Read -Study Notes – Ephesians Chapter 2:1-10

The word “Christian” was first used to describe followers of Jesus in Antioch

• • Shortly after the martyrdom of Stephen in Jerusalem, some men from Cyprus escaped the persecution in Jerusalem by traveling to Antioch
    • Once there, they began preaching about Jesus to the Greeks there
    • And among these Greeks, a new following of Jesus emerged, the first outside Jerusalem
    • And this new Greek follower of Jesus began calling themselves Christians
  • It’s a uniquely Greek word meaning follower of Jesus
    • And the Greek idea of follower is imitator
    • For the Greeks, a follower is one who is like the one he follows
    • We might says Christian means “a little Christ”
  • Of course, we all say we want to be like Christ, because we know that is the goal Christ has for us
    • And we also know that many days we are not at all like Christ
    • Despite trying to following His commandments, we fall short of His perfection
    • And sometimes we aren’t even trying
• But here’s the good news…a Christian is going to follow in Jesus’ footsteps in the end
  • As Paul was teaching at the end of Ephesians 1 last week, Christ’s future will be our future too
    • Christ died, and then the Father raised Him
    • Christ entered into the Father’s presence and received a position of honor
    • Christ has an inheritance and all authority over Creation
  • And since we are fellow heirs with Christ, we have a similar future
    • We too will be raised
    • We too will share in Christ’s honor and inheritance
    • We too will have authority and inheritance in the Kingdom
  • Why do we expect these things? Simply because we have been made fellow heirs in the New Covenant by God’s grace
    • Paul said in v2.19-20 that these things were secured for us by the Father’s might
    • The Father’s might accomplished these things for His only begotten Son
    • And the Father’s might will likewise do these same things for all His children by faith
  • Isn’t it a wonderful thing knowing that your eternal future has been secured for you by God Himself
    • God isn’t waiting for you to do something to secure that future
    • He already secured it
    • You are just waiting to see it come to pass
    • And surely, it will come to pass for all those who are in Christ by faith
• So now as we enter Chapter 2, Paul wants us to see this clearly, so at the beginning of Chapter 2 Paul traces the Christian’s path as we walk in Christ’s steps
  • As a “little Christ” we will do all that Christ did in a spiritual sense
    • But once again, Paul wants you and me to understand we take this path in God’s power, not in our own
    • This explanation begins in vs.1-7
    • Today we look at the first step of that comparison moving diligently, if slowly, as we have been
  • Paul begins the chapter talking about our death

Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
Eph. 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

• In Chapter 1 Paul said the path Christ took as the first fruits of the children of God began with a death
  • Christ’s death was on the cross for our sins
    • And now Paul says our path as a Christian (i.e., a “little Christ” following after Jesus) also begins with death
    • But in our case, death refers to our existence before we came to faith in Jesus Christ
  • Paul says that before we knew Christ, we were “dead” in our trespasses and sins
    • Certainly, we were alive, at least in a sense
    • Our heart was beating and our spirit was alive
    • But in terms of our relationship with God, we were dead, spiritually speaking
  • Had we never come to faith in Jesus, then the moment our heart stopped beating, our eternal future would have been determined
    • We would have been forever separated from God for our sin
    • We would have experienced the second death
    • Like a convict on death row, we were alive, but only temporarily and we had no hope for rescue
    • You could say we were as good as dead
  • But being “dead” goes even deeper than just our spiritual future
    • Being dead also describes our spiritual inability to rescue ourselves from our predicament
    • To understand why this is true, we need to look more carefully at Paul’s explanation of our “deadness”
• Paul specifically says we were dead in our “trespasses and sins,” and these two words are not synonyms
  • The Greek word for trespasses means literally “false steps”
    • We could say going the wrong direction, as in walking somewhere we shouldn’t go
    • Like trespassing on someone else’s property
  • Trespasses are offenses against law, against standards of righteousness
    • So anytime we do something different than what God wants, we trespass
    • But also, when we violate the laws of our country, we trespass
    • When we disobey a parent or teacher or boss, we trespass
    • When we break the rules and norms of society, we trespass
    • Even when we just fail to show common courtesy, when we say mean things or think unkind thoughts, we trespass
  • Simply put, when we do the wrong thing in any way, under any circumstances and for any reason, we are trespassing
    • Even one trespass makes us lawbreakers
    • And all lawbreakers receive the penalty of the law
    • And the penalty for trespassing God’s law is eternal death
    • So Paul says we were dead in our trespasses
    • We may have been alive and walking around, but we were the walking dead
• But then Paul adds that we were also dead in our sins
  • The Greek word for sin means to miss the mark
    • It’s an interesting idea because it implies trying to do the right thing yet still coming up short in the end
    • Imagine a university student who was trying to pass a very difficult college course
    • The student studies diligently and takes the tests carefully, but in the end the student fails the exams and flunks the course
    • The student was trying to succeed yet still missed the mark in the end
    • The result was no better than if the student had never tried in the first place
  • This is exactly the situation of every unbeliever who is dead in their sins
    • They may be trying to do the right thing from time to time
    • Nevertheless, they always come up short in the end
    • What they thought was good turns out to be a mistake
  • Speaking as a man, I think this is an idea every husband understands instinctively
    • We know what it’s like to set out to do the right thing for our wives
    • But somehow, in the end we miss the mark anyway
  • Like the time we bought our wife a weed whacker for Mother’s Day
    • It seemed like such a good idea at the time
    • She had often complained about the appearance of the yard
    • So surely a new yard tool would be an obvious demonstration of our love
    • It was only after she started unwrapping it and we saw the expression on her face that we began to reconsider our decision
    • We had tried to the right thing, but we missed the mark
• The Lord describes the dilemma of unbelievers (and husbands) this way in Isaiah:

Is. 64:6  For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

• The Lord says that the unbeliever is unclean before God
  • The Bible uses the image of wearing a clean, white robe as a picture of being innocent, righteous before God
    • Conversely, the Bible pictures a sinful person under condemnation as being unclean, as if dressed in dirty clothing
    • This is the state of everyone who has not accepted Jesus as Lord
    • The world of unbelievers are unclean, standing before God clothed in dirty clothing, so to speak
  • Isaiah says the good works done by unbelievers does change their standing before God
    • Unbelievers may do good works of various kinds
    • Maybe they give donations to worthy causes, or volunteer to build houses for the poor
    • Maybe they send greeting cards to soldiers on Christmas
    • Or they volunteer to cut their neighbor’s lawn after he’s forced to return his weed whacker
  • And though they don’t know the Lord, they still have many reasons for doing these good works
    • Perhaps they think they are buying their way into heaven
    • Or maybe they just want to absolve their guilty conscience for past mistakes
    • Maybe they hope it makes them look favorable before friends and family
    • Or maybe they just like how they feel when they help someone
• Whatever good works they do and for whatever reasons they do them, the Lord says these works are like another filthy garment
  • They may have been seeking to be clean before God, but they came out just as dirty as ever
    • Their righteous deeds were worthless in the sight of God
    • Which is ironic since religious people expect their good deeds to impress God
    • Yet God Himself says such works have no value to Him
    • And when the world thinks they are doing another good work for God, it is simply sin on top of sin
  • Scripture says you cannot please God by your works
    • They don’t come out of a holy motive
    • They are not aligned with God
• Pauls says we were dead in two ways
  • Our trespasses left us in jeopardy of the second death
  • And our efforts to reverse the situation were fruitless because even our good works missed the mark
  • We were dead because we were spiritually incapable of correcting our problem
• And when you find yourself in a hole you created, you have to find a way to stop digging
• In Chapter 2:1the Greek word for dead is nekros literally refers to a dead body
  • Imagine a corpse laying in a casket at a funeral
    • That body has zero potential to correct its situation
    • It’s already dead and it can’t bring itself back to life
    • Even if someone held out a magic pill with the power to restore life, the dead body couldn’t reach out and take it
    • It’s condition was a barrier to participating in a plan of resurrection
  • So it is with the unbeliever who is dead in his trespasses and sins
    • The unbeliever is already as good as dead waiting for judgment day
    • And the unbeliever’s desire to please God through good works can only produce more sin
• Paul uses this as the starting point of his comparison with Christ, because this is the very reason Christ died for us
  • Christ is our fellow heir so He walked this path first
    • He endured spiritual death on our behalf because we deserved that penalty
    • He died on a cross
  • Likewise, we follow in this step, but unlike Christ we were born into our condition of death
    • Notice in v.2 Paul says we were formally walking according to the course of the world
    • The normal state of every person on earth from birth onward is to be dead in the ways Paul described in v.1
    • Everyone from Day 1 is under the penalty of sin
    • Even a 1-day old child is already a sinner by nature, and therefore he or she is already under condemnation for sin
    • Elsewhere in Romans Paul says:

Rom. 3:9  What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;
Rom. 3:10 as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;

• If we could freeze time and inspect each person on the earth, we would not find anyone who is good
  • It’s not about age, lifestyle, background etc.
  • It doesn’t change the fundamental state that we are all born sinners

Rom. 3:11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;

• We’ve already determined there is none who is good, now Paul goes on to say we would not find any who seek for God
  • They simply do not exist
  • Not for lack of desire or someone preventing them
  • It is the nature of human beings that makes them dead, incapable of participating in their own solution – unable to raise themselves off that slab in the morgue
• Scripture never shrinks back from this truth, and neither should we
  • There is simply no such thing as an innocent person born of the family of Adam
  • No one starts innocent and becomes bad
  • We all start bad, and by faith some become justified
• This is the course of the world, Paul says in v.2
  • It’s not something specific to an individual
    • It’s common to everyone
    • And therefore, we all must contend with it
    • All humanity is fallen and all humanity is incapable of correcting their problem
  • Furthermore, Paul says this course had a starting point in the prince of the power of the air
    • The term prince generally refers to a spiritual authority
    • The ultimate spiritual authority in all Creation is God Himself, of course
    • He is the Prince of Heaven and Earth
  • But Paul isn’t talking about that spiritual authority
    • He’s talking about Satan, which Paul calls the prince of the power of the air, that is the prince of this fallen world
    • Satan is the spiritual authority on earth among the unbelievers, at least for a time
    • He’s the head coach of Team Unbelievers
    • He leads the world into furthering his purposes
• Paul says Satan is working in the sons of disobedience at the end of v.2
  • He means that Satan uses unbelievers as pawns in his game of opposing God and God’s people
    • The unbelieving world are collectively the sons of disobedience
    • They are sons, as in children, of a spirit that seeks to disobey God
    • Paul’s drawing on an Eastern principle that as the father goes, so goes the children
  • So the enemy is the father of lies, the source of all sin and rebellion
    • And through his influence in the Garden, he brought all humanity into the same state of rebellion by nature
    • So every person is born into this family and into this state of heart
    • Think of it as spiritual DNA, which we inherit from Satan and which programs us for disobedience
• This is the death we all know
  • It’s a death made necessary by the spiritual nature we inherited from Adam
    • And it’s a death made worse by our feeble efforts to reverse our condition
    • It’s a death that separated us from God
    • And it’s a death we all knew before we knew Christ
  • We were all dead, which is exactly why Christ had to die in our place
    • There simply was no other option available
    • We couldn’t rescue ourselves
    • We were as powerless as a dead body
  • So Jesus walked our path into the grave so that we could follow His path into Heaven
    • And that was just step one of our likeness in Christ
• Then Paul adds, our nature drove our behavior

Eph. 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

• Though today we have the grace of God in Christ and have come to know Him and are becoming like Him, we don’t start that way
  • On the contrary, we all started just as everyone in the world starts
    • Paul said that we too were formally like the world
    • It’s important to remember where we began
    • We never want to begin living as if we have always been Christian
    • As if we had no need for grace in the first place
  • No one is born a Christian
    • Even if we sprinkle water on a baby’s forehead and call it a baptism, the child is not magically made a Christian
    • To be born again requires the movement of the Holy Spirit in the heart to raise a dead person into new life
    • That moment comes as a matter of faith in Jesus Christ, the scripture says
    • And until that moment happened in our life, we were as dead as the rest of the world
  • Paul says that deadness is a nature we had, since we were children of wrath
    • There’s a saying I often use – we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners
    • By our nature we were deserving of the penalty of sin
• But the nature of a person also brings with it a certain outcome
  • That is you act according to your nature
    • If we have a nature to breath air, we cannot act contrary to this nature
    • As much as we may want to, we cannot breathe underwater in the same way
    • Our will is not enough to give us what we want – there are limits to what our will can do
      • We may want to fly or have superpowers, but we can’t do it just because we want to
  • Paul says our dead nature limited our ability to resurrect ourself
    • Therefore there is no one who seeks for God (Romans 3:11)
      • But as we hear all the time about churches who appeal to “seekers”, doesn’t that mean said group exists?
      • While some might seek for more religion, scripture says there is none who truly want to find Jesus
  • Our walk with Christ starts in a similar starting point
    • Christ died to pay for the sins that we incurred in our life
    • He had to go the path we would have gone
    • Our sins put Him in death, just as our sins made us dead as well (spiritually speaking)
• So while Jesus walked the path of the grave, He then moved into the heavenly realm
  • We will follow that same path and have already moved from death to life as believers
  • But knowing where we started is critically to understanding what we now gain
    • We have come out of a state where we were 100% opposed to God
    • And 100% unable to correct our own problem
    • By the power of God He has moved us forward in this process to a point we were are now spiritually alive

We’re moving through some of the most important doctrine in all the New Testament

• • And when we started this journey a couple of months ago, I warned that we would be challenged at times by what we learned
    • After all, you can’t wade into matters like predestination or election without feeling challenged
    • And the reason these things are so challenging is because what the Bible teaches about spiritual matters is often different than what we experienced personally
  • For example, we remember choosing to place our faith in Jesus at a certain moment in our life
    • But we learned in Chapter 1 that the Father chose us for salvation from before the world began
    • And perhaps we remember doing good works for other people before we became a Christian, thinking God would be pleased by them
    • But we learned at the beginning of Chapter 2 that our good works were merely selfish products of a sinful heart so they could not please the Lord
    • That’s why we have to study scripture, because through His word God reveals truths to us that we never could have discovered on our own
• Last week we discovered another of these world-rocking truths
  • We learned that prior to faith, we were dead in our trespasses and sins
    • We dead in the sense that we were under judgment for our transgressions
    • But more than that, Paul said we were incapable of doing anything spiritually good, including seeking for God
    • We were like a corpse…absent spiritual life and so incapacitated by our condition so that we could do nothing to correct our problem
  • Paul’s been explaining how we’re on a spiritual journey that follows in Jesus’ footsteps
    • Like Jesus, our spiritual journey begins with a death
    • But in our case, Paul says were were born “dead” in keeping with the way everyone enters the world
    • Then Paul added in v.3 that this “dead” nature also dictated our behavior

Eph. 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

• Paul said that we too were formerly like the world is still today
  • We were once unbelievers and lived as they do
    • It’s important to remember where we began in our journey as Christians
    • We never want to begin thinking we have always been saved
    • As if we had no need for God’s grace in the first place
  • In other words, no one is born a Christian
    • Even when someone sprinkles water on a baby’s forehead and calls it a baptism, that child is not magically made a Christian
    • To be born again spiritually requires the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a person to give that person a new spirit
  • As God Himself describes, speaking of how the New Covenant comes to a person

Ezek. 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
Ezek. 11:20 that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.

• That moment of salvation comes only as a result of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, the scripture says
• Until that moment came for us, we were as dead as the rest of the unsaved world
• Then Paul says in v.3 that as a result of our dead condition, we acted in accordance with our nature
  • Now our “dead” nature was given to us at birth
    • We inherited it, which is why Paul calls us children of wrath
    • Adam brought God’s wrath upon humanity, and his condition has been passed down to every generation since
  • The Bible teaches that a person’s nature controls a person’s actions and thoughts
    • You could think of a person’s spiritual nature like their computer software
    • Our nature was hardcoded into us like software in a computer at birth, and it determines how we think and live
• At the moment Adam disobeyed the word of God in the Garden and sinned, his nature changed
  • Before the fall, Adam’s nature was programmed by God and was innocent and without rebellion or sin
    • But when he fell, we could say he was reprogrammed
    • His new “source code” was written by the devil himself
  • By Satan’s influence, the human race fell into sin and became like him, spiritually
    • That’s why scripture says unbelievers are children of the devil, because he is the father of fallen humanity
    • Therefore we share Satan’s condemnation, which is why Paul calls unbelievers children of wrath
  • From that point onward, Adam and all who descend from Adam act according to this new, sinful nature
    • That new programming directs the behavior of unbelievers, which leads to them obeying the lusts of the flesh
    • Before we knew Christ, we too “indulged” the desires of our flesh, allowing them to dictate our thinking and acting
    • We submitted to the base impulses of our nature routinely and without forethought
    • We fell to the temptations of the enemy without even knowing he existed
    • That’s what a fallen, sinful nature produces automatically
• If you think back to your life prior to Christ, I doubt you perceived yourself to be a bad person – much less a person controlled by the devil
  • But that’s not surprising…because our human experience can’t prepare us to understand the spiritual realities of our condition
    • Simply put, spiritually dead people can’t know spiritual truths
    • As unbelievers, we had no idea how far we were from God nor how to find Him
  • An unbeliever’s nature blinds them to their own condition
    • It would be like trying to explain to a fish what it means to be “wet”
    • The fish is completely wet all the time, so we might assume it would understand its own condition
    • But because it’s never not been wet, it has no way to appreciate  what being wet means
    • Similarly, an unbeliever can’t understand what it means to be spiritually dead or to need to be born again, because such insight requires being spiritually alive first
  • As Paul said

1Cor. 2:14  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

• Only those who are spiritually alive can understand spiritual truth
• Yet as long as a person is spiritually dead, they cannot accept spiritual truths, Paul says
• So we find a Catch-22:
  • The Gospel message is spiritual truth which is the only way someone may be born again spiritually
  • But unbelievers are dead spiritually and therefore they cannot receive spiritual truth
  • Only those who are already spiritually alive can understand spiritual truth
  • So how can a spiritually dead person receive the Gospel so as to be saved if they must be spiritually alive first in order to accept it?
• Now you see why Isaiah said that even the “good works” of an unbeliever are filthy garments to God
  • An unbeliever’s nature prevents them from knowing and obeying spiritual truth
  • Even worse, unbelievers are incapable of finding their way out of their own dilemma
  • So without faith, it’s impossible to please God
• Yet that was our “former” life, before we had faith in Jesus Christ
  • But how exactly did we move from death to life in Christ?
    • We know that all humanity enters the world dead in trespasses and sins, so how did we overcome that barrier and accept the Gospel?
    • How did we gain the ability to receive spiritual truth so as to be saved?
  • Somehow, we left our state of spiritual deadness and became alive spiritually so we could accept Christ in faith
    • And Paul says that power was not our own
    • Just as the Father raised Christ from the grave, we likewise had to be raised spiritually before we could come to faith
• Paul explains how that happened in the next part of Chapter 2

Eph. 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph. 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Eph. 2:7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

• Paul explains how we moved from death to life, that is how we came to having faith in the Gospel even though we were spiritually dead
  • Since we didn’t possess the power to respond to spiritual truth, Paul says our salvation once again began with God (v.4)
    • Paul says God made us alive together with Christ
    • The phrase “made us alive together with” is a single Greek word
    • It occurs only one other time in the New Testament  in Colossians, where Paul uses it to describe the same concept

Col. 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
Col. 2:14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

• In both cases, Paul emphasizes that our coming to life spiritually in Christ was something God made happen
  • We did nothing to prompt God to take this step
  • We didn’t ask for it, and we certainly didn’t initiate it
  • God did it all
• And in fact, the Father planned it long ago
  • Paul says He placed our personal debt of sin on Christ even as Christ hung on the cross
  • This demonstrates that the Lord was already preparing for our salvation long before we were ever born
• And furthermore, Paul adds both in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2 that we were made alive while we were dead in our transgressions
  • While we were like a corpse, spiritually speaking
  • Like a dead man, we had zero potential to respond to the Gospel
  • God made us alive without our involvement because we were unable to respond
• Think back to the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John
  • In the instant before Jesus called Lazarus to rise and come forth from the tomb, Lazarus was a corpse, dead three days
    • If you remember, Jesus didn’t ask Lazarus if he wanted to be raised
    • And even if Jesus had issued Lazarus such an invitation, Lazarus couldn’t have responded
  • He was incapable of responding because he was dead
    • Dead things know nothing, hear nothing, agree to nothing
    • The only way Lazarus was walking out of that tomb was if God made him alive
    • Only then could Lazarus respond to Jesus’ order to come forth
  • And so it was for us spiritually
    • When the time came for our salvation, in an instant the Lord made us alive
    • By His Spirit, we were born again as Jesus says in John 3
    • Then once we were alive, we responded to the call of the Gospel, we believed and we professed Christ
  • Notice that Paul adds at the end of v.5 that this is the technical definition of grace
    • The biblical definition of grace is God making us alive while we were dead and unable to do anything to help ourselves
    • Grace is not merely an offer or an invitation to be saved
    • Dead people do not accept spiritual invitations
    • Grace was God acting on His own to save us
• And more than just saving us, the Father has made us to share in everything He granted to Christ
  • Paul says in v.6 that we were raised to sit with Christ at the right hand of the Father in heavenly places
    • Obviously, you and I haven’t traveled into Heaven as yet
    • So we know Paul was speaking spiritually
    • He’s saying we’ve been granted a spiritual version of what Christ Himself received at His ascension
  • In the Bible, to sit implies to have finished working
    • So Christ sat because His work of redemption was complete
    • And spiritually, we too have been seated with Christ, because we don’t work for our salvation either
    • The Lord did all the work, including making us alive so that we could receive the Gospel
  • Which means we will also share in Christ’s inheritance
    • In ages to come, Paul says the constant refrain of God’s children will be praises for His kindness toward us
    • The more we understand about what God did for us, the more those praises will grow
    • If you praised Him when you thought you chose Christ, how much more do you praise Him now that you know He chose you?
• Perhaps you’re surprised to learn that God made you alive so you could receive the Gospel, because that doesn’t seem to agree with our personal experience
  • Our personal experiences in coming to Christ appear to be the result of our decision to believe
    • We didn’t detect a moment of being born again before we professed Christ
    • We didn’t perceive the Spirit’s arrival into our hearts
    • We simply heard or read the Gospel, and it seemed sensible to us and so we agreed with it
    • That was our experience…but it turns out our experience wasn’t the whole story
  • That’s why I said earlier we have the word of God to explain spiritual truths that can’t be understood merely through human experience
    • Our experience in coming to faith simply doesn’t prepare us for understanding how it actually happened
    • The Bible teaches that we heard the Gospel because the Father opened our ears
    • And the Bible says we agreed with the Gospel because the Spirit gave us the ability to accept spiritual truth
    • And the Bible says we confessed Christ because God gave us a new nature programmed to accept the things of God
    • Our personal salvation moment was just the last step in a long chain of events that God initiated for our sake long before we knew Him
• So why did the Father do these things for us?
  • Paul says in .v4 because He is rich in mercy
    • Being rich means having an excess of something
    • Your rich uncle has an excess of money
    • Or we say a dessert is rich because it has an excess of sweetness
    • Bring rich means having plenty to spare
  • Likewise, the Lord showed us an excess of mercy
    • It was more mercy than we had right to expect or deserved
    • We had every reason to remain dead and rightly under condemnation for our transgressions
    • Adam placed humanity in that condition, and the Lord was under no obligation to correct the situation
  • But the Father being rich in mercy chose to save us
    • As Paul says, He did this purely because of His great love for us
    • He didn’t extend us mercy because of something we said or did
    • It certainly wasn’t because we earned His mercy through our good works
  • As we learned earlier, we didn’t have any good works to offer Him
    • No, the truth is we were spiritually dead, we were unable to please God, and we deserved nothing
    • We stand here today saved only because God loved us
  • Remember I said we’re walking the same path that Christ walked on our behalf
• He shared in death because we were already dead and in need of salvation
  • Then Christ was made alive so that He might blaze a path for us to follow
  • And in the same way, we move from death to life also by the Father’s might
• Paul says in v.6 that the Father had you in mind even as He raised Christ
  • We were “in Christ” spiritually at the moment the Father raised Christ from the dead
  • The Father had us in mind as He acted to raise Christ, so that in a day to come He would do the same for us
• Now we can have a life like Christ in every respect
  • We possess a new nature, a living spirit that has been reprogrammed to hear the Spirit and obey His voice
  • The problem is we still have a flesh that obeys Satan’s programming, so we must battle it if we want to please God
• If you’ve walked with Christ for a time, then you probably have noticed how your new spirit has produced positive changes in your life
• Do you notice that you think differently and act differently?
  • Do you notice that you feel differently about sinning?
  • You still do it, of course, but you desire it less, right?
  • And when you do succumb to sin, it doesn’t feel as rewarding as it once did, does it?
• Moreover, did you gain a new desire for God’s word, for knowing Him and hearing Him?
  • Weren’t you drawn into a life with God’s people
  • Have you become aware of your bright spiritual future and does that future excite you?
  • If so, then you can see by all these things how you are now spiritually alive and growing in respect to spiritual truth
• On the other hand, maybe some of these things have yet to happen for you or they hold little interest for you
  • That’s not unexpected, because Christians move down the path of sanctification to varying degrees and at their own pace
  • Some move farther and faster than others
  • But if you’re not moving at all, then take a second look at how you’re walking with Christ
  • Sanctification is always a matter of obeying the Spirit
  • We must daily take up our cross, so to speak, so we may crucify the desires of our flesh while strengthening our spirit through spiritual disciplines
• I should add that in some rare cases, a person’s complete lack of interest in spiritual truths may mean he or she has yet to be born again spiritually
  • In such a case, a person would be claiming to be Christian without even knowing what it truly means to be in Christ
  • But I want to caution us against jumping to that conclusion in the case of someone we know who may have a very shallow walk with the Lord
  • Behavior and attitudes are messy things, and therefore they are an imperfect guide to assessing a person’s heart
• We’ll end today with Paul’s own summary

Eph. 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
Eph. 2:9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

• Paul summarizes his argument with one of the most powerful statements in all his letters
  • To understand these verses properly, we need to take them apart grammatically
    • First, Paul says we were saved by grace
    • Sometimes you may hear someone say that Christians are saved by faith, but this is not correct
    • We are saved by grace
  • This point is important because it completely changes the location of action
    • If we say we are saved by faith, then the location of the action is inside us
    • The believer is the one who has faith and if having faith produces salvation, then we could say we saved ourselves
    • We would be saying that at the moment we took the step of believing, then we brought salvation to ourself
  • But Paul makes clear this is not correct
    • Rather salvation is by grace, and grace comes from God
    • God gives grace to us, and by His grace He made us alive while we were dead
    • By grace He predestined us to receive salvation
    • By grace we were saved
• But how does God show His children that He has bestowed His grace upon them?
  • Imagine if God had determined to save us but never told us about it
    • Only when we came into His presence following our death would we know that we had been given grace
    • How much better that He show His grace to us while we are on earth so that we can begin to praise Him even now
  • So God manifests His grace to us through faith in Jesus Christ
    • Through our faith, God’s grace becomes evident, both to us and to the world
    • We can see faith coming to someone, by which we know that person was saved by God’s grace
    • Faith is still the essential requirement for salvation, but faith is the result of God’s grace, not the way we gain God’s grace
• And just to make sure we understand the relationship between grace and faith, Paul adds that the faith we possess is “not of yourselves”
  • Your saving faith in Jesus Christ did not originate inside you
    • Paul says at the end of v.8 that it is a gift of God
    • God gave you the faith that you have, so that you would show evidence of His grace
  • Some commentators claim the “gift” God gives cannot be faith
    • They argue that in the Greek text, the pronoun “it” is in the neuter voice, yet both the words grace and faith are feminine nouns
    • Therefore, they believe that “it” must refer to the entire preceding statement, meaning salvation itself is the gift
  • They are right, but they are cherry-picking in their interpretation
    • I agree that when Paul said “it” he was referring to the preceding clause
    • But let’s look at all that we find in the preceding clause
    • We find not only salvation but also grace and faith
    • All these things are part of the gift God gives to bring us into righteousness
  • That’s why Paul says “it” is not of yourself
    • Yes, the grace we received is from God
    • And so is the salvation that God’s grace produced
    • But so is our faith which manifested God’s grace
    • All three are “not of yourselves,” because together they are all the gift of God
• Because God did everything with respect to our salvation, Paul adds in v.9 that our salvation is not the result of works
  • Works refers to anything a human being can accomplish
    • For example, physical acts are works
    • Therefore, Paul says no physical act contributed to our salvation
    • This means walking down an aisle or kneeling or praying did not save us, for those are human works
  • Works also refers to anything a human being can say
    • We professed Christ when we were saved, but the speaking of those words didn’t save us
    • Neither did a reciting of a confession of faith
    • If we hold that those things save a person, then we are saying a human work is partly responsible for salvation
    • But Paul says this is not true
  • And works even refers to our thoughts and emotions
    • Did you know that thoughts and emotions are works as well?
    • Do you remember when Jesus said that anger is equivalent to murder and lust is equivalent to adultery?
    • Jesus’ statement establishes the principle that what we do in our thoughts is just as real as what we may do with our bodies
    • And our thoughts or feelings did not save us either
• Paul says that our salvation came apart from any human involvement whatsoever
  • Even the things we did do like believing and confessing were themselves the products of God’s grace working in our hearts
    • It was God Who produced faith in us causing us to confess
    • So that when all is said and done, God’s children will have no reason to boast in themselves
    • We will by necessity give the Lord all credit for our salvation
  • Paul’s teaching unequivocally refutes every false teaching proposing that works are a way to reach Heaven
    • Religions such as Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Eastern pagan religions all teach that human achievements are required to enter Heaven
    • Paul says it is not so, for if it were, then men could boast concerning their salvation
    • We would be able to say we played a part in reaching Heaven
  • But the Lord will have no such boasting, for how can dead people boast about becoming alive?
    • Could Lazarus boast that he raised himself from the dead?
    • Could he have said, “I heard the Lord’s voice so I decided to sit  up and walk out of the tomb?”
    • If Lazarus had dared to say this, wouldn’t the onlookers have responded, “Yes Lazarus, but who caused you to come to life so that you could hear Jesus’ call?”
    • To which the only answer would be “God made you alive so you could respond.”
  • And the same is true for you and me
    • We may say we were saved because we responded to the call of the Gospel and we believed
    • To which scripture asks, “Yes, but who caused you to come to life so you could hear Jesus’ calling and obey it?”

As we began our study in Ephesians, you may remember I opened with some background on the history of the church of Ephesus

• • I said the church of Ephesus was located in a wealthy culture full of temptations
    • If you were a Christian in Ephesus, you might be tempted to compete for the potential prestige and wealth of the city
    • And a church meeting in the city might be tempted to measure its success by the standards embraced by the culture
    • In short, you faced temptations to live like Ephesus and look like Ephesus
  • Over time, these temptations conspired to lead the church into leaving its first love of serving Christ, according to Revelation
    • They respected the word of God, Paul told us
    • They couldn’t tolerate false teachers
    • And there is no reason to think the believers in Ephesus were idle
    • They were at work, no doubt, but they weren’t working on the right things
  • They drifted away from the mission of serving in Christ’s name
    • In its place, they may have done social works, or simply no works
    • Perhaps they merely served their own desires
    • Paul’s parting words to the church in Acts seem to suggest this concern

Acts 20:35 “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

• Paul’s final words to the church admonished them to seek service over wealth
  • It would seem Paul had reasons to think the church might have decided that receiving things themselves was better than giving to others
    • But I think his concern went far deeper than merely money
    • The problem was one of works too
    • Jesus said this church left its first love of serving Him, and I believe He meant both with their wealth and with their time
  • We know our use of money reflects our heart, as Jesus said we cannot serve God and money
    • But how we spend our time is just as powerful a measure of our heart as money
    • Because in many ways, time is more valuable to us than money
  • There’s always more money to be gained if we set our mind to it
    • But there is a finite amount of time in our life
    • Every day has only 86,400 seconds
    • Every year has 365 days
    • And every life has only so many years
    • When it’s gone, it’s gone
• When we’re stingy with our time, we’re being stingy with our most powerful and important resource
  • That’s why Paul has spoken so forcefully to this church in Chapters 1 and 2 about the origins of their faith
    • Paul said they were in Christ because of the work of God making them alive
    • He gave them saving faith and brought them into a new eternal future with Christ
    • They will have what Christ has received
    • And they have it because of His power, not their own
  • So what do we owe a God Who has saved us and given us so much?
    • Do we not owe Him our very lives?
    • As Paul says in Romans 12

Rom. 12:1  Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

• The Lord expects every believer to respond to His grace with a life lived for His glory
  • Each of our lives will take a certain path
  • Our family lives will be different, our careers and personal pursuits will vary
  • But as Christians, we have one major thing in common: we all are called to serve a Lord Who asks us to be His hands and feet
• So no matter what else in life we choose, we are all expected to give Christ our lives in service – whether as a vocation or as a volunteer
  • He gave His life for us, so we give our lives to Him
  • He should remain our first love, our priority
  • And that brings us to v.10 of Chapter 2, where Paul explains how we are to live in service to Christ

Eph. 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

• In the preceding two verses Paul explained we were saved by His grace, receiving our salvation as a gift, which God manifested in us through faith in His Son
  • We did absolutely nothing to bring about our salvation
    • God is sovereign in our salvation
    • He stepped into our lives, forever altering our path, bringing us out of death and into life
    • He saved us when we weren’t even looking for Him, Paul says in Romans 3
    • And He did it because He is rich in mercy and loved us
  • And now Paul says God did these things because the Lord desired to be glorified through us
    • We are His workmanship, created in Christ so we could walk in good works
    • And these works were prepared beforehand for us
• Let’s understand what Paul is saying
  • First, Paul says we are His workmanship
    • The Greek word for workmanship appears only twice in the New Testament, here and in Romans
    • In both cases, the word refers to the masterwork of a craftsman
    • Like a delicate piece of furniture or a marble statue or a fine painting
    • These things reflect glory upon the one who made them because they testify to the genius and vision and artistry of their creator
  • Paul says we too are the exquisite product of a Master craftsman
    • Paul’s not talking about our physical creation
    • He’s talking about our spiritual nature again, and remember that we were born dead in our trespasses and sins
    • We were not a thing of beauty but rather we were children of wrath
  • But by His grace, Paul says God created us anew, spiritually, in Christ Jesus
    • This is why the Bible calls it being born again
    • It’s truly like starting over
    • And it’s that new form that holds potential to reflect glory to God
    • But only if we live in keeping with that new nature
• So if we are going to fulfill our purpose, we have to show the world the work He has done in us
  • But how do we show off God’s handiwork?
    • He has given us a new spirit, a living spirit with the potential to obey His word
      • But a spirit is invisible
    • And He has brought us into a new life with Christ with a new eternal future
      • But the kingdom has yet to arrive
    • And He has given us faith in the meantime to manifest His grace in us
      • But faith in the heart cannot be seen
  • So how is the craftsmanship of God to be appreciated?
    • Imagine if Michelangelo painted the Mona Lisa and then it was stuffed away in an attic forever
    • Or his statue of David had been stored in a garage
    • How could we appreciate the skill of the craftsman without the ability to see his handiwork?
• Paul explains that God’s miraculous work in us is to be seen and appreciated by our “good works”
  • We discussed works in previous weeks
    • And we learned that a human work is anything we might do or say or even think
    • And that these works had nothing to do with our salvation
    • Because the works of unbelievers are like filthy garments to God
  • Furthermore, our works had nothing to do with our salvation
    • We were saved by the grace of God alone, Paul said
    • For no one will be permitted to boast of how they arrived in Heaven
  • But now we learn that our good works aren’t irrelevant to our salvation
    • Works are the way we bring glory to the God Who saved us
    • And if so, then it stands to reason that the kinds of things we think and say and do following salvation should be different than those we did prior to salvation
    • That if we are to bring glory to the Father by showing HIs craftsmanship in Christ, we must reflect that change in our works
• So at this point we may be tempted to think we just need to get busy serving Christ
  • Let’s go do something! Let’s do works!
    • Let’s start acting different, let’s start talking different, let’s look like Christians
    • Well not so fast
    • That’s called acting or worse, it’s hypocrisy, and it’s the farthest thing from good works
  • In a way, it’s the equivalent to trying to earn your salvation
    • The Lord said you can’t earn salvation, since our works do not please Him
    • And likewise, you cannot bring Him glory by trying to work your own sanctification
    • God brings us the faith that saves, and He brings us the works that please Him
• Paul says the good works we do to bring God glory are works prepared beforehand by God so that we might walk in them
  • Throughout this book we’ve been confronted, and maybe challenged, by the sovereignty of God
    • We’ve learned that God predestined us to salvation
    • That we were chosen in Christ Jesus to receive what we have
    • That even our faith is not of ourselves
  • And that revelation makes us uncomfortable, I’m sure
    • It may disagree with what someone taught you in the past
    • Or perhaps these concepts seem contrary to what you concluded by our own reading of the Bible
    • It’s an unsettling experience to learn we didn’t get the full story the first time or that our understanding of the Bible was incomplete
    • It may even cause you to doubt what we’re learning now
• I know the feeling because I was once there myself
  • And I compare the experience of coming to appreciate the sovereignty of God to someone standing inside a circle drawn in the dirt
    • We draw the circle around ourselves and we conclude that everything outside the circle is God’s
    • He controls the world and the forces of nature
    • He controls the heavenly realms
    • He directs nations
    • He brings all things to good in the end, etc.
  • And then we tell ourselves that everything inside the circle belongs to us and is under the control of our free will
    • We are in control of who we are and where we will live and what we will do
    • We run our lives and we make our mistakes
    • And perhaps we also believe that we decide whether we to accept or reject Jesus
    • We know God is all powerful, but we tell ourselves that God has left these things for us, that He stays out of the way
    • That He “respects” our free will
  • But then we turn to scripture and we read things like:

Prov. 16:9  The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.

Prov. 19:21  Many plans are in a man’s heart,
But the counsel of the Lord will stand.

• Suddenly we realize that even the plans we make are controlled by the sovereignty of God
  • We didn’t sense His control, certainly, because that’s not how God works
  • He’s so powerful, He can direct our thoughts and actions to accomplish His desires without us even knowing it
• And so we erase our little circle and redraw it a little closer to ourselves
  • We relinquish a little of that control, because scripture makes us do it
    • But we hold on to the rest, still certain that God shares control with us
    • We’re a little uncomfortable, but we go on reading the Bible
  • Then we read about Joseph’s life and how his brother’s conspired to kill him by sending him to Egypt, and yet later Joseph says this:

Gen. 50:18 Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”
Gen. 50:19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place?
Gen. 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

• Now we realize that even the evil things men do by their free will fall under God’s sovereign control and fit into His plan
• And so we erase our little circle and redraw it a little closer to ourselves
• Then we read Paul tell us that we were chosen before the foundations of the earth to receive a salvation brought to us by the Spirit of God
  • And so we erase our smaller circle and redraw it even closer to ourselves
  • By now, we’re standing on barely a patch of earth, clinging to one last idea
  • The idea that at least the good works I do for God are of my own choosing
  • I’m in control of how I serve God, right?
• And then the Lord tells us that even the good works we do for Him are works that God Himself has prepared for us to do
  • Paul is explaining that God has determined beforehand what works He will accept from us
    • We can’t make up our own works
    • We can’t decide for ourselves what God wants us to do
    • We either follow Him in doing the works He has prepared for us to walk in, or we go our own way which is called disobedience
  • Let me explain how this works using another analogy
    • Imagine going to lunch at a cafeteria restaurant (or buffet)
    • People like these restaurants because the food is usually pretty good
    • More importantly, we like being able to see it before we eat it
  • That food was prepared for us beforehand
    • They don’t make the food according to our desires
    • You can’t order off the menu
    • There is no menu…there’s just the food they decided to prepare beforehand sitting there in those stainless trays
  • It’s up to us to choose what we want, yes, but our choices are limited by what the restaurant decided to prepare beforehand
    • We can take a few things or if we have the appetite, we can take a lot of things
    • The more we take, the more we will experience what the restaurant has to offer
    • Our will has a place in the process…it determines what we select
    • But our will doesn’t create the options
• Now imagine if I decided I didn’t like what the restaurant offered, so I brought a sack lunch with me into that restaurant
  • I sat down at a table and began to eat
    • I suspect the restaurant management would not be very pleased
    • They would tell me that I can’t bring my own food into their restaurant
    • If you want to do your own thing, go elsewhere they would tell me
• I think that analogy accurately reflects what Paul means when he says that we were created to walk in good works that God has prepared for us beforehand
  • God knew He would bring you salvation from before the foundations of the Earth
    • So that in a day He appointed, the Spirit came to you, gave you new life and brought you the gift of faith
    • You awoke to the truth of the Gospel
    • And by your faith you live as a testimony of God’s grace
  • Now you have a mission to reflect glory upon the God Who saved you
    • But His sovereignty doesn’t end with your salvation
    • He has prepared a menu of good works that He desires you and I would accomplish in bringing Him glory
  • This menu of good works is one the Lord set before us
    • Because these works are the best ways we can glorify Him and serve His purpose in blessing others through us
    • We don’t get to define our own path of good works but we do get to choose which ones we will do
• So the Lord has set before you a buffet of opportunities for how you can serve the Lord during your Christian life
  • Your ticket to this buffet is your faith, because without faith it’s impossible to please God
    • But through faith, you may serve Him in the ways He determined
    • You might imagine that on this buffet are works of prayer, service, teaching, counsel, giving, and more
    • These works have been prepared for you because they fit your abilities, they cater to your spiritual gifting
  • More importantly, they are designed to promote the spiritual growth inside you that the Lord desires to accomplish
    • Now you can eat as much as you want
    • The more you eat, the stronger you will become spiritually
    • And the more blessed you will be for having served the Lord
    • When you pass something up, you’re missing out
  • This is the reason churches shouldn’t hire out for basic service needs
    • Don’t hire someone to cut the grass
    • Don’t hire janitors
    • Ask the congregation to serve in those things because those may be the works on their buffet
    • This is where they may find their opportunities for sanctification, and to do otherwise is outsourcing their sanctification
• But the key again is we can’t create our own good works, our own menu
  • God desires we obey him by serving where He desires
    • We can’t substitute our own ideas for what God may want from us
    • And then try to justify our decision by claiming we are making great sacrifices for God

1Sam. 15:22   Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
As in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.

• We can’t tell God what He values
• We can only obey His commands
• So though there are many good things that we could do, the good works we should do are those God has prepared for us to do
  • And yes, we have a degree of free will in this matter
  • You can choose from among the things God has appointed for you
  • Or you could choose to do nothing or to do your own things
  • And no, you can never exhaust the buffet for there will always be more to do
  • Because God has designed it just for you
• And this makes perfect sense when you consider that God also chooses how to gift us and where to place us in the world
  • Some believers are given buffets filled with glorious works to perform
    • Men like Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham
    • God equips men like these with great gifts of oratory, leadership and courage
    • They brought Christ glory through their history-changing work while facing great burdens and personal sacrifices
    • They had an incredible buffet set for them, but they still had to pick the tray and walk that line
  • Others are given buffets of “ordinary,” common works
    • Moms and dads raising godly children
    • Believers volunteering at church to mow grass, print bulletins, play music, change diapers
    • Retirees sending small checks to distant missionaries
    • Parents sending children to witness in distant lands
    • Missionaries dying lonely in forgotten villages
  • These men and women had a far different buffet set for them, but they too had to walk in faith doing as God called them to do
    • Martin Luther or Bill Graham couldn’t walk your path in life and you can’t walk theirs
  • And everyone has equal potential to be blessed and rewarded by their works
    • We aren’t graded against other believers, but only against what opportunities God gave us
  • But one thing is true for everyone
    • We all were created to walk in good works
    • And no Christian has the option of saying no to Christ
• You might ask, how do we know what God has prepared for us?
  • The simple answer is we don’t, not until we start serving somewhere somehow
    • By that I mean you have to begin serving to know what God has prepared for you
    • You have to try something to know if it’s for you
    • Like sampling a dish to know if it tastes good
    • Volunteer somewhere, sign up for a mission trip, take a step of faith, and always pray for the Lord to reveal His will
    • See where you land and you’ll know better what you should do next
  • You’ll come to know the general direction you should go when you see your gifts intersecting with your opportunities with a result that produces fruit
    • That fruit will be most visible first in your own sanctification
    • Your first love will grow, you’ll want to serve Christ more, and you will come to know Him more
    • Meanwhile, you will find your passions in life changing
    • You will desire sin less and desire for more of God’s grace
  • Secondly, as you serve the Lord He brings you joy in the response of those you serve
    • You teach and people learn
    • You pray and people receive the Lord’s answer
    • You serve and people are encouraged and blessed
    • You see the Lord turning your meager efforts into something great
• And the more of His prepared works we select, the more opportunity we have to be blessed in these ways
  • Both now and in eternity
    • It’s my experience that the more of the buffet I sample, the greedier I get
    • The more I want to serve Christ
    • I want to see more of what’s on the buffet, because it’s all good
  • Moreover, I lose interest in spending time eating elsewhere
    • I don’t want what the world is serving
    • And I don’t want to make up my own good works, works that can’t please God because they aren’t a matter of faith
    • You see, even after we come to faith, we have to operate in faith or else our works are still filthy garments
    • Being busy isn’t the same as being obedient
    • We must seek to remain in His will
• One thing we can say though…no Christian has the option to get out of line
  • After all, we were created specifically for good works
    • You were saved for that very purpose
    • So if you’re just nibbling at the buffet of good works God has placed in front of you, you’re missing out on something special
  • Perhaps you weren’t aware that God has prepared good works for you
    • Perhaps you didn’t know that every believer has this expectation, that good works is not optional
    • Well, now that you’ve heard the counsel of God’s word on this point, what excuse will you offer the Lord in that future day?
    • What excuse can we have for sitting on the sidelines?
  • Let’s not pursue our own agenda in life
    • Let’s fulfill our purpose in the salvation we’ve been given
    • Let’s each make it our goal to understand what gifts we’ve been given
    • And what works God has prepared beforehand for us to accomplish
    • And let’s put our hand to the plow, as it were, and serve the Master Who bought us by His blood