Dr. Bradford Reaves
Crossway Christian Fellowship
Hagerstown, MD, USA
www.mycrossway.org
View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118
A Sunday School teacher had just finished telling her third graders ... how Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb and then rose again on the third day. Then, wanting to share the excitement of the resurrection, she asked: "What do you think were Jesus' first words when He came out of that tomb?"
A little girl in the back of the room shot her arm into the air and shouted excitedly "I know, I know!" Extending both of her arms high into the air she said: "TA-DA!" (Sermon Central: Jeffery Smead)
The resurrection of Jesus is indeed a power, powerful word. To a child, it could be, simply put, “Ta-da!” But the word we would use to describe the work of Jesus on the Cross, his death, and resurrection is “Gospel.” The Greek for this is euangelion, which we commonly say means “good news.” While that is a partial definition, it is not complete. It is not just “good news” but the pronouncement of good news.” What I want you to understand this morning is the gospel is not a thing it is what we do; it is the message of the church to the world that Jesus is Lord.
In recent history, there have been tragic attempts to redefine the gospel as some kind of social movement. Some have tried to attach certain causes to the gospel. If somebody wants a certain ethical issue, has a social or moral idea, or some other kind of ideology, they will label it as a gospel issue. The Bible warns against such things because it confuses the gospel and adds to the gospel.
I’ve said before, we live in an age of biblical illiteracy in the church and it shows. In a recent survey, 50 percent of the Christians surveyed believe that salvation is earned by good works. Less than half of believers say is their responsibility to share their faith with others. At the same time, according to Barna, only 6% of Americans share a biblical worldview.
The gospel is not about any behavior. It is not about any activity, any social cause, ethical cause, moral cause. The Gospel is a message - a life-saving invitation - from the King of Glory. We are commanded to preach it and proclaim it. But sadly, many even within the church do not know it, understand it, or believe it (much less proclaim it). Now with that in mind, let’s continue to read Ephesians starting in Chapter 2 verses 1-10.
1. The Gospel is Good News Because it First Identifies Our Sin (vv. 1-3)
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. (Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV)
The moment we fail to recognize the massive weight of the smallest of sin in our lives and our powerlessness to overcome it is the moment we succumb to its strength. Detreich Bonhoeffer wrote, "If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all."
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 ESV)
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8 ESV)
Paul wanted to remind us in the first verse of the serious nature of our sin. Not to condemn us but to keep us closely connected to the context of the Gospel. Sin is a matter of life and death - literally. If all we talk about is grace and never share grace against the backdrop of sin, God’s grace is diluted. If the church does not speak on the issue of sin and its curse, the gospel has no power.
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23 ESV)
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
What we first fail to understand is that sin isn’t an issue of what we do, it is a condition of the heart. How does a worm get inside an apple? Perhaps you think the worm burrows in from the outside. No, scientists have discovered that the worm comes from inside. But how does he get in there? Simple! An insect lays an egg in the apple blossom. Sometime later, the worm hatches in the heart of the apple, then eats his way out. Sin, like the worm, begins in the heart and works out through a person’s thoughts, words, and actions.
Paul is reminding the church that before the radical intervention of Christ, the effects of sin was more than just bad decisions, wrong behaviors, or immoral lifestyles. The condition of the sinner is they are dead; spiritually dead. You have a condition of absolute deadness, and that deadness engulfs every human soul in a life of trespasses and sins—two different words for violating the law of God, unrighteousness. That is not the condition of the believer in Christ Jesus and Paul wants to remind us of that.
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4)
The reason we lived in this condition was that we followed the prince of this world, meaning Satan. This world that we are living in is ruled by the enemy of God and those who follow the enemy of God. That is marked by a life of disobedience of God, rebellion, selfish ambition, and carrying out the desires of your body and mind.
Listen, the biblical understanding and teaching of sin, guilt, and repentance are incompatible with the world’s attempts to resolve that issue. We live in a culture that elevates pride, self-esteem, positive feelings, and that nothing is more important than our happiness. At the same time, we make victimize evil and make villains out of victims.
But that’s who you were before the radical transformation in Christ. Paul makes it clear; past tense. That is the first reality we must understand of the Gospel. We’re not rescuing people from abuse. We’re not rescuing people from something done to them in this life or some other generation of life. We’re not rescuing people from bad marriages. We’re not rescuing people from inequities. We’re not rescuing people from poverty. Those are noble causes, but not the gospel message. The gospel rescues people from eternal death.
2. The Gospel is Good News Because it is Jesus Alone that Rescues (vv.4-6)
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, (Ephesians 2:4–6 ESV)
There are plenty of ways man can solve problems. “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem” (Milton Friedman).
“When the solution is simple, God is answering.” (Albert Einstein). A truck driver thought that he’d take a shortcut and ignored the signs of low bridge clearance. His truck became wedged under the bridge by a few inches. With traffic stopped, engineers were called to figure out how to remove the truck. A little boy riding his bike to see the scene walked up to a police officer and suggested, "Try letting the air out of the tires."
That is usually the case when we try on our own to solve the problems of our sin. We think if we can just try hard enough that we can bring our sins into submission. Paul tells us the Gospel has a better way with 2 simple but powerful words: “But God...”
Throughout the Bible when it seems hopeless to man, God will make a way.
26 “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26 ESV)
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
If you are a Christian, you have both a “but God” moment, and you have an “in order that” life. We were redeemed not just from something but to something—not just from our murderous pasts, but so that we might love, glorify, and proclaim Christ to others. God doesn’t just redeem us for himself. He redeems our stories for himself.
Now the next question is, “But God, what?” Look on in verse 4, Paul draws our attention to two attributes in God’s saving power: His mercy and his love. God’s mercy is Him showing us favor when we deserve wrath. The reason is, he shows us mercy is because of his love. The gospel is not only our deliverance from sin it is by God’s love. The Greek word used here for love is agape, and it is the most elevated word for love.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 ESV)
There is no other religion that has a god sacrificing for people. Look at verse 5: Eph 2:5 “5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” At the very foundation of the world, He chose to redeem sinners; that was an act of love. You see it again and again throughout redemptive history God’s mercy extended to man through his love. Until His love reaches a peak at the cross, where He places His Son to die in the place of those whom He loves.
Here we also see God’s grace at work. The Greek word for grace is caris. Its basic idea is simply “non-meritorious or unearned favor, an unearned gift, a favor or blessings bestowed as a gift, freely and never as merit for work performed.” There was no merit or reward for God’s salvation in you. Paul tells us plainly: “by Grace you have been saved” (v.5).
When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award—yet receives such a gift anyway—that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God. – G. W. Knight
Eph 2:6 tells us that as a result of God’s mercy, love, and grace that has redeemed us and saved He “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” This is our present position. We are no longer slaves of the world. We are no longer subjects to the prince of the air. We are children of God and we will be seated around the throne of heaven (Rev 4:1)
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (Philippians 3:20 ESV)
We were dead in our transgressions until He placed us into Christ. This is an amazing thing. When Christ went to the cross, God placed all the sins of all who believe and He placed it on Christ and punished Christ for it as if us who were there and we died to ourselves then. “The wages of sin is death”; we read that this morning. But we died in Christ, and therefore we rose in Him to newness of life.
3. The Gospel is Good News Because We Receive it Through Faith (vv. 7-10).
Ephesians 2:7-10 “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. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Marcel Sternberger was a methodical Hungarian man living in NY. He always took the 9:09 train from his suburban home to Woodside where he caught a subway into the city. On the morning of January 10, 1948, Sternberger boarded the 9:09 as usual until he suddenly decided to visit Laszlo Victor, a Hungarian friend who lived in Brooklyn and was ill. He went to his friend’s house, and stayed until midafternoon and then boarded a Manhattan-bound subway for his Fifth Avenue office.
Here is Marcel’s story: “The car was crowded, and there seemed to be no chance of a seat. But just as I entered, a man sitting by the door suddenly jumped up to leave, and I slipped into the empty place. I’ve been living in New York long enough not to start conversations with strangers. But being a photographer, I have the peculiar habit of analyzing people’s faces, and I was struck by the features of the passenger on my left. He was probably in his late 30s, and when he glanced up, his eyes seemed to have a hurt expression in them. He was reading a Hungarian-language newspaper, and something prompted me to say in Hungarian, “I hope you don’t mind if I glance at your paper.”
The man seemed surprised to be addressed in his native language. But he answered politely, “You may read it now. I’ll have time later on.”
During the half-hour ride to town, we had quite a conversation. He said his name was Bela Paskin. A law student when World War II started, he had been put into a German labor battalion and sent to Ukraine. Later he was captured by the Russians and put to work burying the German dead. After the war, he covered hundreds of miles on foot until he reached his home in Debrecen, Hungary.
When he went to his families’ apartment, he found strangers living there. None of them had ever heard of his family. As he was leaving, full of sadness, a boy ran after him, calling his name. “Your whole family is dead. The Nazis took them and your wife to Auschwitz.”
A few days later, too heartsick to remain in Hungary, he set out again on foot until he reached Paris. and then to the United States in October 1947, just three months before I met him.
All the time he had been talking, I kept thinking that somehow his story seemed familiar. A young woman whom I had met recently at the home of friends had also been from Debrecen; she had been sent to Auschwitz; from there she had been transferred to work in a German munitions factory. Her relatives had been killed in the gas chambers. Later she was liberated by the Americans.
It seemed impossible that there could be any connection between these two people, but as I neared my station, I fumbled anxiously in my address book. “Was your wife’s name Marya?”
He turned pale. “Yes!” he answered. “How did you know?” He looked as if he were about to faint.
I said, “Let’s get off the train.” I took him by the arm at the next station and led him to a phone booth. He stood there like a man in a trance while I dialed her phone number. When I heard her voice, I told her who I was and asked her to describe her husband. She seemed surprised at the question but gave me a description. Then I asked her where she had lived in Debrecen, and she told me the address.
“Did you and your wife live on such-and-such a street?”
“Yes!” Bela exclaimed. He was white as a sheet and trembling.
“Try to be calm,” I urged him. “Something miraculous is about to happen to you. Here, take this telephone and talk to your wife!”
His eyes bright with tears took the receiver, listened a moment to his wife’s voice, then suddenly cried, “This is Bela! This is Bela!” Seeing that the poor fellow was so excited he couldn’t talk coherently, I took the receiver from his shaking hands.
“Stay where you are,” I told Marya, "We will be there in a few minutes.”
At first, I thought I had better accompany Paskin, lest the man should faint from excitement, but I decided that this was a moment in which no strangers should intrude. Putting Paskin into a taxicab, I directed the driver to take him to Marya’s address, paid the fare, and said goodbye.
Skeptical persons will no doubt attribute the events of that memorable afternoon to mere chance. But was it chance that made Marcel Sternberger suddenly decide to visit his sick friend and hence take a subway line that he had never ridden before? Was it chance that caused the man sitting by the door of the car to rush out just as Sternberger came in? Was it chance that caused Bela Paskin to be sitting beside Sternberger, reading a Hungarian newspaper' Or did God ride the Brooklyn subway that afternoon? (Paul Deutschman).
Have you ever asked yourself, why does the Lord want to take you to heaven? So that He can show you eternal kindness. How much grace is that? How much surpassing grace is that? God delights in showing off his great love, mercy, and grace. Salvation is from sin, by love, into life, for glory. Number five: Salvation is through faith. That gets us to those familiar words in verses 8 and 9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” There is no detail of your life that escapes the immeasurable love and power of God. The question is, will you give him the chance and receive it in faith alone through Christ alone?
