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Text: Eph 2:1-10
Theme: Salvation by grace, not by works.
Doctrine: salvation by faith
Image: bridge of the cross
Need: joy of salvation
Message: live again the joy of your salvation
*Salvation by Faith*
Eph 2:1-10
*Intro*
Paul is writing a letter to the Ephesian Christians.
These are people who were gentiles, and had come to faith in Christ as their saviour.
Ephesus was another port city, and there was almost as much vice here as there was in Corinth.
One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the magnificent temple to Artemis, is located in this city.
When the Romans took over, they also built temples to the cult of Roma.
Before Paul got there, the Jews had basically avoided the gentiles, and vice versa.
Then Paul showed up and stayed for two years while teaching in the synagogue and the hall of Tyrannus.
Paul introduced them to the gospel of Jesus Christ, because the believers who were there had received the baptism of John the Baptist.
They had not heard the news that Jesus had come.
They were eagerly expecting the coming of the kingdom.
Remember John's baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
He preached good works in anticipation of the coming Messiah.
But then Paul taught them the gospel.
We do not know exactly why this letter was written to the Ephesians.
It seems clear from this passage that Paul wants to make sure they do not slip back into the practices they had before he got there.
He reminds them of their position now in Christ.
*Unsaved person is dead, disobedient, and doomed.*
The first three verses of our passage give us a description of unsaved people, of unbelievers, which the Ephesians were before Paul told them the gospel.
An unbeliever is dead in his transgressions and sins.
He is dead.
In an unbeliever, there are no signs of spiritual life.
He has no spiritual ability whatsoever.
He has been brought into the spiritual emergency room and pronounced dead on arrival.
To transgress and to sin are used almost synonyms here, but they carry very different meanings in the Greek.
To transgress is to misstep.
The unbeliever has stepped off of the right path.
She has transgressed, turned away from, stepped off, the road God has set out for her.
She was not able to follow where God had told her to go.
The word translated to sin is actually an athletic term.
It means to miss the mark, or to come short of the goal.
The unbeliever misses the mark, he falls short of the goal set out for him by God.
Our lives are supposed to be in line with God's will, but “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) The unbeliever is spiritually dead.
Not only is an unbeliever dead, he is also disobedient.
He follows the ways of the world and the Devil.
The unbeliever does not listen to his conscience, he tries to get away with what everyone else is doing.
He sees no reason to confine his behaviour.
Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't he.
The Devil tempts him by distorting all the gifts God has given the world.
If it is the in thing to do, then the unbeliever does it.
If it is cool to go to the temple and worship the Caesar, then she might as well participate.
If it is cool to go to sleep around with as many women as he can, then he does his best.
If it is cool to gossip about the other girls in class, or the other ladies in the community, then she tries to keep up.
Anything which satisfies the cravings of her sinful nature, she is quick to try.
An unbeliever's nature is so warped and twisted that even when they try to do good, it turns out to be bad.
He is only able to try to please the warped and deluded nature he has left.
He follows the promptings of the flesh.
His nature is fed and taught wrong desires and cravings by the world and the Devil.
An unbeliever is dead in her sin, disobedient to God, and doomed to hell.
She has turned aside from the path laid our before her.
She has missed the mark set out for her.
She has disobeyed God by following the ways of the world and the Devil and by trying to please the desires of her flesh.
She is now closer to God's wrath, than to him.
She is, by nature, by her sinful, distorted, ruined nature, an object of God's wrath.
God is perfect.
God is holy.
God is just.
He cannot stand to have sin in his presence.
He is like a raging fire.
A stick of wood cannot stand in the presence of fire, it is consumed.
So it is with an unbeliever.
She is like a stick in the presence of a raging fire.
She is going to be consumed.
She is doomed.
*Unsaved person puts their faith elsewhere, boast in themselves.*
An unbeliever is dead, disobedient, and doomed, and there is nothing he can do about it.
Let me ask you something.
Can a dead person talk?
Does a disobedient person obey?
Can a death row inmate, who has no more appeal, no more hope for release, can that inmate save himself.
No, he cannot.
The unbeliever is dead because the instant Adam and Eve took a bite of the fruit God had told them not to, they died spiritually.
They were separated from God, and that is spiritual death.
There is no way for the unbeliever to get back to God on his own.
A dead person is not able to get up and start running toward the finish line.
A dead person cannot pick up a rifle and become a marksman.
A dead person cannot open their own eyes, let alone reach a goal.
There is no work to be performed before an unbeliever could be saved.
She could boast that she had done something which led to her salvation.
John the Baptist told people to repent.
He told them to reform their lives.
He told the people to bear good fruit.
But he also said that someone else was coming who would change all that.
Someone else was coming who would baptise with the Holy Spirit.
Someone else was coming who would throw their world upside down and give them what they needed.
Listening to John, an unbeliever might think she had to do something to be saved, but she cannot do anything, because she is dead.
She puts her faith in something else, in her baptism, or in her perfect attendance record at church, or in her ministry work.
She puts her trust in what she has done to save her, but salvation does not come that way.
She puts her trust in the wrong thing.
A while back Sherilyn and I watched a TV show called /The Rebel Billionaire/.
On this show Sir Richard Branson, the CEO of Virgin Worldwide, a person with a million dollar a year salary, used the reality TV format to find an entrepreneur to run a new business venture he was setting up.
Throughout the show, Sir Richard had these people do some crazy things.
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