WHEN BOOTSTRAPS
SCRIPTURE: Ephesians 2: (exegetical/doctrinal)
I. We Are Made Alive in Christ
1. 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 how are disobedient.
MORE ACCURATELY: IN WHICH YOU FORMERLY WALKED (paripateo) [being occupied with the things of this world] ACCORDING TO THE COURSE OF THIS WORLD’S ORDER
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 and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were, we were by nature the objects of wrath.
4. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
AGAPE COMPASSION
5. made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— (1) it is by grace you have been saved. SUZOOPOIEO FROM ZOE
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.
FOREVER MORE.
8. (2)For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
GRACE=(charis) [unmerited favor]
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SAVED?
1. THE SPIRITUAL
2. THE PRESENT EXPERIENCE OF GOD’S POWER TO DELLIVER FROM THE BONDAGE OF SIN
3. THE FUTURE DELIVERANCE OF BELIEVERS AT THE SECOND COMING
4. THE INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER WHO THROUGH LOSING HIS REWARD, THROUGH SPIRITUAL
9. not by works, so that no one can boast.
NO PERSON CAN SAY: “
ONLY BY GRACE
10. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
II. ONCE WE HAD NO HOPE
11. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)—
EXPLAIN (en sarki) 2x in v.11 and 1x in v. 15. In the flesh is both a Jewish and Gentile condition, but the two become one in Christ.
12. remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in
13. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
15. by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace,
16. and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
17. He came and preached peace to those who were near.
18. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household,
20. built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.
21. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
22. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.
When I was a little guy, before the days of TV, my Saturdays were spent in reading comic books. I was especially stirred by the Adventures of Superman. My young imagination was so turned on. I often found myself heading outside with a large bath towel tied around my neck and I reenacted what I had just read. I envisioned myself as being indestructible. Even in those days, I had illusions of being a superhero. I took the trouble to memorize the standard introduction to every episode: “Faster than a speeding bullet; more powerful than a locomotive; able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Look up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane.
No, it’s Bobby Barone! Uh. . . I mean Superman! I even remembered his mission: to defend truth, justice and the American way.”
At age six that last part was a little fuzzy to me. Exactly, what was the “American way?” As I grew older, that question became clearly answered.
The American way was identified by the phrase “bootstraps.” It meant working hard to capitalize on, and even create, opportunity – doing for yourself what needed to be done rather than asking or expecting someone else to do it for you. It means becoming self-reliant, independent, and self-sufficient.
It literally means, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps rather than by accepting a helping hand from someone else.
This ideal is as American as apple pie. And it is given a number of names—among them the “Protestant work ethic.” (It was the “do or die” work ethic we inherited from our pilgrim and pioneer forefathers; somewhat good and somewhat bad.) I say somewhat bad, because that kind of independence can be interpreted as being arrogant, and most of us are not really arrogant, just independent minded. Where we run amuck is when we think that the “American way” is the only way to have a successful nation.
In its favor, let me say that I have found its equivalent in very few nations of the world that I have visited. It has been the foundation for an energetic, industrious, innovative, and ambitious nation of people, the
This cultural trait, as we shall see, has some inherent and dangerous flaws. The other extreme of this mind-set is communist socialism, which robs its subjects of independent thinking, ingenuity, entrepreneurship and spiritual expression.
Many thinkers today believe this “American Ideal” of our national life is seriously threatened and in decline. They worry that it is being replaced by a debilitating dependency upon government, which is appealing to the masses with a philosophy of entitlement for the victimizations of past generations.
The current debate across
Nevertheless, “bootstraps” remains a powerful aspect of the American recipe for success. This belief spills over to the way people understand God and their relationship to Him.
For example, it is not at all unusual to find people in our country who will say the way to go to heaven and to spend eternity with God is to live a life sufficiently meritorious so that our good deeds, at least by some margin, exceed our bad deeds. And on that basis, we earn or achieve eternal life.
Most of the American population has never verbalized this, but in the back of their minds is that misty ghost of a thought that whispers to their souls, “Pull yourself up by your own Bootstraps.” This is a grave fallacy.
Not long ago, I was talking with a man concerning his understanding about how to go to heaven. He gave me a response that was a typical “bootstraps” perspective. I asked him how he was doing in this quest of his. His reply was, “I am doing the best I can.” This is the way he would talk about his job or his marriage or his parenting skills; “Just trying the very best I can.”
World religions are all based upon a bootstraps philosophy. Whether we are describing Hinduism or Buddhism or Shintoism or Islam or other world religions, they are all based on the idea that if you live in a certain way and do it well enough, then maybe you can achieve heaven (or what ever it is called. . . You know…. out there).
For example, the idea of reincarnation, is very hostile to biblical Christianity. The Bible clearly teaches: “It is appointed for men, to die once and after this judgment” (Heb.
Reincarnation is rooted in a bootstraps religious philosophy. In Hinduism, according to whether you have performed well or poorly in your present life, you acquire either good or bad “karma.” That karma in a subsequent reincarnated life brings you farther along the path to heaven or takes you farther away. And in the course of subsequent lives, if you live perfectly enough, eventually you become a god yourself and achieve heaven.
Incredibly enough, though it is totally foreign to Biblical teaching, this idea of bootstraps religion has even found its way into some expressions of Christianity.
Historically there is a tendency for various groups to create bureaucracies that announce the rules and regulations and hoops and trials and tests whereby an individual, through compliance with those rules and regulations can achieve an opportunity to go to Heaven.
Such groups may say if you are:
· baptized (especially in their church)
· or receive communion (especially in their church,
· or if you go through some set of religious classes (especially in their church),
· or what ever else the rules and regulations be, then you have earned the right to go to heaven.
It is not at all uncommon for various expressions of Christian faith
to be based upon a bootstraps approach to our relationship with God.
As a result of this, if any of you were to say with absolute confidence to people with whom you live in your neighborhoods or see at work, “I know I am going to heaven,” most of the people hearing you say that would accuse you of arrogance and pride. Why?
Anyone who accuses you of arrogance about the statement that you are going to heaven is a person who is revealing that he or she embraces a bootstraps philosophy of faith.
In their view, by saying you know that you are going to heaven it is as though you are boasting that your merit is so great you are confident of eternal life.
In sharp contrast with this mental prison comes the radical message of the Bible. The apostle Paul taught the church at
Let’s take a careful look at this text. There are three primary ideas to be considered.
1. is a grammatical one. The pronoun this, refers to grace that is not from us, or faith that is not from us, or salvation that does not come from us either. Grace, faith and salvation are not from ourselves. All three of these are from the heart of God.
Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” It is God who gives us the desire to believe him and trust him for our lives. And the radical message here is that this process of salvation is a gift God grants which we act to receive. It is not the result of works, so that “no one can boast.”
Let’s make sure we understand our terms. Grace is used in the Scripture to describe “undeserved favor.” It refers to God’s disposition toward us without regard to who we are or what we have done or haven’t done. It is related only to God’s own nature, which is loving and gracious.
By grace we have been saved. Salvation refers to the truth that all of us were born with a sin condition—every one of us. As a result, we are separated from the life of God. While we may try to bridge that gap by good works, the Scripture says it cannot be done. So Jesus came into the world and offered the gift of that bridge.
Our role is to receive it by faith, believing Christ to be God’s Son and receiving Him into our lives. Salvation refers to reunion with God and both fellowship with Him now (knowing Him now) as well as in his timeless eternity.
What is Faith? Every person in the
Faith is common and universal. Some kind of religious faith is common and almost universal. Buddhist believe things. Hindus believe things. Muslims believe things. And some people say Christian faith is to believe that God will do a certain thing for you. Many people are disappointed with God because they trusted Him for something that He “failed” to perform for them, and as a result they become bitter and resentful.
That is not what the Bible teaches about faith. The Bible says faith begins with information from God’s Word. It is no leap in the dark, no blind step, nothing done in ignorance.
Faith starts with what God has specifically said. The next step is to come to a conclusion about whether what God has said is true or not. That is an act of your will. Faith starts with your mind in acquiring information about the Scriptures,
· moves to your will as to whether you believe it or not,
· and finally leads you to act upon what the Word says.
So Biblical faith starts with the Bible, moves to belief, and ends up with action or response.
This sequence is beautifully portrayed in Romans 10: 13-17:
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.”
What does the word Works refer to in the phrase “not by works, so that no one can boast”? The Bible uses the term works to describe behaviors that are generally deemed by society to be
· positive,
· praiseworthy,
· and favorable actions, that is, doing good deeds, doing things particularly for other people.
· As Romans so clearly states “No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
· So we see then absolutely no one can cover their sin problem with a Band-Aid and find their way to heaven on the basis of their good works. So the radical message of the Scripture in this bootstraps nation of ours is that we cannot build that bridge to God.
· Only God can do that for us, and it is done not because we deserve it but on the basis of His mercy and His grace and as a gift offered. OUR RESPONSE IS TO RECEIVE THE
This past week I read a poem entitled “The Pit” by Kenneth Philkens.
It reminded me of this truth. It went something like this:
A man fell into a pit and he couldn’t get out.
A Subjective Person came along and said, “I feel for you down there.”
An Objective Person came along and said, “It’s logical that someone would fall down there.”
A Christian Scientist came along and said, “You only think that you are in the pit.”
A Charismatic Triumphalist came along and said, “Just confess you are not in the pit.”
A Pharisee said, “Only a bad person would fall in a pit.”
A Hell fire and Damnation Preacher said, “You deserve your pit.”
Buddha said, “Your pit is only a state of mind.”
A Hindu said, “Your pit is for purging you and making you more perfect”
Confucius said, “If you would have listened to me, you would never have fallen into that pit.”
A New Ager said, “Maybe you should network with some other pit dwellers.”
An Evolutionist said, “You are a rejected human mutant destined to be removed from the evolutionary cycle. You are going to die in the pit so you do not produce inferior pit-falling off- spring.”
A Self-Pitying Person said, “You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my pit.”
A News Reporter said, “Could I have the exclusive story on your pit experience?”
An I.R.S. Man said, “Have you paid your taxes on the pit?”
A
A realist said, “That’s a pit.”
An Idealist said, “The world shouldn’t have pits.”
An Optimist said, “Things could be worse.”
A Pessimist said, “Things will get worse.”
Jesus, seeing the man,
took him be the hand
and lifted him out of the pit.
There are some who have a problem in accepting God’s grace because of the way they tenaciously embrace bootstraps. Let me describe them in two categories:
First are those in religious authority who run the religious bureaucracies and are very threatened by the idea that salvation is based upon God’s grace and is a gift to all people That kind of thinking disempowers them from the loyalty of their followers through the rules and regulations of the bureaucracies.
Some of you may have come out of these religious systems.
Yet some who escape such systems experience an irony. You would think there would be a sense of exhilaration at being out from under the yoke of such a system.
But, in fact, I have met some of these people who find it hard to accept God’s grace because they rather like the idea of bootstraps. They have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps from the time when they were very young and have accomplished “this and that” in life.
· This is their education,
· this is their knowledge,
· this is their job accomplishment,
· this is their family,
· and this is their health, etc.
· And all of the stuff with which they surround themselves
· as a basis of feeling okay about themselves is based on the idea of pride and arrogance.
Some think, “I can earn my way to heaven by being a good person.”
The message of the Bible is: IT CAN’T BE DONE.” Let me illustrate the point. Now it may be true that some are better swimmers than others, but everyone trying to swim the
Into this understanding of grace comes humility. God did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. Jesus is the only one who can lift us out of that pit. The Bible says in John 1:12: “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. Notice that is not
· a set of perfect behaviors
· or hoops we jump through
· or rules and regulations.
It is receiving Christ.
What does that mean? Romans 10 tells us that the way a person comes into a personal, forgiven relationship with Christ is to believe that Jesus is precisely who He claimed to be: God’s Son who came to earth, who died for our sins to pay the penalty our sins deserve, who was buried, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and now is preparing to return to earth.
The Scripture says that we must believe those things. But more than that, we have to receive Christ as the gift of eternal life. A gift offered is possessed only when it has been received.
So the Scripture tells us that the next step is to ask Christ to come into our life to become our personal Lord and Savior. It does not happen by owning a Bible or by growing up in a home with others who have received Christ, or by good intentions or by goodwill.
It happens when we act upon the gift presented to us and ask Christ to come into our life to forgive us and to wash us clean from our sin and make us His man or woman.
The Scripture raises the question: “When is a good day for someone to experience this gift of salvation?” 2 Corinthians 6 answers it by saying “Today!”
Has God brought you to a place today where you are ready to trust Him for your eternal life?
Are you ready to surrender the bootstraps and all the human efforts to “earn” heaven, to surrender the idea that you don’t “need” salvation? You know you do. No one is perfect.
Are you ready to surrender the unbiblical notion that because you are better than some other people, you are likely to go to heaven? The Bible says “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).
Are you ready to accept God’s free gift of eternal life?
If you are, you can pray a prayer something like this:
”Gracious heavenly Father: I admit to you today that I am a sinner and that I have fallen short of your perfect moral standard. I know that Christ is your Son and that Jesus died for me. I know He rose again from the dead. Right now, I ask you to come into my life and forgive me. I want to receive the gift of eternal life. I want to turn away from sin and I want to follow Christ and be the person in Christ He wants me to be. Because I believe you have done this, right, Lord, I want to thank you.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
