Learning to Live and Die in Joy (Ephesians 2:1–10; Lord’s Day 1)
How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? Three: how great my sin and misery are, how I am delivered, and how I am to thank God. Far from being a valley after the mountain peak of Q&A 1, this threefold outline of guilt, grace, and gratitude—traced through Ephesians 2’s “but God”—is the outline of the Catechism and of the Christian life itself: to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Introduction
Let’s turn one last time to Lord’s Day 1 of our Heidelberg Catechism. Our focus will be Q&A 2 tonight but let’s joyfully read responsively both questions:
Q.1. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own,
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
also assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.Q.2. How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
A.Three:
first, how great my sin and misery are;
second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery;
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.
One modern commentator said, “The catechism…move[s] from the mountain peak of the first question and answer to the valley of the second” (Klooster, 1:50). When I read that I was shocked. How could he say that?
Q&A 2 speaks of living and dying in joy! In contrast, one old commentator said this: “The chief and principal happiness of man consists in this, that he may live and die a happy man” (Bastingius, 4 col. 1).
Q&A 2 is the outline of our catechism. Its threefold division was a part of the “common stock of Protestant theology” (Lyle Bierma, “The Sources and Theological Orientation of the Heidelberg Catechism,” in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism, 86).
It’s also the outline of our lives. Listen to these words again:
What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death. How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
Obviously we know that it is a joy to live in the confidence of belonging to Jesus Christ. But did you notice that both these opening questions also say it is a joy to die in the confidence of belonging to Jesus Christ?
Turn for a moment to Philippians 1. Paul speaks of his imprisonment and says in verse 20, “it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Then we read that famous line, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (v. 21).
That’s the joy of the Christian life! That’s what Q&A 2 is all about! It’s no valley! It’s another mountain peak!
Theme
I want you to learn how to live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Jesus!
Learn How Great Your Sin and Misery Are
What do I want you to know so that you can live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Jesus? I want you to be able to say, “I know how great my sin and misery are.”
Do you know how great your sins against God are and therefore how miserable you’d be apart from his grace? That’s what Paul reminded the Ephesians of in 2:1–3. Notice the oxymoronic statement in verses 1–2: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. We were dead in…trespasses and sins ,which means we were lifeless spiritually. We were like zombies—dead yet alive; alive physically, but inside empty and “dead.”
Therefore we lived our lives following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (v. 2). And then he says as a Jew among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (v. 3).
Did you hear that? We all were by nature children of wrath. Not only were we dead by actually committing transgressions and sins but we were also dead by originally committing transgression and sin in our father Adam as the apostle says in Romans 5:12. We were born in a similar way as poisonous snakes. You see poisonous snakes are born with venom already, even though they do not use it until they are developed. And although they do not use this venom until later, when it is born you can say of that snake, “it’s a poisonous snake.” So too we were born with the venom of original sin.
Why do I need to know how great my sin and misery are to live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Jesus? It’s only when you know you are sick that you can find a remedy (Bastingius 4 col. 2; Ursinus, Commentary, 21).
Compare what Paul said to a recent survey. This is going to shock you:
“Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”
52% of evangelicals somewhat or strongly agree!
“Even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.”
Only 54% of evangelicals somewhat or strongly agree!
“An individual must contribute his or her own effort for personal salvation.”
A staggering 74% of evangelicals somewhat or strongly agree! Evangelicals hardly know what Jesus even saves them from. It’s only when we hear this that we are ready to hear the gospel with profit (Ursinus, Commentary, 21).
Learn How You are Delivered from Misery
What do I want you to know so that you can live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Jesus? I want you to be able to say, “I know how I am delivered from all my sins and misery.”
How am I delivered from original and actual sins? But God! (v. 4) These are the two simplest yet greatest words the world has ever heard! These two small words magnify the free grace of God toward us as sinners by contrasting what we deserved as “objects of wrath” with what God has given us, his grace.
But God what? Even when we were dead in our trespasses of God’s holy Law, but God!
Even when we were dead in our sins, but God!
Even when we walked according to the course of this world, but God!
Even when we walked after the ways of the Devil, but God!
Even when we fulfilled the desires of the flesh and mind, but God!
Even when we were by nature children of wrath, but God!
Do you know this power tonight? Don’t leave without it! Give your life to Jesus and become a Christian along with us.
And being rich in mercy and because of the great love with which he loved useven when we were dead in our trespasses (v. 4) God made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved (v. 5).
We were dead; he made us alive!
We were hollow zombies; he made us Spirit-filled images of God.
We were six feet under the ground, he took us into his heavenly banquet room.
We were in burial linens, he clothed us with pure white robes.
Notice the progression here. God made us alive, then he raised us up with Christ, and finally he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (v. 6). You are no longer identified and characterized by everything you were before Jesus Christ.
Learn How to Thank God for Deliverance from Misery
What do I want you to know so that you can live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Jesus? I want you to be able to say, “I know how I am to thank God for such deliverance.”
Look at verse 10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. That word created is used elsewhere to speak of the entire created realm (Rom. 1:20) but here Paul has our personal new creation in view:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
Now you can walk in good works in contrast to walking in trespasses and sins, according to the world’s ways, in the devil’s footsteps as before. And just as we were predestined before the foundation of the world to salvation as chapter 1 says, so too the good works that we are to do have been predestined by God. Doesn’t that just blow your mind away? This is the life you are now able to live in the Spirit as God’s resurrected people.
Conclusion
When you know these three things, you begin to learn how to live and die in joy. Brothers and sisters: “How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?” Say with me the answer:
Three: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.