Ephesians 2: Everything Is Grace, Even for the Worst Past

Introduction

"Anyway, I'm going to talk mostly about what Jesus has done in my life. Not especially about my own life, but about what he has managed to make of it." David Remi will soon be 57. He is the head of the Bible Society in Belgium, he served as a pastor for more than 13 years, and for 15 years he has taught theology, church history and the Bible. On this Sunday, at the Église Protestante Évangélique de Namur, he steps up to share his testimony.

The service is part of the "Sunday of Hope," chosen by a large number of evangelical Protestant churches in Wallonia to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. To open, the reading of John 9 set the tone: the healed blind man cannot explain everything, but he knows one thing: "I was blind, and now I see."

David Remi starts from a single text, Ephesians 2:8-10: "For by grace you have been saved through faith." He tells how this God of grace reached a young man full of hatred, violence and drugs, and what he made of him. His story includes hard episodes (family violence, racism, prison, suicidal thoughts): he speaks of them with restraint, to show how far grace can go.

Outline of the message

1. Everything is grace

The starting text: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
"Everything is grace." Being together this morning, waking up, having eaten a good breakfast: all of it is an effect of his grace.
David Remi states his intention right away: not to put his life in the spotlight, but to show what Jesus "has managed to make of it."

2. A childhood between church and violence

He is born into a Christian family. He goes to church, to Sunday school, to camps. He hears teaching and learns who Jesus is.
But his father, who has since passed away, has serious problems with alcohol and violence. The family goes to church for a week, then he falls back into "his worst ways," and it gets worse and worse. His mother, his brothers, his sister and he himself suffer his violence when he comes home drunk.
This father is also "very mystical": he has visions and sometimes keeps the family at home for hours to teach them himself, to "hammer us with the Bible." On top of that come abuses he does not want to describe in detail: "it really disturbed our childhood, our teenage years."
At 11, having heard who God is, he consciously chooses to stop believing. His parents separate many times, and by the age of 18 the family has moved about twenty times.

3. Hatred and the fall

At 19, he is expelled from school for his T-shirts bearing the image of Adolf Hitler, his swastikas, extortion and violence.
The hatred he feels toward his father grows until he swears to kill him. It spreads to every form of authority: school, then the army, then the police. "A real rejection and a provocation."
This hatred turns into racism. From punk, he becomes a skinhead, "very, very aggressive." He describes himself as "unbearable," "awful," "very violent."
On returning from a four-month mission in Somalia, the young woman he loves has left with someone else. Everything collapses. He slides into alcohol, then drugs, and within a few weeks becomes a dealer in his area.
Soon after, a very violent assault, covered in the media, lands him in prison. When he gets out, he is "still just as lost," even deeper into drugs, and the downward spiral continues.
A new relationship with a married woman puts him in danger. He, who has always loved life, thinks for the first time about ending it. He is 27 years old.

4. A Bible at the foot of the bed

He goes into his room. At the foot of the bed there is a Bible. "To this day, nobody knows who put it there."
He opens it and lands on Proverbs 7: a young man, a woman whose husband is away, and a path that leads to the grave. "Every line of this passage is a description of what I was living at the time."
"I realize for the first time in my life, in a completely personal way, that God is speaking to me. Oh, I didn't hear a voice, no." What he had heard for years rises to the surface.
He wants no Christians, no church, no religious trappings. He only wants to know who Jesus is. He starts reading, "devouring."

5. The God of grace, not his father's god

The God he had fashioned "in the image of my father," in the image of his disappointments, is "completely shattered" by reading Scripture.
The Bible becomes his mirror. He understands why everything is going so badly in his life and remembers the moment he chose to stop believing.
"I did not come across a God who made me feel guilty, who crushed me, who humiliated me, but I discovered this God of grace." Grace, he explains, is "undeserved favor": receiving what we do not deserve.
Alone in his room, in front of the text, he asks God for forgiveness. "The more I recognized who I was, the lighter and more forgiven I felt."

6. Making amends, and the question of condemnation

He knows whom he has hurt: those to whom he sold drugs, those he beat, members of his family. He gathers his courage and goes to meet them one by one to tell them that he has met God.
Some welcome him warmly. Others very badly: at the factory where he works at the time, someone chases him with a screwdriver. "I could understand. What I still could not understand was God's grace."
He is convinced that his life will end in prison, not out of a taste for martyrdom, but because he has done too much harm.
On the way home from an outing, at the Wavre train station, a young woman approaches him as she sees him reading his Bible. Among the 25 or 30 churches of the Borinage, she attends precisely the one he had decided to join. This is how God leads him to church.
He arrives there "very legalistic, very hard," to the point of refusing to help his mother one Sunday because "it's the Sabbath." He has to learn to live as a Christian and not as a legalist.
Every time he speaks of his guilt to the pastor or to visiting preachers, the answer comes back like a refrain: Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." "I could not understand it."
He finally prays: he will no longer lie. If the police ever stop him, he will tell the truth. "And if you allow it, I will go to prison, I will serve my sentence and I will be a happy witness, even between four walls." Since then, 28 years have passed and he has not been troubled again: "the Lord has taken care of me. Humanly speaking, I deserved it."

7. A new creation, created for good works

When he discovers who God is, his thoughts of suicide leave him. The hatred toward his father also disappears: "I can't explain it to you, it just vanished."
"The Bible tells us that when we meet Jesus, we become a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17). He clearly sees the difference between "the David of before" and the one who discovered Jesus.
His wife, a missionary's daughter, grew up in a calm and stable home. Around age 13 she recognized that she needed a Savior. The path is different, the point is the same: whatever our past, "our foolish things or our non-foolish things," there comes a day when we must take a stand before God and agree to follow him.
"From the moment I handed over the keys of my life, he took care of it." Neither drugs, nor alcohol, nor philosophy, nor political opinions, nor psychology, "despite their benefits," could do what God did in the depths of him.
He finishes the verse: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). God looks on every life with love and grace, regardless of the past and of works, good or bad.

Key takeaways

Everything is grace: salvation is a gift from God received by faith, not the fruit of our works.
The image of God that we inherit from our wounds can be false. Reading Scripture for yourself lets you meet God as he is.
The forgiveness received from God moves us to repair, as far as possible, the harm done to others.
There is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), even when you are convinced you must pay.
No past is too heavy for God: in Christ, we become a new creation, created for good works.

Personal application

What image of God do you still carry, shaped by a parent, a church or a disappointment, rather than by what Scripture says?
Is there a wrong for which you still think you must pay, while Romans 8:1 tells you there is no more condemnation?
Is someone you have wronged still waiting for a step from you?
Have you handed God "the keys of your life," or are you keeping some rooms locked?
What good works might God have prepared for you this week?

Verses quoted

Frequently asked questions

What does "everything is grace" mean in Ephesians 2:8-10?

For David Remi, grace is undeserved favor: receiving what we do not deserve and cannot earn. Salvation does not come from us or from our works, it is a gift from God received by faith. Waking up in the morning, being together at the service, eating breakfast: all of it is an effect of his grace.

How did God speak to David Remi through Proverbs 7?

At the darkest moment of his life, he finds a Bible at the foot of his bed, without knowing who put it there. He opens it to Proverbs chapter 7, which describes a young man whose path leads to death. Every line matches what he is living. He then understands, for the first time and in a personal way, that God is speaking to him.

What does Romans 8:1 mean for someone who has done a great deal of harm?

There is no more condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. David Remi long believed that he had to pay and end his life in prison. Church leaders always answered him with this verse. He finally handed his life over to God, ready to bear the consequences, and he discovered that the harm he had done is wiped away by what Jesus accomplished.