed
God in many ways. We’re sinners who have been rescued and brought back and in
many ways we are still all a bit mixed up but nevertheless when cleansed and
connected together in Christ, His light can still shine through us to a dark
world.
