By Grace Through Faith
Notes
Transcript
Ephesians 2
Ephesians 2
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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— 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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
In Paul’s letters we can learn a lot about salvation. This passage in particular is one that gives us a dense bit on the topic.
In our sin we are dead, children of wrath. This goes back to the fall with Adam and Eve, sin separates us from God and is death. This is how we all are in the beginning, we are fallen sinful people. Lucky for us God is rich in mercy and he loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us so that we can be made alive. So that we are no longer dead in our sins but alive, we are forgiven of our sins and no longer have to suffer the punishment that they deserve. This is all done by grace through faith.
Grace is God’s undeserved favor on us. We are saved by the favor that God shows us even though we don’t deserve it. Faith is our trust and assurance in God. We are saved through our trusting in God. God shows us favor and in turn we put our faith in him and salvation is accomplished.
All of this is a free gift of God that we cannot work for. There is nothing that we can do towards it but only what God does. And in the end it results in us living our lives completely for Christ.