In the Name of the
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier
Two
men are leaning against the office water cooler. One says to the other,
“Say, you look depressed. What
are you thinking about?”
“My
future,” his friend sighed.
“What
makes your future look so hopeless?” the first man asked.
“My
past,” he replied.
Don’t
we wish we could be a fly on the wall for the rest of that conversation!
I’d like to know what regrets from that man’s past were stealing
away his hope for the future.
Louisa
Tarkington spoke for many people when she wrote:
I wish there were
some wonderful place
called
the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all of our
past mistakes and heartaches,
And
all of our poor selfish grief,
Could be dropped
like a shabby old coat at the door
And
never be put on again.
Regret
is a crippling emotion because it leaves us chained to the past.
Regret provides the ammunition for the twin demons of shame and guilt.
It erodes our self-esteem. It is the little voice that whispers in our
ear, “Remember your failures, remember your foolish decisions.
Remember the kind of person you were.”
The
Apostle Paul, of all people, understood the corrosive power of regret.
As a devoted Pharisee, Paul--then called Saul--had been a chief
persecutor of the early Christian believers. In the book of Acts,
chapter 7, we read of the execution of Stephen, a young man who was
arrested and stoned to death by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling
council, because he preached so boldly about Jesus as the Messiah.
Chapter 7, verse 58 reads, “Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their
clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.” And Acts 8, verse 1
tells us, “And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.” Oh
yes, Saul knew what it was to have regrets. In Acts 9, Saul has a
life-changing encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Afterwards,
he changes his name to Paul. When he tries to join up with the other
Christians, they reject him at first. They know of his past. How can
they be sure that he’s a changed man? So Paul goes away for a time of
discipleship. When he returns, he is ready to take on the mantle of
leadership. And Paul becomes the most effective Christian evangelist in
history.
Oh
yes, St. Paul knows the power of regrets. But he also knows the
indisputable power of Christ to change a person from the inside out. He
knows the power that can change a man from a murderer to a minister. And
so, St. Paul is not afraid to be honest in his letter to the Ephesians.
“You
were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived,
following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of
the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are
disobedient.” (Eph. 2: 1-2)
You
were dead--how’s that for total honesty? Not just, “You were messed
up.” “You were morally challenged.” “You were failing to
self-actualize.” No, St. Paul says, “You were dead through the
trespasses and sins in which you once lived . . .” Let’s not kid
ourselves about our fate before we came to know Christ. Jesus didn’t
just come to help us reach our potential, or to make us nicer people.
Christian comedian Mike Warnke says, “Jesus didn’t come to make bad
people good. He came to give dead people life!” St. Paul is not
reminding the Ephesian believers of their past to cause them shame. In
fact, he sympathizes with them when he says in verse 3, “All of us
once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the
desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath,
like everyone else.”
All
of us once lived like that. We were all in the same boat. None of us is
better than anyone else. So what do we do with our past? What do we do
with our fears and failings and foolish decisions? What do we do with
that accusing voice in our head? St. Paul is only reminding us of our
past so that we can rejoice even more in the present. He writes, “But
God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together
with Christ - by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and
seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in
the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2: 4-7, NIV)
We
were dead, but now we are alive! And not just a
barely-breathing-on-life-support kind of alive. We are made alive with
Christ. What does Jesus say about his kind of life in the book of St.
John chapter 10, verse 10? “I have come that they may have life, and
have it more abundantly.” Jesus doesn’t just give us back our old
lives. He gives us a new life, an abundant life. And a life that only
hints at the glorious riches of the heavenly treasure he has stored up
for his followers.
On
Sept. 12, 2001, Genelle Guzman-McMillan became the last person to be
rescued alive from the wreckage of the New York Trade Center’s Twin
Towers. No one yet understands how she was lucky enough to survive when
more than 2,800 people who were in the same building at the same time
died. In a piece on survivors like Genelle a reporter for Time
magazine wrote, “Having cheated death, they aren’t certain how
to live.” What do we do when we were supposed to die, but instead we
live? How do we go about shaping a new life? Before the attacks on the
World Trade Center, Genelle was living with her boyfriend, Roger. She
cared a lot about her appearance, and about going out to dance clubs
with her friends. Occasionally, she and Roger attended church; they were
starting to question whether there was more to life than work and
club-hopping.
But
while she was trapped for 26 hours in the rubble of the Trade Center,
Genelle prayed fervently to God. She knows that God saved her. After her
release from the hospital, she and Roger married. They regularly attend
church now. Genelle has not returned to work yet; she spends most of her
time reading her Bible and watching television. Friends and family worry
that Genelle is drifting. But none of them can deny the peace and
strength that she has gained from her newfound faith in Jesus. Her
priorities have changed. She believes that God saved her for a reason;
she reads her Bible because she wants urgently to understand what that
reason is.
I
think verses 8-10 in this passage answer that question for the Ephesian
believers, for Genelle Guzman-McMillan, and for us:
“For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one
may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”
(Eph. 2: 8-10)
We
didn’t deserve to be saved. We didn’t earn this new life. It was
given to us, an unselfish gift that came from the hands of our loving
and merciful God. Verse one of this passage tells us that we were dead.
Verse five tells us that we are alive. And verse ten gives us the reason
why: to do good works. This is the purpose that God “prepared
beforehand to be our way of life.” So what do we do with our new life?
We dedicate it to doing good works. Not just hit-or-miss efforts at
charity, but good works as a way of life.
In
1999, best-selling author Stephen King was hit by a car while out
walking near his home. The accident left him with severe injuries. In an
article in Family Circle
magazine (Nov. 1, 2001), King writes that having a close brush with
death taught him to contemplate the real meaning of life. As he writes,
“. . . I want you to consider making your life one long gift to
others. And why not? All you have is on loan, anyway. All that lasts is
what you pass on. . . . Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift
but the giver. It’s for the giver. One doesn’t open one’s wallet
to improve the world, although it’s nice when that happens; one does
it to improve one’s self. I give because it’s the only concrete way
I have of saying that I’m glad to be alive . . . ”
Listen to that quote again: “I
give because it’s the only concrete way I have of saying that I’m
glad to be alive . . .” Are we glad to be alive? Are we grateful for
the grace and the mercy that God has shown you? Do we remember what we
were before Christ saved us? Then let that overwhelming sense of
gratitude motivate us to good works. Pass on the love and mercy that God
first gave us. As Stephen King wrote, “Consider making your life one
long gift to others.” It is what our Savior did for us. It is what we
are called to do for others.
In
her memoirs, which she published in 1997 at the age of 98, Jessie Lee
Brown Foveaux shares her advice about facing hard times:
“You
say you think life is like a big puzzle. How right you are, my dear.
Life is like a puzzle, and the pieces fall into place each day, and the
giant puzzle lasts all along life’s way . . . God will, if we ask,
give us the strength for whatever may come, so let’s put guilt and
confusion behind us. Once we ask and are forgiven, we can start the new
day with joy and accept the fact that we are all sinners saved by
God’s grace. Then we can have a cheerful smile to light up our face to
greet anyone we may meet anytime or anyplace.”
Can
we put guilt and confusion behind us? Can we start the new day with
joy? We can if we accept the fact that we are all sinners saved by
God’s grace. We were not made to live in the past, chained by our
regrets. We were made for an abundant life of fellowship with God and
service to others. Let’s start living as truly alive people today.
S H
A L O M