Not By But For – Eph 2:1-10
Steve Simala Grant – Aug. 19, 2001
Intro: before and after pictures
Have you seen the popular advertising tactic of “before” and “after” pictures? They are probably most common for diet products, but I’ve also seen them for hair and make-overs. The “before” picture is almost always the least flattering picture possible – no doubt altered at least a little in photoshop to make it look even worse. And the “after” picture is the exact opposite – the most flattering possible. The goal, of course, is to get you to spend your money on the subtle assumption that you can purchase the improvement that you see comparing the two pictures.
Eph. 2:1-10 uses a similar tactic but to a different end. Paul does paint two pictures for us – one “before” Christ (vss. 1-3) and one “after” (vss. 4-7). He then brings it all together in vss. 8-10 and tells us what the goal of this comparison is. read.
1. Before
The “before” picture is not very flattering. In fact, it is hard to imagine it being much worse! The first word Paul uses is “dead” – it doesn’t get much worse than that! Apart from Christ, in our pre-conversion state, we are spiritually dead. That is the result of sin – sin kills. It destroys. It annihilates.
The second part of the picture is described as in slavery – though that word doesn’t appear, that is certainly the sense of how we are described in “following the world” (vs. 2), the devil “at work in those who are disobedient” (vs. 2), and in our slavery to our own “cravings” (vs. 3). The picture being painted there is of us subject to the control of these three things, of us enslaved to them.
It is worth stopping to notice that Paul includes all three of those in describing our sinful nature.
A. The World.
Our environment, our culture, works against God to keep us in sin. You name the sin, I can probably give you an example of how society glamorizes it and makes it look appealing and normative: lust – look at any billboard. greed – what our economy is built on. self-centeredness – almost every movie/TV show/self-help book has as a theme someone trying to get what they want. I could go on, but you get the picture. I love how JB Phillips paraphrases Rom. 12:2 – the familiar verse that in the NIV says “do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world” Phillips says “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold.”
B. The Devil.
Ephesians talks more about the spiritual realm and the forces there than any other NT book, so it is not surprising that Paul mentions it here. He is described as “read”. We all know that “the devil made me do it” is no excuse – it does not make us any less responsible for our actions. But it is based at least in part on something that is true – the devil is active in our world, and is working to keep us from God.
C. The Flesh.
Vs. 3 lists the third thing to which we are enslaved – our sinful nature. Our “old self”, with its desire for evil and self-destructive tendencies. It seems strange to describe ourselves as slaves to our own desires – our culture defines freedom as basically the ability to do anything we want. The problem is that in our sinful state, the things we want are ultimately self-destructive. Ask anyone who has ever struggled with addiction if they understand what this verse means. True freedom comes when we are no longer subject to fleshly desires that are ultimately self-destructive.
We tend to try to pick one (the world, the devil, the flesh) to blame when we sin, but in fact all three are operating to keep us in sin and death. All three work conspire to keep us from God. We need to confront each one in our battle for holiness – remove ourselves from worldly influences that cause us to sin, stand up against the devil, and rely on God to remove our old flesh and replace it with His Spirit.
Paul sums up the “before” picture with what may be the most uncomfortable descriptor in the passage: “we were by nature objects of wrath”. Ouch! I don’t like that! Our old self, prior to coming to Christ, was by nature the object of God’s wrath. That is a pretty helpless place to be! Wrath is a strong word, it means God’s holy anger against sin and the judgement that results – and that is the word Paul uses to describe God’s response to our sinful state prior to coming to Christ.
We don’t talk much about the wrath of God – it must be politically incorrect or something. Perhaps it is because we tend to see the wrath of God in opposition to the love of God, and so, feeling forced to choose, we opt to focus on God’s love. But in fact the two are not opposites, they need each other. God cannot be completely loving if He does not hate the things that rob us of knowing full lives; similarly he cannot be wrathful if He didn’t care about us because if He didn’t care, He would be ambivalent. “only the person who understands something of the greatness of his wrath will be mastered by the greatness of his mercy. The converse is also true: only the person who has experienced the greatness of God’s mercy can understand something of how great his wrath must be.” (O’Brien, p. 163).
We don’t really think of unsaved people along those lines – of being “objects of wrath” anymore, do we? We have watered down the truth of the gospel, concluding that people are generally moral and God is just, so maybe it won’t really be so bad at judgement day. I mean, everyone does some things that are wrong, sure, but they aren’t really bad. They aren’t bad people, so God will love them, and accept them into heaven, right? Wrong. God’s Word says they are dead – enslaved – “by nature objects of wrath”. That doesn’t mean without any value – if lost people weren’t valuable to God He wouldn’t have sent Christ to die for us! No, it is because of how valuable they are that this state of death, slavery, wrath is so wrong! And understanding the true state of people without Christ needs to motivate us to share the good news with them. The harsh reality is that outside of Christ, people perish eternally. People we care about, we love, desperately need to know exactly what Paul is about to tell us in these next verse.
2. After
Verse 4 begins with one of the great words in Scripture – “but”. Don’t you love how we can be reading along, starting to feel hopeless and helpless and discouraged – overwhelmed by how far we are from God’s standard – and then we come to this little word: BUT! “All I have just said is true, BUT you are not without hope! BUT there is more! BUT God…”
The next three verses describe the change that comes through Christ. This is the “after” picture, contrasting and demonstrating the change that takes place through Christ.
The focus is once again all on God. Heart change can only come from the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. One of the images in the Bible to describe this change is the image of re-birth – the old dies and something completely new is born in its place, and this is the magnificent work of God.
The first verse in this “after” section, vs. 4, places the focus squarely where it needs to be – on God. Paul mentions both God’s love and God’s mercy, and each are emphasized with adjectives – “great” love (in fact the original language places even more emphasis on this love of God than we have, reading literally “because of the great love with which He loved us,” emphasizing this through repetition) – and “rich” mercy.
And because of those two amazing characteristics of God, two things have happened to us:
A. Made alive:
This takes us all the way back to verse 1, where Paul begins by describing us as “dead”. It is only natural and logical then that the first thing we have in Christ is life. We were dead, now we are alive. That is our testimony – that is our witness – once we were spiritually dead, but now we are spiritually alive. This incredible truth jumps Paul ahead to verse 8, to the point he is building to about how this entire salvation thing is about the grace of God, so that it overflows here as a brief taste of what is to come: it is by grace you have been saved.
B. Raised with Christ:
To understand what Paul is talking about here, we need to glance back at the last part of chapter 1, which we looked at last Sunday. specifically vss. 20-21. The focus there is on the power Christ has over everything because God has raised Him up and seated Him at His right hand. And then we come to verse 6 of chapter 2 (read). Wait a minute – does this verse actually say that? After developing the theme of Christ’s exaltation and the power He has as Lord over all, does this verse now say that we also have been exalted? That is exactly what it says.
What a lofty view of us as God’s children. God has raised us up with Christ, and all of the power that Jesus controls is ours to access also. It is no wonder that Paul began this picture with a focus on the great love and rich mercy of God! Who are we to sit with Christ around His throne? We are God’s children. We have been raised up, because of God we belong there – that is where our citizenship is – that is where our loyalty and life and worship belong – seated in heaven with Christ.
Why would God do such a thing? The answer is in the next verse: (read vs. 7). God did it to show the world what He is like.
Let me ask a searching question: when the world looks at you, do they see the “incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus”? Do they see life, as vs. 5 says? Do they see us focussed around Jesus’ throne in heaven? God saved us so that the world would know what He is like; when people look at you and I, is that what they see?
When we claim to be God’s children, what people need to see in us is “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in kindness.” My prayer for you and for myself is that they would see God through us, taste something of His goodness and grace, and that would awaken in them a hunger for more.
3. FOR: by grace through faith
This brings us to the heart of the gospel, and what is often seen as the heart of the book of Ephesians. Verses 8-9 are ones many of us have memorized, and with good reason – they succinctly and powerfully state the incredible message of salvation.
It really is simple: salvation is by grace through faith. What more needs to be said? God’s grace offers it, we receive it in faith. And lest we go off and think that we are something great because of the exercise of our faith, the verse continues quickly to say it is not of ourselves, and it is nothing we have earned. It is simply a gift, to be believed and accepted. That is the incredible simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: because of His great love for us, God offers us the gift of salvation by His grace. All we need to do is have faith.
And once again, the truth that we have confronted over and over in Ephesians is front and center here also – it is all about God and what God did/does. The focus is on Him – He is the central character, He is the one who pours out grace and saves us.
I don’t understand why this is really so hard for so many of us – why we can’t just accept the gift. Maybe it is part of the devil’s plan to try to convince us that we have to earn it – we have to work for God’s love and approval rather than simply accepting His gift by faith. Do you struggle with that? Do you find your service to God becoming an attempt to earn His love and acceptance – in essence trying to earn your salvation? If so, meditate on this verse this week. Memorize it, write in on your fridge, make it your screen saver, whatever – but seek to immerse yourself in the truth that it is by grace through faith that we are saved.
4. FOR: we are God’s workmanship created for…
All too often we memorize vss. 8-9 and leave out vs. 10, but then we only get the first part of the thought and miss the rest of what Paul is saying.
The first thing to notice is that we are God’s “workmanship”. The idea here is one of pride in something you have made – you know that feeling? Creating something, doing it very well, and stepping back to admire the beauty of what you have created. It is the idea of “craftsmanship”. (Lois’ picture). And that is what you and I are – the craftsmanship of God.
Everything is created for a purpose – maybe it is simply to beautify a room – and Paul moves on do describe the purpose for which we are created – “to do good works”. There is a wonderful balance here – almost a tension – between vs. 9 and 10, and that is why we need to memorize vs 10 along with vs. 8-9. The topic of Christian works could occupy a series of sermons, but what is essential for us to know is included in these two verses. Works don’t save us – they don’t make us more holy or more spiritual or more important to God. But, works flow naturally out of who we have been made to be by the craftsmanship of God. We are not saved BY works, but FOR works. So they are important – they are crucial – but they do not earn us salvation of more of God’s love.
Our works flow out of who we are created to be. The are a RESULT of salvation, not a CAUSE of salvation. It is critical that we grasp this differentiation, because it is extremely important for us to be motivated to do these “good works” because of who we are as saved children of God and not out of some frantic sense of trying to work our way into heaven. I admit we might get more good works done that way… but I wouldn’t trade the freedom and joy that comes from doing things that flow freely from who we are for any frantic, eventually unattainable attempt to earn my way into heaven.
The last line is incredibly reassuring – God has prepared all these good works in advance. I don’t have to create them, go looking for them, rely on my own strength. God has them all prepared. He has the opportunities all laid out in front of us, the appointments scheduled. Pastor Matt was telling us the other day about a drunk guy that showed up at his house late one night asking if Matt would call him a cab – God prepared that in advance. That is how God works – He prepares these opportunities in advance for us to live out the purpose for which we are created.
Conclusion:
As we end this morning, the first question I need to ask is whether your spiritual life is the “before” picture or the “after” picture. If it is before, I want to challenge you to read these verses, particularly 8-10, every day this week. If you don’t have a Bible, take one from the pew, highlight those words, and read them every day. My prayer is that God’s Holy Spirit would reveal to you what they mean in an experiential way.
The second question is whether you know this grace that brings salvation. And when I say “know” I mean in your heart as well as your head. There is a song my teens used to constantly beg to sing, which we have sung once or twice on a Sunday morning also. The chorus says “Now I see, the walls I’ve built are falling and your waves of grace are washing over me.” That is a good picture of God’s grace – washing over us like waves, cleansing us. My prayer is that you would know this grace.
Finally, anticipate the “good works” which God has prepared for you this week. Take your focus off of yourself and look around to see what opportunities God has for you to “show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
