The Why of Salvation

A Sermon on Ephesians 2:10

Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I know that at least one family in this room has heard of Monty Python's Flying Circus, perhaps many of you have, but if you've never heard of them, Monty Python was a British comedy troupe featuring John Cleese among others. They did some brilliant and incredibly funny sketches, and one of the most famous is called "the Parrot sketch."

Now in this sketch, a man who purchased a parrot returns to the pet shop asking for a replacement. The proprietor asks him "Well, what's wrong with it?" and the man answers "I'll tell you what's wrong with it, ITS DEAD." To which the pet shop owner replies "No, No, He's resting!" The rest of the sketch consists of the proprietor attempting to prove that the obviously dead parrot isn't really dead. He points out things like the "beautiful plumage" and the increasingly irate customer answers that "the plumage doesn't enter into it". Eventually the pet-shop owner only relents when the customer has comically demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that the parrot is dead.

By now you may be saying "ok, but what does a sketch about a dead parrot have to do with the passage in Ephesians we just read?" I'll tell you. In the sketch we have a manifestly ridiculous situation. We have a man attempting to prove that a parrot is alive when it doesn't move, it doesn't breathe, it doesn't squawk, and it was only standing on its perch because it had been nailed there.

There was no evidence at all that the parrot was alive, and the only things that the pet shop owner could point to were things like its "beautiful plumage" which had no bearing on whether it was alive or dead. The sketch is particularly funny because we can see how silly it is to try to prove that a dead parrot is alive. Its obvious he's dead, there's no evidence of life.

But what's odd is that all too often we see the equivalent of the dead parrot sketch being played out in the church. A person will profess to be a Christian, a born-again believer, when in fact there is no evidence whatsoever to support that claim.

You see in this passage of Ephesians, we read that believers have been "created in Christ Jesus for good works." By "created" what is being referred to is not our original creation, when we were born. For you recall that Paul tells us that we were born as "children of wrath" as it says in Ephesians 2:3, inheritors of the curse of original sin bequeathed to us by our first parents Adam and Eve. We were born sinners, "sons of disobedience". So it isn't our physical creation or birth that is being referred to.

No, it is referring to our re-creation, our being born again, created in Christ Jesus. We are declared to be new creatures, because, not by our own power, but by the Spirit of Christ, we have been formed to righteousness. As Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

We were once dead in our trespasses in sins, but now we have been made alive through union with Christ. And the objective of that new life is holiness. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Obviously before you were born again, before you were created in Christ Jesus, you were not walking in good works. Quite the opposite, you walked in trespasses and sins as it says in 2:1. Now of course you probably didn't think they were trespasses and sins at the time, after all you were just doing what every other worldling was doing, following the same course, the same broad path that leads to destruction as the other unbelievers. Not doing those things probably would have seemed really odd to you.

Do any of you who don't come from a covenant home, remember how weird evangelical Christians seemed before you were converted? How they did things you would have hated to do, and how they didn't do the things you loved to do? I remember that particularly well.

It's that radical difference between how the world walks and how the Christian walks that Paul is bringing out in this chapter. And now he's pointing to the big difference in the way you once walked and acted; the things you did, the things that seemed good to you, and your life now as Christian.

It's not just that you believe differently, or that you belong to a church; it's that your whole way of living has changed forever. Whereas formally you walked in sin, now you walk in good works. The old person you once were has died, he has been crucified with Christ, you are a new creation in Jesus.

In fact, the difference between who you were once and who you are now, is so important, so radical, that Paul can use it as an evidence that God saves us, not that we saved ourselves. When you were spiritually dead, you walked in trespasses and sins. You weren't walking towards God. You had no inclination towards him. But he worked in you, He made you alive, He gave you the gift of faith, He united you to Christ. Then you walked differently – then your behavior began that radical change. But first you had to be made anew, you had to be born again.

If your salvation was in any way dependent on our being able to do good works first, you would have been up the creek without a paddle, in the fullest sense of that image. Because its not until you are saved that you can do those good works! The object of your election and salvation is the holiness and good works that follow and flow from a changed heart. Therefore those good works could never be the ground of your salvation.

God doesn't do those good works for us, God acts upon you from within spiritually, and from without through His word and creates a free disposition, a real desire to do them. He works in you first to will, and then to do his good pleasure. All of those good works are in a real sense prepared, or foreordained for you to do, and you freely and willingly do them because you are His workmanship and you truly desire to please your maker by acting in accordance with his commands.

That's what good works are incidentally, actions in accordance with what God commands in His Holy Word. They aren't things that we make up as we go along, and they certainly aren't according to the shifting scale of what the world calls good. Two hundred years ago, abortion, suicide, homosexuality, unwed motherhood, rebellion, atheism, swearing, and pornography, were not good. Today, we increasingly being told that these things are now good, and must be either tolerated or even celebrated. As Sheryl Crow sings "If it makes you happy, It can't be that bad." Well, I'm not sure Sheryl has thought about what happens if the "you" in her song happens to be an axe murderer.

Good is defined by God, not by popular consensus or trusting to feelings. And woe to us if we contradict the word of God regarding what is good and what is evil. As it says in Isaiah 5:20 "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

So our good works don't save us, but they are so critical to the redeemed that you can't be a Christian and not evidence them in your life.

Which brings us back to our dead parrot. To claim that a parrot is alive, when it has no evidence of life is silly. To claim that a person is alive in Christ, when they have no evidence of good works, which are the signs of that new life, is equally silly. The pet store owner pointed to the parrots beautiful plumage, and the false Christian may point to things like their church membership, or their baptism, or their Christian parents. But none of these things are sure signs of life. The only sure sign of a converted sinner and a new life in Christ, is the fact of his walking in the good works that He was created for. As JC Ryle put it in his wonderful book Holiness:

"We must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ…. James warns us there is such a thing as a dead faith, a faith which goes no further than the profession of the lips and has no influence on a man’s character (James 2:17). True saving faith is a very different kind of thing. True faith will always show itself by its fruits; it will sanctify, it will work by love, it will overcome the world, it will purify the heart. I know that people are fond of talking about deathbed evidences. They will rest on words spoken in the hours of fear and pain and weakness, as if they might take comfort in them about the friends they lose. But I am afraid in ninety–nine cases out of a hundred, such evidences are not to be depended on. I suspect that, with rare exceptions, men die just as they have lived. The only safe evidence that we are one with Christ, and Christ in us, is holy life. They that live unto the Lord are generally the only people who die in the Lord. If we would die the death of the righteous, let us not rest in slothful desires only; let us seek to live His life. It is a true saying of Traill’s: "That man’s state is naught, and his faith unsound, that finds not his hopes of glory purifying to his heart and life."

Jesus Christ died not only that his sheep might have Justification and forgiveness of sins, he died that his sheep might be sanctified and made Holy. As it says in Titus 2:14 He "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works."

Therefore if today, you are a new creation in Christ, I exhort you, stir up love and good works both in yourself and your brothers and sisters in Christ. Recommit yourself to living a holy life and doing good works according to God's word. Become familiar with God's word so that you might know and do the good works that Jesus has prepared for you. [LC for examples] And do not grow weary in well doing, for that is your calling as a Christian.

If on the other hand, you have become aware of your true state through an utter lack of good works in you life, then I beg you – flee to Christ for salvation. At the foot of the cross through faith in Him, you will find forgiveness for all your sins and trespasses, and a new life eternal. I promise you, once you have been made anew in Christ, your life will begin to overflow with those good works whose absence you now feel so keenly.

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