Ephesians 2:19 “Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.”

We are “Members of God’s household.” Several years ago my wife and I looked after two little girls whose mother had lost the ability to walk and had to spend several months in a rehabilitation hospital. While they lived in our home, they enjoyed all the privileges of family. They ate at our table. They had their own room. We took them shopping. We took them to their activities. They were like family…until their mother came home. Then they went home. While they remain dear to us to this day, it’s not the same as when they lived in our home as part of our family.

As members of God’s household, we aren’t like family. We are family. We have been fully adopted, and he will never send us back where we came from. The process going forward will always be drawing us closer, giving us more. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

As family members, there are long lists of privileges we possess. God has also given us many responsibilities that come along with the privilege. For the moment, let’s take a few moments just to let our new identity sink in.

All of us long to be somebody. We want to be notable, important, special. Maybe you have seen the Disney cartoon The Incredibles. A family of superheroes has to hide their identity. The superheroes have fallen out of favor due to a number of accidents and mishaps. The public doesn’t want them to come to the rescue anymore. They have these special powers, every one of them, but for a while they have to become ordinary, and blend in, and to go work and go to school just like everybody else. Eventually a new super villain comes along and forces them to come out of retirement. The public learns to appreciate their special powers again. But along the way the Incredibles learn that what truly makes them special is the family that loves them: mom, dad, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband, or wife.

You and I are part of God’s family. You are a son or daughter of the King. He died for the privilege of having you. He handpicked you for himself. No Hollywood celebrity is better connected. No powerful politician is more respected. No person on earth is more treasured and loved than you are. You are a… I am a…child of God. We are somebody to him. It is hard to imagine being something more.

Ephesians 2:19 “Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people…”

You have been asked to introduce yourself to a group. You tell them your name. Then your next sentence begins, “I am a…” How does the sentence end? Do you tell them what you do for a living? “I am a computer programmer.” Do you lead with your family relationships? “I am the mother of three children.” “I am Allyson’s husband.” Do you go to some lifelong allegiance to team or state? “I am a life-long Sooner fan. I am a native Oklahoman.” All of these, of course, are expressions of your identity.

Paul gives us another identity, one far greater than any other: “fellow citizens with God’s people.” If citizens, then we are “no longer foreigners and aliens.” Whatever your politics might be about immigration in our country, you have to admit that citizenship in the United States of America is a privilege highly prized by people all around the world. Most of our own ancestors risked a very dangerous voyage across an ocean to come here and get it.

Like those who come to our country with the dream of becoming citizens, we didn’t begin life as “fellow citizens with God’s people.” For those born outside the United States, it is an accident of where they were born. For citizens of God’s Kingdom, it was a matter of how they were born. We are infected with sin we inherited from our parents. We are disqualified by behavior that is inappropriate and shameful for people of God. We are more or less content with our original citizenship under whatever false gods we find to serve. We don’t know any better and we don’t want any better, so long as we are more or less left alone to do what we want for ourselves.

Then something extraordinary happened. In the case of our human ancestors, they made a dangerous journey to come and become American citizens. But for “fellow citizens with God’s people,” it is our Ruler, our King, who made the dangerous journey from heaven to earth. He came in search of people who didn’t want to be his citizens at all. The journey cost him his life, but his death on a cross removed all the disqualifications that stood in the way of our citizenship. More than that, it unleashed a power, the power of grace and love, that changes the people who hear it. It draws them, woos them, wins them, until they renounce their old allegiances to sin, self, and Satan.

This love of God that came, and died, and searched and claimed me for his own makes me a loyal citizen of God’s kingdom, and a fellow citizen with God’s people. It’s my new identity. It’s who I am.

1 Kings 19: 13b-18 “Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu”

Anything sound familiar here? Elijah and the Lord traded the same question and answer before the Lord spoke to him on the mountain. The prophet still doesn’t completely get it. He is still stuck in self-pity. It is still about him. Maybe there was less difference between Elijah and the people he was trying to reach than he thought. Elijah could be a thick-headed, too, it appears.

But the Lord didn’t abandon him. He didn’t fire him either. The Lord doesn’t wait for us to get it all together, to get it all straight, before he puts us to work. He understands the material he has to work with. Imperfect as it is, he makes use of the broken, confused, morally struggling people that he has called to faith and redeemed for himself in whatever condition he finds them today.

So God sent Elijah back to his work, his calling, as prophet to Israel and the world. He was saying this to Elijah: “Maybe you have given up on your work. Maybe you have given up on my people. Maybe you have given up on this situation. But I haven’t, just like I haven’t given up on you. Go and do what you are supposed to do, and know that I will use it to do what I am supposed to do.”

My job, my calling as pastor, is a little bit like Elijah’s. Your callings as employees, students, parents, children, spouses, etc., may not be much like his at all. But God has still called each of us to serve him. And the more we pour ourselves into that work, the more our Lord will get done for the people he loves, and the people he saves, and the less time we will have to sit around wondering if we might be the last ones left.

The Lord left Elijah with this promise: “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel–all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.” Bible-believing Christians are becoming a rarer species in our country today. But tens of millions of Christians still confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. They believe in their hearts that God has raised him from the dead. If that is the case, Paul says in Romans 10, then they will be saved. We may be many things in a culture that has less and less tolerance for Christians, but we are not the only believers. And God still has work for us to do.

1 Kings 19: 11-13 “The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave”

Do you ever have daydreams of the Lord coming down and shutting up the skeptics and the scoffers, the deceivers and perverters of our world with an act of power? What we really need, we think, is for God to rain down brimstone like he brought on Sodom, or plagues like he brought on Egypt. If the Lord would only unveil his power and judgment, then maybe people would start to shape up.

You know the problem with that. God’s mighty judgments don’t really change people. They may finish off the trouble-makers. They may bring some temporary relief to the faithful. But they don’t really change anyone. God does not live in his acts of power in the way that he lives in his message of grace.

No doubt Elijah thought that it was time for the Lord to turn up the heat on the nation of Israel. He had already sent a three-year drought, and that didn’t help. He had sent fire from heaven to burn up a sacrifice, and that didn’t solve the problem. Elijah wanted more. He wanted the nation to hear God thunder and roar, but he was listening for the wrong thing. So God let him experience a rock-shattering wind storm, and an earthquake, and a fire. They were all impressive demonstrations of power. But one thing was missing in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. The Lord was not in them. And without the Lord, how were they supposed to help?

In this way the Lord was tuning Elijah’s ears, and ours, to hear his voice. He is helping us to hear him speak where he truly speaks: in the gentle whisper of his grace. You know what people in the Bible do when they find themselves in God’s presence? Lift up their hands and start reaching for him? No, they start covering themselves, or they bow down with their faces to the ground. Abraham, Moses, the angels in Isaiah’s vision, the wise men, Peter, and Paul, to name a few. Here Elijah hears the voice of God, and it moves him to pull his cloak over his face.

But it is just a gentle whisper. Think about this for a moment: when do you use a whisper? You whisper when you are trying to keep a secret and you don’t want anyone to hear. But the Lord was not trying to keep his message a secret.

You also whisper when your words have something kind, and tender, and comforting to say. Young lovers whisper their affection in each other’s ears. A young mother uses whispers to calm her crying baby or reassure her frightened toddler. The Lord speaks softly to his people when his message is, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name; you are mine. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

We could go on. We don’t know the exact words Elijah heard in the whisper. But we know the kind of words they were. They were words of grace. They were words that promise, “I am not the kind of God who tolerates or approves of sin. But I am a God who bears with his people because I want to save them, not destroy them. I want to forgive them, not condemn them. I would give up anything for them, even my one and only Son, to rescue them from the hell they have made for themselves.”

That’s the voice that changes people. That’s the voice that changes me. We need to hear that voice we think we are all alone against the world.

1 Kings 19:9-10 “And the word of the Lord came to him: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’”

Elijah is one of only two people recorded in the Bible who ever went to heaven without dying. The prophet was a faithful believer, but far from perfect. Do you note the self-righteous, entitled tone in his complaint? “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.” It’s not that it wasn’t true, comparatively speaking. He is just a little too aware of the fact. His high view of himself adds fuel to his depression and pessimism. He has decided to identify himself as a victim. “In spite of how good I have been, I’m not being treated fairly.”

And once we settle into the role as victims, there is little left to do but complain. Sometimes you and I really are the victims. But don’t keep telling yourself that over and over. Don’t keep playing that tape in your head. (Am I dating myself with that phrase? Should I say, “Don’t keep listening to that podcast?) Too much victim-talk starts to drown out the sound of God’s promises.

The same is true of the stories we tell ourselves about the world around us. “The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.” Again, he doesn’t speak as some lying politician. His evaluation pretty well lined up with the daily news. If they had fact checkers in 875 B.C., Elijah’s claims would be confirmed. It’s not that these things weren’t true. It’s that Elijah was spending far too much time dwelling on them.

So maybe the people were bad. Israelite faith, morality, and culture were all swirling in the toilet. Had God changed? Has he now? Yes, maybe the news is depressing. Yes, maybe my friends’ posts on Facebook do paint a gloomy picture of our people, our institutions, and our politics. Yes, maybe it is getting harder to be a Bible-believing Christian in the 21^st Century. But we are committing spiritual suicide when we let the pressing problems of our time talk over the voice of God in our lives.

Even if Elijah was right about being the only one left, even if we alone survived as Christian believers in our time, does that in any way change the fact that we know God in his grace? Doesn’t he still love us just the same? Hasn’t Jesus still forgiven all our sins and promised life that never ends in heaven? At least we can say, “I am left.” God has kept his promises to me. I am not alone as long as he is on my side.

Christian faith is not about being part of the majority in a popularity contest. It is about receiving God’s gifts. If we start there, we will be better equipped to deal with those who are not eager to share our spiritual blessings.

Romans 8: 35-37 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Paul presents us seven challengers which try to convince us that God doesn’t love us. These are our personal experiences. “Trouble or hardship”–both words in the Greek have the sense of a situation that is narrow and squeezes and puts us under all kinds of pressure. We feel trapped, like we can’t escape. The life is being crushed out of us. It could be a manager asking us to do something unethical or be fired, a class at school that’s gotten bigger than us, a health issue that seems to have no solution, a bad relationship that is smothering us.

“Persecution.” The kind we face is subtler than the kind that put Jesus on the cross, or drove Paul out of so many towns where he was trying to share the gospel. But Bible-believing Christians will likely see more of this in our own country before we see less. For those who reject Bible morals or Bible faith, “tolerance” only applies to themselves. The world doesn’t seem to love us. When we are persecuted, does God?

“Famine or nakedness.” Jesus promised that our Father would take care of food and clothes. He taught us to pray for our daily bread. So what are we supposed to conclude when we can’t make ends meet? Has no Christian ever died of hunger, or exposure, or had to file for bankruptcy? Of course they have. Maybe you and I have faced the possibility. Maybe we wonder how a loving God could let us struggle so.

“Danger or sword.” We could literally be left bleeding and dying from crime, war, terrorism, or natural catastrophe some day. This and everything just mentioned can create a crisis of faith. “We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” We aren’t the dear little lambs of the Good Shepherd. We are just so much meat at the slaughterhouse. God has us here just so that he can butcher us, or that is what we fear.

But that is not the case. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” It’s not just that we will survive the challenges. In a war one side may win, but they often do so at the expense of many, many lives, leaving even the victors severely weakened. In athletics the runner may flop himself across the finish line first and need someone to help him get up and walk around long after the race is finished. The team may send man after man to the locker room with injuries, ending their seasons, before they score the winning points in the closing seconds and win the game. In each case these are victories, but not by much.

That’s not like the victory God gives to those he loves. We don’t squeeze out a victory by the thinnest of margins. Even when the pressures are killing us, and persecutors won’t leave us alone, and we have nothing in all this world to live one, and death itself is all that’s left for us here, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” More than conquerors!

When the dust settles on all these threats and dangers, we are still standing, it is true. But more than that, even at their worst, all these things serve us. They serve us! They force us closer to our Savior in faith. There is no better place to be! They help to strip us of our worldliness and taste for sin. They build Christian character and godly wisdom. Even if they end our lives, they are merely ushering us into God’s presence, opening the door to the glory and bliss of a new and higher life that never ends. Even when they try to hurt us they help us, because God still loves us and we are more than conquerors.

List all the things that look powerful to you, the things you fear, the things that look bigger than you any way you can. God’s love is stronger, greater, bigger than them all. Nothing can separate us from his love in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:33-34 “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died–more than that, who was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us”

Don’t misunderstand Paul’s words. It is not as though potential charges are lacking. You know this. We have mountains of little sins, private sins, sins that are practically invisible.

Do you know what the tallest mountain in the world is? It’s not Everest. Everest is the highest mountain above sea level. Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest of all. It looks rather average because almost two-thirds of the mountain is under the Pacific Ocean. But from base to summit, it is almost three quarters of a mile taller than Everest. The real size of our sinfulness is hidden like Mauna Kea underneath the ocean of our private moments, unexpressed thoughts, and selfish attitudes.

But even if someone could expose them all, it wouldn’t matter. By faith we are the people “whom God has chosen,” and “It is God who justifies.” Our Judge has chosen to adopt us as his own children. He gave up his only Son so that he could justify us, pass a not guilty verdict sentence when we stand before him in his court.

If this were any human court it would look like corruption, or a conflict of interest. The judge should step down. His verdict would be appealed. But in heaven’s court there is no other judge, and there is no court of appeals. There is only the Judge who chose to make us his own people, and gave up his only Son for our crimes, and finds us not guilty as a result. He is on our side. No one can turn him against us.

Just in case someone should try, we have even more assurance. “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died–more than that, who was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Again, the issue is not that there is a lack of things to condemn us for. But Christ Jesus died in our place to pay for all those things. And for God the Father, that will never be a forgotten little piece of ancient history.

You see, Jesus lives again. He sits in the most privileged place in heaven right next to his Father. He is his “right hand man,” his most trusted partner. And any time you or I might sin, Jesus is right there to remind his Father, “You know, I have paid for that sin already.” “You know, I took that sin away at the cross.” “You know, there are no limits, no borders, no boundaries for forgiveness.” “You know, this is one of your own children we are dealing with here.”

No one else has the Father’s ear like Jesus does. No one can turn him against us. Jesus makes us certain that God is on our side.

Romans 8:31-32 “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

God isn’t a Republican or a Democrat, as much as enthusiastic partisans may want to claim him for their side. God isn’t even an American, or an Israeli. Israel may have played a special part in his plan to save the world at one time. But even in the Old Testament there was a time when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joshua before the battle with Jericho. Joshua was near Jericho, and when he looked up he saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua asked him, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” And the reply was not, “Israel, of course. They are God’s chosen people.” No, he said, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come” (Joshua 5:14).

Before we get the idea that God is always neutral, and heaven is the spiritual equivalent of Switzerland, Paul’s words to the Romans help us understand that there is a side God takes. It’s the human side. Like John 3:16 teaches, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…”

Think of it: he gave his one and only Son. Or as Paul puts it in these words to the Romans, he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. There are few things for which men and women will sacrifice more, for which they will work harder, than to spare their own sons or daughters.

During my seminary years I attended an inner city church and did inner-city mission work. There I met parents living at the edge of poverty who scraped together thousands of dollars to send their children to a Christian school. They did it to spare them exposure to gangs and a substandard education in underperforming schools. Men and women will work for decades at jobs they hate to spare their children having to do without something. They will go night after night without sleep to keep vigil at the side of a sick child’s bed and spare them just a little of the discomfort of their illness.

The God of all power did not spare his own Son. He did not spare him from the mockers and the bullies. They said he had a demon, called him a drunkard, accused him of encouraging people to sin, made fun of his hometown, tried to trap him with trick questions, and mocked the idea that he was some sort of king. His Father did not spare him.

They arrested him on false charges, fixed the trial against him, used lies and threats and incited a riot to make sure he was found guilty and condemned to death. His Father did not spare him.

They spit on him, pulled out his beard, slapped him, beat him, whipped him until he bled, and nailed him to a cross to die. His Father did not spare him.

It’s not just that God “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up…” No, he gave him up “for us all.” He did it for you. He did it for me. He did it to spare us from having to stand trial for our own sins. He did it to spare us from a guilty verdict and a sentence worse than death and infinitely longer than life.

God is on our side. The gift of his Son leaves us no doubt.

Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

“Aha,” someone might be tempted to say. “Here we have hit upon what we must do to become righteous in God’s eyes and be saved.” But if that is what we think we find in this verse, we have missed Paul’s point.

Confessing Jesus as Lord is not a good work we do to be saved. “Jesus is Lord,” was one of the earliest and simplest Christian creeds. It identified who the Christians were. It distinguished them from the pagans, who considered other gods their lords. It distinguished the Christians from the Jews, who had rejected Jesus as their Lord.

It does the same thing for us today. It’s not so much a work we do. It is an expression of a living faith in Jesus, which Paul goes on to describe:

“…and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” Many people of Paul’s day believed that Jesus died: practically the whole Jewish nation, and a large number of Romans who were stationed in Jerusalem at the time of his crucifixion. But only the Christians believed he rose again from the dead. Thus, only those who believe that he rose can perceive the significance of his death as the payment for our sins. Only they understand it as the basis for our holy and righteous status before God. Only they will receive its ultimate blessing:

“…you will be saved.” Faith is not our work. It is God’s. We do not save ourselves. We are the objects of God’s saving work. He is the actor. But faith is the way by which true righteousness becomes our very own. Faith receives God’s gift and we are saved. It does not depend upon what you and I are doing. It does depend upon the one to whom we are listening.

A Christian radio station has a bill board which asks, “Does your Father know what you are listening to?” Perhaps an even better question is, “Do you?” The righteousness that saves us can’t be found in endless repetitions of the law. It is found only in the message of faith in Christ. Happy listening.