From Death to Life
Ephesians 2:1-10
October 6, 2019
Can I ask you something? Does it drive you crazy when someone brings up your past mistakes and sins? You know what I mean?
Couples tend to do that when they’re arguing. Well, I remember when you said this to me 10 years ago! OR You’re acting like you did that time on February 28, 2009 when . . . (FILL IN THE BLANK)
I understand we can’t always cause ourselves to forget the past and the wounds which have hurt us. It’s never easy to let go and move forward.
But can you imagine if God would do that to us? If on that day when I come before the Lord, God says, “Deutsch is here, cancel all of my other appointments, I won’t have time for anyone else today!!” That’s one of my worst fears, that God will dredge up every single one of my sins. Not my mistakes, but my sins. He’ll name them ONE by ONE. And I’ll be so super embarrassed and ashamed by my stupidity, ignorance and selfishness.
I say that as a kind of hyperbole for how we think. We’ve been moving through the book of Ephesians and this morning we’re going to look at the first 10 verses of chapter 2.
Paul starts this section on a really downer note. Listen to the first 3 verses –
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Let me summarize what Paul’s telling the people. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure this out. You people of Ephesus, and we could add our names to the list, at one time, you were dead because of, and this is interesting because the word TRESPASS in Greek references our unintentional sins, while the word SIN references our intentional sins.
So, Paul says we were dead, whether they’re intentional or unintentional sins, we lived according to the ways of the world, we followed the one who leads the ways of the world, satan. We followed our passions, if we wanted it, we did it, if it hurt someone we didn’t care, we did it. As a result, we were no different than any other person, we were at odds with God.
It may sound like Paul is really angry, but he’s not. He’s stating a fact.
Let me give you an example of what sin is like. Have you ever had blisters on your feet from a bad pair of shoes? Or maybe you’re a runner and you get blisters, but because you keep running - - and those blisters turn into callouses. Eventually, those callouses become hard, and you could stick a pin into those callouses and you wouldn’t feel it. You know what I mean? I remember my mom would go to the foot doctor to have her callouses filed down.
That’s what Paul is talking about when it comes to our sin, intentional and unintentional. We become hardened to it. We do it once and feel guilty, but we do it again, and don’t feel so bad. Maybe we even justify it. It doesn’t matter what it is, we have away of making ourselves not feel so guilty. Those blisters which hurt, no longer hurt, they’ve become hardened, as do our hearts.
So, that’s where we’re at to start Ephesians 2. What’s so cool is what Paul does next. Because he’s not going to allow us to stay put in our sins. He wants to move us out of that thought process, because he goes on to tell us - -
BUT!
Isn’t that a great word!? I know it’s kind of funny and silly, BUT let me tell you how great a word that is . . . .
Paul was just telling us we’re wretched sinners. We WERE dead, we ONCE WERE - - Notice it’s all in the past tense. Now, God is telling us something different. How many times have we used this word to change the tone of what we were saying.
How many times have you told your child that you were not happy with them, maybe you were pretty angry, yet, you end the conversation with BUT, I love you! Without realizing it, BUT can be a very powerful word.
So, Paul changes the tone of his letter, we were sinners, but now see who we are - -
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — 6 and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
This is the great news in Jesus. BUT God, being rich in His grace and mercy, gives us His great and powerful love, that even when we were dead in our sinfulness, He has now MADE US ALIVE. We were once dead and now we are fully ALIVE. Paul is telling us that we were dead and now He is making us fully alive in Christ.
So, because of God’s great love for us, He extends this amazing grace. Just like that song from Mercy Me - Flawless. God extends His great love, it’s His overwhelming love that he gives to us. It’s God’s sacrificial, agape love.
He raises us up and seats us with Jesus in the heavenly places. It’s the offer of eternal life, that the only way we can come before God is to be made righteous because of Christ. It’s what that video from Mercy Me was telling us. We are now FLAWLESS in the eyes of God. Not because of anything we do, but because of what Jesus did for us.
So, Paul comes to that great statement in verses 8-9 - - 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I don’t want to assume we all understand this popular passage, so let’s talk about this word grace. What exactly does Paul mean when he says we are saved “by GRACE?” What Paul means is that all of our good works don’t contribute ANYTHING to our salvation. It’s ALL God at work. The only thing we add is faith, belief in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Now — this goes against the thinking of our “spiritually dead world.” We know lots of people who believe that if we are a good enough person, or if we do enough good deeds, then we deserve eternity with God.
And this is why Paul started with those downer verses, reminding us of our sinfulness. Paul wants us to recognize this is not true.
According to the way the world calculated good deeds, Paul had them. But Paul recognized that when he embraced Jesus, all of his best works were worth nothing.
He came to realize that our best works cannot bring us to God. Being called righteous by God is not because of good works, it’s because of Jesus.
And if we consider that we can gain our salvation from good works, then how many good works do we need to do? Do we lose them if we mess up? How do we know when we hit the magical threshold? We never know.
In the end, it’s a whole lot easier to know that it takes belief in Jesus than to earn our salvation. When Paul explains we are SAVED, he’s telling us we are saved from certain eternal separation from God. He wants us to really, really believe that our sin separates us from God. That we cannot draw closer to God unless we have Jesus in our heart, spirit and mind.
We are saved from eternal separation and punishment. We don’t like to talk about that. We like to error on the side of ‘we’re all good people, so we won’t read those passages which talk about salvation by believing in Jesus alone.’
We can’t do that! That totally waters down the word of God, and that insults what Jesus did for us on the cross.
So, we can’t boast about our salvation because we did it on our own. I can’t say “I did it my way.” That never flies. I did it God’s way, because God’s way is the only way. Sometimes it makes us a little uncomfortable, but that’s OK, God can handle it. Honestly, think about what we just celebrated . . . COMMUNION. God sent His Son into the world to die for us so that we could experience the power and magnificence of God’s grace and mercy. So that we could be adopted into His family. Chosen before the world was created. It’s all ours in Christ. We didn’t do anything! God did! It is not possible to achieve salvation by good works! It’s all GRACE.
Finally, Paul tells us - - 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We mess this great passage up as well. We sometimes equate these good works with a way to earn salvation. Instead, what Paul is telling us that we were created by good in order to have faith in Him - -
Created by God! We are the Master Craftsman handiwork. God created us in His image, and that is always good.
If we go back to the beginning of creation, to Genesis, you will see we were created to do good works. We were designed to work. In Genesis 2:15, God tells us - - 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. – Genesis 2:15
So, we were always supposed to work. God created us to do good works. We are to go into the world and love the world. We are to show the world who Christ is by the way we live our lives. God prepared before the world was created what you were going to do and who you were going to be.
He knew what you’d do! So, as we wrap up today, know this . . . Because of God’s amazing grace . . . whatever is you’ve done in the past, the present and will do later today . . . God sent His Son, Jesus to die for you, to be your sacrifice so that you could now stand before God and be viewed as FLAWLESS.
So, on that day when I stand before God . . . He’s not going to dredge up all of my old sins. He’s not going to say it’s going to take hours, but He’s going to look at me and welcome me home . . . because of GRACE we have been saved!
