Life in Christ

Some years ago, pastor R. Kent Hughes and a group of high schoolers hiked to the top of Mount Whitney in California, the highest spot in the continental United States at about 14,500 feet. They were all exhilarated by the breathtaking panorama of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Mojave Desert below. “What a spot,” Hughes exults as he reflects on it today, “with its rarefied crystal-clear air, its indigo and turquoise lakes—vista giving way to vista as far as one could see.”

As the group surveyed the world from that pinnacle, one of the teens mentioned that Death Valley, the lowest point in the United States, lay only eighty miles away. Think about that! In fewer than a hundred miles, you could travel from a height of over 14,000 feet to a drop of 282 feet below sea level. Or you could climb from a suffocating 134 degrees in the shade to crisp, cool mountain air in the bright sun. Hughes remarks, “What a contrast! One place is the top of the world, the other the bottom. One place is perpetually cool, the other relentlessly hot. From Mt. Whitney you look down on all of life. From Death Valley you can only look up to the rest of the world.”[1]

· What was life, like prior to God’s gracious intrusion? (2:1–3)

• Isaiah 59:2 (NIV)

2 But your iniquities have separated

you from your God;

your sins have hidden his face from you,

so that he will not hear.

· What did God do for us and why did He do it? (2:4–7)

• Galatians 4:4-5

4 But when the time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman born under law

5 to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons

1 Timothy 1:15

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst

John 3:3,

In reply Jesus declared I tell you the truth no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.

1 Peter 1:3, 23

Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

§ Note that Paul associates the believer’s new position directly with the work of Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection, and exaltation. In fact, what Paul said about Jesus Christ’s position in Ephesians 1:20–23, he now applies to believers in a spiritual sense in 2:4–6.[2]

· How can we receive the gift of salvation? (2:8–9)

Ephesians 2:8–9 (NIV)

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

· What difference does salvation make in my life? (2:10)[3]

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Everyone without Christ is dead. Most people do not want to hear this today, and many pulpits are silent about this doctrine. But it is a crucial truth because Christ’s atoning death does not make any sense without it.[4]

[1]Charles R. Swindoll, Galatians, Ephesians, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2015), 184. [2]Charles R. Swindoll, Galatians, Ephesians, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2015), 187. [3]Charles R. Swindoll, Galatians, Ephesians, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2015), 185. [4]R. Kent Hughes, Ephesians: The Mystery of the Body of Christ, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 68.