The Path of the Righteous

The text I want to look at tonight is Ephesians 2:1–10. This a very well known passage of scripture and if somebody were to ask me to open my Bible and show them the gospel in one section of scripture, this might be where I go. In the first chapter Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus. In Ephesians 1:18 “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,” It is in this context of Paul praying for their eyes to be opened to these truths of Chapter 2 where will will start reading the prayer of Paul for this church and I believe our prayer for ourselves and each other. READ. Here we have in ten verses a powerfully convicting and beautiful truth outlined for us. 1. You are dead in your sin 2. but while you were still a sinner Christ died for you. 3. By grace through faith you have been saved. 4. We will one day be glorified before God and experience the full riches of his mercy and love. What I want to do for us is break this up into three sections 1. The state if the unbeliever in verse 1-3 2. The state of the believer or Christian who has been saved by grace in verses 4-9. And look at verse 10 so see how this should effect everything we do.

The state of the unbeliever.

Ephesians 2:1 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

This is the hard truth of anybody who does not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. The illusion of the world is that you can appear to be alive, to be well, to “have it all” and yet the state of your soul is that of death. Spiritually speaking you are a dead man walking. If you are siting here and you know in your heart you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you’re biggest problem in life is not prison, or drugs, or financial struggle, the biggest problem in your life is that you are living as one spiritually dead in your sin. Now, is prison, addiction, not being able to pay rent real problems that effect you and cause you stress and anxiety. Absolutely. But in one million years all that will really matter is whether you stand before God alive in Christ or still dead in your sins. Do you ever think about that, how in one billion years every person you meet will still exist? There is not a soul alive or who ever was alive that is not eternal is their existence. Makes you wonder about the these things on earth we deem important. I am not saying you should live like a fool and just do whatever. If i go buy the biggest TV at Wal-Mart and tell my wife “hey who cares in a thousand years we will be praising God.” She would probably tell me that if I don’t go return it right now I might be praising him in heaven tonight. But if today, you are dead in your transgressions, there is not greater problem in your life.

I was confronted with this reality when I worked with teen boys at an alternative to jail program. I spent a lot of time with one kid in particular. Trying to help him work through family issues, I taught a course that would help get him training for a job when he left the program and so I spent a significant amount of time with him, and we had philosophical conversations but to be honest with you I sort of danced around the core truth of the gospel. When this kid left the program within a month he has died of an overdose. It was a significant blow to me, and one that I am not sure if I ever recovered as far as that job is concerned as that was the start of me leaving that job. This kid had some issues, he had some serious family issues and a troubled past and he needed counseling, he needed help from social work type programs, but at the core he needed the gospel. The gospel is what will save your soul. Without Jesus all we can offer is “if you stop committing crimes, and stop using addicting drugs, then your life will be more convenient.” Programs that help you are great, I have used them and they were beneficial to an extant, but without the gospel in the end its all dust in the wind. I love how every night Randy says “its a good night to be saved”. Is it a good night to be sober? Sure. Is it a good thing to not be stressed abut eviction or a warrant in another county, sure. But there is nothing , nothing better than to say “its good to be saved.”

The second aspect of the state of the unbeliever I want to look at is the nature of how they live:

Ephesians 2:2–3 “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.”

The state of the unbeliever is not one of freedom. The idea of true freedom apart from God is one of the greatest lies the world believes. They are a follower. They are following the course of the world. The trends and endless inventions of new ways to sin that the world produces. The world will never tire of inventing things that you can follow. Smoke shop are now covered with acronyms. The state of the unbeliever is that they are following Satan. They are following the desires of their body and mind. People who say “I don’t serve any god I serve myself” are really just serving their sinful passions. Reading this passage you really get a sense that the person living apart from God does not have much control over their life. They make decisions, sure, but what is really driving them? They are controlled by their sinful desires like the rest of the world. They may say “well I do good” I give to the poor and help people. Do they do those things because of a love for Christ that is pouring out in a genuine way towards other people, or are they doing those things to feel like a good person and be able to say “I am a good person.” I am not trying to be controversial but I think a lot of people who will one day stand before God and argue they were a good person will have their eyes opened to see they were always just following their ego and feeding their pride with “good works.” They are following their desire to feel like a good person. They are no different than anyone else dead in their sin. Romans 3:10-12

Romans 3:10–12 ESV

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Does this mean that Christians do not struggle with following the world, and following our own sinful desires? Of course not. But in scripture there is a difference between a person who has been united with Christ, and still struggles with sin until the glorious day where we stand before God and are rid of our sinful flesh once and for all, and the unbeliever still dead in their sins.

So lets look at the state of the believer.

Ephesians 2:4–9 “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.”

“But God” Notice the attention here focuses from the state of describing the unbeliever, to a focus not on us, but on the things God does and how we are recipients of these things. The scripture is saying so much more than the fact that we are no longer “children of wrath.” As amazing as as being rescued from that fate is, as amazing as no longer being dead in our sins is, look how much further the text takes it. We are now in a state to be: Ephesians 2:6–7 “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.”

HE doesn’t just save us, HE elevates us.

The Message of Ephesians (b. Why God Did It)

‘Salvation’ is more than forgiveness. It is deliverance from the death, slavery and wrath described in verses 1–3. Indeed, it includes the totality of our new life in Christ, together with whom we have been made alive, exalted and seated in the heavenly realm. ‘Grace’ is God’s free and undeserved mercy towards us, and ‘faith’ is the humble trust with which we receive it for ourselves.

IF we look back on Ephesians 2:4–5 “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—” This act of God, the demonstration of his love was done while we were still dead in our sin. So what is the significance of that? This gives us insight into the amazing character of God. That he is a a Holy God, who is rich in love and mercy, and that has everything to do with who God is and nothing to do with us. What I mean by that is, if you are sitting here today, looking at your life and you struggle to see why you are loved by God, please realize that God loves you because that is who God is and it is nothing like the kind of love so many of us have experienced on earth. We here “I love you because you do this, or you are this way, but God loves us because he is God and that is who he is . God loves us because He loves us.

Look at verse 9. Ephesians 2:9 “not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Paul here has totally exposed the heart of those who seek to get to heaven on their own works and their own righteousness, because it is offensive to their ego and their pride that they have nothing to offer up to God and before others as a monument to themselves. Isaiah 64:6 “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Those who would stand before God and try to claim that they are a “good person” and deserve anything besides death are delusional in their concept of how HOLY God is, and how sinful and polluted with sin man is apart from God. Any work that I do in my life that could be called “good” has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with God’s grace at work in my life. God does not need us to for good works, we need God to do anything good.

I think I speak for all of us volunteers that none of us will stand before God and speak about things we did for God as if God needed us to do any of it. God can raise up anyone to do His will. WE will fall on our face and give glory go God that it is because of his grace that we are not annihilated.

So then lets look at verse 10. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The truth of our existence is we will serve something. And we are delusional if we think that we can serve ourselves and it go well with us because the truth is we make for pathetic gods, because of our sin nature all that means is will be slaves to our sin and our passions. Apart from God will be followers of things that do not love us and want nothing good for us. Freedom from God just means slavery to sin. God did not create us for that he created us to be recipients of his great love and mercy. If we break free from addiction or lifestyle patterns that hurt us, but are still dead in our sins, our life may be more convenient but we will not experience true freedom and will not experience the eternal riches of God’s mercy and love but will experience eternal wrath. We love you too much not to mention the reality of eternal wrath if you die in your sin.

Read Roman 6:15-23 (if time)

So then lets look at verse 10. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Our good works is a symptom of God’s grace not a means to it.

Discussion: So why don’t we live like this. why do we live like verse 1-3 and not 4-10?

Paul washer analogy. Why do you think we forget to live like this?