087 Ephesians: Sinner to Saint

The letter to the Ephesians starts like this: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus...”

Right away, Paul makes a striking statement about how God sees these everyday people. They are “holy people.” The Greek word here is hagios and it means “saints.” Paul is calling them…saints! 

Now some of you came out of a background where you heard a lot about saints. You came to understand, and even the dictionary defines, a saint as “a person officially recognized for their holiness of life.”  

 But the Apostle Paul didn’t think of saints that way.  For Paul, sainthood was not a result of something wonderful you accomplished or some courageous deed you performed.  According to him (and the other biblical writers), becoming a saint required one step. 

Be in Christ. 

Jesus came to die for us…to not only pay the penalty for our sins, but to give us a new identity.  

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.  The old has gone and the new has come.”  II Corinthians 5:17

While you may have once been a “natural born sinner,” when you are in Christ you become a supernaturally born saint!  In fact, in this book of Ephesians alone, Paul calls these everyday believers “saints” no less than 9 times.

Being in Christ changes your identity, and a changed identity can and should result in a change in your behavior.

The more you grasp who you are in Christ, the more your behavior will begin to reflect it.  “I am not a nobody.  I am somebody.  I am called a saint by God Himself.  I’m a child of the King.  I am royalty…deeply cherished and highly valued.  And, as such, I refuse to live beneath my identity.” 

While our positional acceptance is perfect because we are in Christ, at times we still practice sin.  But our identity as saints is still intact.  You might want to look at it this way. 

Christians are saints who sometimes sin.

The things that you did or that which was done to you might explain you, but they don’t define you.  Your identity is in Christ, and because of your new identity, by God’s grace and through the Holy Spirit’s power you can change your activity.  

You need to constantly renew your mind as to what true identity really is.

When you are tempted to engage in the activity of a sinner, remember who you are.  You are a child of God… dearly loved…completely accepted…wonderfully destined…you are a saint.   

This is an aspect of repentance that we all too often fail to practice. Yet “to repent” literally means “to change your mind…to change your thinking.”  And one of the most important occasions to do that is when you’re tempted to reduce your identity.

Take a breath.  Pause.  And say to yourself, “I am a saint.  I am no longer what I was.”

Text: Ephesians 1:1

Originally recorded January 10, 2016, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN.