Important Reminder

Introduction

Ephesians 2:1-10 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

I’m a full time youth pastor, and this school year, we’re placing a huge emphasis on knowing the gospel. The majority of my youth do not understand who they are, they don’t understand who God is - His character, His will, His mercy, His grace, His love… they don’t understand why they are here on this earth…because they do not understand the gospel. I’ve tried to teach them difficult, challenging Biblical concepts…but for many of them, they don’t understand what I’m trying to teach because they don’t understand the gospel…and it’s not an intellectual issue…it’s not an issue of the mind, but an issue of the heart.

Some of my smartest kids, straight A kids, don’t have a grasp on what the gospel is, and on the opposite end, some of my kids who struggle in school have a simple, pure faith..they know who God is, who they are, and why they need Him…

The theologian A. W. Tozer famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us”... “The second most important thing is what we believe God thinks about us.” What we’re going to look at tonight is how the first informs the second.

And we can go a lot of places to find the answers to these two points, but if we want to discover God’s truth about 1)Who He is, and 2)Who we are to Him, then we have to go to His Word. Specifically, we have to go to the GOSPEL - the good news of Jesus Christ.

No matter what I’m preaching or teaching on, whether it’s marriage, or prayer, or money, or service, you should still hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you don’t, then you have permission to correct me.

It’s that important because it’s at the heart of any Biblical issue that we are ever going to cover..and if you’re like me, you’re going to pursue wisdom, pursue God’s will in this area of your life, and in this area of your life..God, how can I be a better husband and father, how can I be a better friend? How can I live a life that’s pleasing to you?

And that’s something we should do. We should seek God’s direction constantly in all that we do… That’s why we spent so much time in James…James shows us how we are to live our lives as Christians in this world…but at the root of every detail of what it looks like to live this life as a Christian - is the GOSPEL..As often as we seek God for anything at all in our lives, we should be reminding ourselves of the good news that is the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. In order to walk as God has called us to, we should remind ourselves constantly of the Gospel. The Gospel is something that we need to preach to ourselves every day.

And there’s Biblical precedent for this, for reminding ourselves of the gospel.

Tonight, we’re studying a passage out of the book of Ephesians, written by…who? PAUL.

Here’s a list of all the letters in the Bible that we know Paul wrote and who he wrote them to:

Romans - to the SAINTS in Rome

1 & 2 Corinthians - to the CHURCH of God in Corinth

Galatians - to the CHURCHES of Galatia

Ephesians - to the SAINTS in Ephesus

Philippians - to the SAINTS at Philippi

Colossians - to the SAINTS at Colossae

1 & 2 Thessalonians - to the CHURCH of the Thessalonians

1 & 2 Timothy - to my TRUE CHILD IN THE FAITH

Titus - to my TRUE CHILD IN THE COMMON FAITH

Philemon is the only outlier - in a category of its own - one chapter, special circumstance.

When we look at who the letters are addressed to, what is the common theme? They are all written to Christians.

Now, in each of these letters, Paul does two things: 1) He gives encouragement, correction, and direction where these Christians need it, 2) In each and every one of these letters, He explicitly shares the gospel - the gospel that they’ve already heard before.

So tonight, we are going to dive into the gospel that reveals WHO GOD IS by showing us WHO WE WERE, WHO WE ARE, AND WHAT WE’RE CALLED TO. And for me, there’s probably no passage of scripture that shows us a clearer explanation of the gospel than the first 10 verses of Ephesians chapter 2.. Where God’s Word shows us WHO WE WERE, WHO WE ARE, AND WHAT WE’RE CALLED TO.

WHO WE WERE

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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.

1. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

Dead because of our sin - not sick, not bad, but DEAD. The gospel doesn’t make bad people good..as we’ll see through this passage, the gospel makes dead people alive. Because of inherent sin (Adam) and because of voluntary sin (all of us), we face death.

Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death…DEATH means a couple things for us here

Dead=Our physical bodies, that we have sinned in, still sin in, and will sin in, are dying as we speak. Everyone in this room is as close to physical death as you’ve ever been. (death could not hold Jesus because He was without sin)

Dead=separated from God. Until the moment that God saves us, we are separated from God, and if you experience a physical death without a saving faith, then you’ll experience eternal separation from God.

That’s the path I was on before I repented and gave my life to Jesus because that’s the nature that I was born with.

2. Verse 2 says this is who we WERE, Here’s how we used to walk: 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—

Followed the course of this world. The Bible says that all the world has to offer is the lust of eyes, flesh, pride of life. In other words, whatever looks good and attractive, go after it..whatever feels good, do it.

It says that we followed the Prince of the power of the air, the one that the Bible calls the god of this world. In case you don’t know, that’s SATAN. What that means is that our default setting was evil…and if our default setting was evil, then our default destination was where? HELL.

3. Verse 3 says that 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.

God shows us, in these 3 verses, lots of bad news. This is BAD NEWS for all of mankind that is unsaved. This was BAD NEWS for us at one point, but the next two words in the Bible shift the whole narrative for us.

BUT GOD

These two words may be the most important in the whole bible.. And they open up the message of who we are now, who we are because of Jesus Christ…

WHO WE ARE (because of JESUS)

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

4. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,

The love with which he loved us is the John 3:16 love, agape love.

But God.. rich in MERCY (not giving us what we deserve). We deserve the wrath of God, but Jesus received the wrath of God in our place. He was forsaken, punished (that’s why He sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane)

5. even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

alive together with Christ - We are no longer separated from God.. through Jesus, we are restored to God.

Saved by grace - mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is receiving what we don’t deserve.

6. and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus

raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.. That means we didn’t climb up to Him and His righteousness..He came down to where we were and grabbed us out of the helplessness that we were in.

Romans 8:15 says we did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father! When it says that we received the Spirit of adoption, that means that God adopted us into His royal family.. If you have been adopted or if you have adopted children, then you have a stronger illustration than this one, but here’s the one that I think of in my personal life…

(PICTURE OF DOG)

We remind ourselves of the gospel because it shows us God’s love for us by bringing to mind who we were and who we are now.

OLD LIFE (vv. 1–3)

NEW LIFE (vv. 4–6)

We were dead

Now we are alive

We were enslaved

Now we are enthroned

We were objects of wrath

Now we are objects of grace

We walked among the disobedient

Now we fellowship with Christ

We were under Satan’s dominion

Now we are in union with Christ

We need to remind ourselves of this DAILY. And in reminding ourselves of who we were and who we are now, we have to recognize that we did not place ourselves there.. we did not resurrect ourselves from death to life..we did not pull ourselves out of bondage.. WE did not satisfy the wrath of God. Jesus did.

HOW WE GOT THERE

(picture of scripture). 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

By grace (favor from God that we didn’t deserve), you have been saved through faith (simply by having faith, we are made righteous..we are justified in the eyes of God. John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. meaning we did nothing to earn it or deserve it. It is a gift to receive.. And that’s all we have to do.. Receive it.

These verses kill self-righteousness, unrighteous judgment toward others, and force us to depend on God fully, recognizing that everything good comes form Him.

If you want to remain humble, preach the gospel to yourself daily.

If you want to know you’re loved, preach the gospel to yourself daily.

If you want to know the true character of the God of the universe, preach the gospel to yourself daily.

If you want to know who you are, according to the God of the universe, preach the gospel to yourself daily.

And knowing all that, let’s take a look at the last verse of this passage…

WHAT HE’S CALLED US TO

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

If you have put your faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ, then He has adopted you into His royal family. But He has adopted you into that family with purpose.

His Word says that we are His workmanship - that word workmanship means a creation, a work of art, a masterpiece, literally “something made”. And the Word of God shows us that everyone in this room is fearfully and wonderfully made, on purpose, for a purpose.

Made for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them .. the gospel doesn't end at knowing we’re saved. It doesn’t end with simply knowing who we are now compared to who we were…now it extends to every area of our lives…everything we say and everything we do.

You are His workmanship, adopted into His royal family, to be salt and light to this world…to preserve goodness and add flavor to everything you touch in this world…and to shine the light of Christ everywhere you go in this dark world…that people may catch a glimpse of the goodness of God when they see you.

In Christ, you are salt and light to the world, and you are an integral part of His church - His bride… you are an important part of His body. He has gifted everyone in this room with unique gifts, talents, and abilities, that He prepared beforehand to build His kingdom. Understanding the gospel is understanding that we are called to wholeheartedly use what He has given us according to His purpose.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Don’t Forget the Gospel.

I hope that this word tonight served as an important reminder for you to remember the gospel…remember who you were, who you are, and what you’re called to. AMEN?