A Word in Season: Remember (Ephesians 2:11)

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Do you know the difference between an indicative and an imperative? That's not a trick question and it might not sound a very exciting one, but it is important to know what these are and the relationship between them as we read our

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Bibles. Indicatives are simple statements of fact. They're declarations about things that are true.

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Imperatives are commands. In the Bible, indicatives and imperatives are often joined by a word like therefore as you move from something that is true to its practical consequence in the life of God's people.

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That's striking, for example, in the letter to the Ephesians where the first three chapters are almost exclusively indicatives, statements about what

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God has accomplished and how he has applied his accomplishments in the gospel through his son

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Jesus Christ to the lives of his chosen people. And then in chapter 4, Paul begins what is really an emphasis on the imperative with the

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I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the calling with which you are called.

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In the light of everything that's gone before, I want you to live in this way.

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Your living must reflect what God has done in you and for you.

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But there is one imperative in the first three chapters and it stands out amongst all the indicatives and it's in verse 11.

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And the simple imperative there is remember. Remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the

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Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

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But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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Among all the things that God has done and is doing and will do for his chosen people, the one thing that Paul wants them to do in the first half of the letter is to remember.

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To remember what they were and what they become, what they were by nature and what they become by grace in Christ Jesus.

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Remember that you were once far off. Remember that you were once cast out.

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Remember that you once had no part of God's covenant and his promises. Remember that you were at a distance from God, that you had no hope and you were without God in the world.

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Remember that now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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We need to remember the grace of God in Jesus Christ toward us.

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We need to heed this imperative. We need to obey this heavenly commandment.

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We need to because by the very fact that Paul tells us to remember, it's an indication that we're prone to forget, that we too easily go on living without a sense of what we were and what we now are.

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We lose sight of what God has done in us and for us in his son,

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Jesus Christ. Perhaps we forget what it was to be dead in trespasses and sins and slaves of Satan.

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Perhaps we forget what it was to live without God and without hope. Perhaps we forget what it was just to walk in our own ways and to follow our own sinful lusts.

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Perhaps we forget that great and glorious change by which we have been made alive together with Christ Jesus and raised up together with him and made to sit in the heavenlies with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps we've forgotten the gift of the Holy Spirit to God's people as the down payment of our inheritance.

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Perhaps we've lost sight of the fact that having once been strangers, we're now sons.

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Having once been cut off, we've now been brought in. That having once had no part of God and his true people, we have now been made part of the people of God and everyone who is in Christ Jesus now belongs to that same spiritual temple which is being built up as a dwelling place for God in the spirit.

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These are the blessings that are held out to all who are now without hope and without God, held out in Christ Jesus and these are the blessings that have been received by those who have bowed the knee to the

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King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and in coming to Christ and being joined to him have received all these blessings and mercies and kindnesses and if we have received such favours, we must not forget we need to go on remembering what