Ephesians 2 - "I'm with Him."

Intro:

With all of Gods eternal planning, we need to understand what He has planned for us.

Ch.1:18 - you need to know and be reminded of what you have in Christ. Where Christ brought you from and where He’s bringing you to.

Outside of Christ We All Were...

V.1

Outside of Christ...You were dead.

Those who are not in Christ are still lost and dead in sin – THAT’S WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS

A dead man can’t do anything about his situation. And dead people can’t bring themselves back to life. They can’t work their way to life. Dead people can’t check off boxes and be alive again.

So, what do dead people need? A miracle! Supernatural power to resurrect them! And that’s what Jesus offered us.

Glory to God for what we have in Christ, but don’t forget where you came from.

V.2-3

You lived a wrong pattern of life. Your pattern didn’t model God, it modeled Satan. Satan and sin was on display in your life.

It wasn’t on accident. You chose that. Walking is intentional.

“sons of disobedience” - A disobedient son knows what the parent wants, they are not ignorant of the instruction. He’s talking about a people who were informed well enough but rebelled anyway, who knows whats right but chooses whats wrong.

“nature” isn’t in the text, it doesn’t mean that we are passing sin down from generation to generation. It’s a pattern that leads to death.

That pattern and walk is barbaric, carnal, and animalistic...yet the world tries to re-brand it as sophisticated and enlightened. The world says “Just follow your feelings and desires, chase after what feels good” - but that’s exactly what animals do!

Paul says “That was YOU once”. Whatever the flesh desired, we did it. In other words, we were manipulated by our passions and by our appetites, rather than being controlled by our mind.

God Is The Great Changer

V.4-5

The first two words are hope and assurance - “BUT GOD”. God intervened. God was the difference maker!

Paul desperately wanted them to understand this, and we need it just as bad!

If you don’t get this, we don’t understand the good news. It was because of God’s MERCY and LOVE that we can be saved.

Mercy and Grace - two qualities of God’s Divine Intervention, they are essential ingredients for redemption!

Grace is the fact that in Him I can know I’m going to heaven even though I deserve Hell. Thats what we all earned and deserve. Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

The victory we receive was unearned on our part. It wasn’t a victory based on our action. It was Jesus’ actions on the cross and over the grave, that’s the victory.

Illustration: I have a dream...that one day we cowboy fans might get to watch another super bowl that WE’RE in. And WE will cheer and WE will win — but I sure ain’t going to be on the field getting the points or stopping the runs. But when WE when WE will say “WE did it” right? and “WE finally won another”! Because thats OUR team so it’s OUR victory.

Way way way better than that scenario, our victory isn’t based on us and our merit. The Church is the body of Christ, and we benefit from what the Head, Christ, has done and won. It’s our victory IN Him.

Colossians 1:18 “And He is the head of the body, the church; Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead...” He invites us into His victory. He was the first-fruits or the firstborn of the dead - meaning those that come after, Christians, have what He has.

He’s not dead anymore - so we’re not dead anymore, those who are in Him. WE’VE won.

V.6

2 major things in this verse: we are gifted a new life and a new residence!

It’s good as done. We’ve got our spot in eternity! And it’s not just a place, but it’s where He is!

Revelation 5:9–10

V.9

The new song = we HAVE overcome, worthy art thou!

Tribe, tongue, people, and nation = the World; those who are not God’s people, because they are an earth dweller. These are opposite terms for the people of God. The world is always those who are not Christians.

And boy does that make sense…are you of the world of are you of Jesus? He has paved the way for you to make your way out of the world! All you gotta do is follow Him out of the world!

“You were slain for all of those that were against you, so that they could come to be part of YOUR people instead of being the enemies”

V.10 –

A switch to the Christians. “…they shall reign on the earth”. “Shall” and “on” are the two big words here discussed.

When is this “shall”? It’s now, Christians reign now with Christ – it is a present reality as long as we are faithful.

But what about the “on”? Literally on the earth or over? Don’t forget to talk about the earth here is to talk about those who are AGAINST God! Who’s going to be victorious and reign – the tribes of the world or the faithful Christians? “Reign over the earth” = Christians in this book are victorious over the unrighteous and all enemies.

It’s not about where they reign, but rather over whom they triumph – the unrighteous.

What’s the message here about us as Christians?

Christian’s “reign”, only victors do that! You’ve got to trust that because of the lamb you’ve been made victorious so that you carry can on in victory in this world and into eternity! It doesn’t matter who comes up against you or in what way, they can’t stop you from being triumphant in Jesus or steal away your victory in Him!

V.7

It gets more gooder! He has immeasurable richness and goodness that take AGES to fully see and understand.

It’s divine grace, glorious grace, praiseworthy grace, rich grace, redeeming grace…can you think of anything I left out?

There is more to Gods grace than just fire insurance. And God offers all of the blessings to us, Eph.1:3, not because we deserve it or won it ourselves but because of the victory on our behalf and God’s kindness.

The Church is meant to be God’s showcase for the entire world to see that grace and hear about that grace! He wants us to display what we have recieved in God and understand His goodness!

The people of the world are supposed to see the Church and think “That’s an amazing God they worship”

God’s Work, Not Ours

V.8-9

What did you earn? If you want to see what your works get you, look again at Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead in your transgressions and sins”....

Salvation does come from works, but not ours - its from God’s Work! Salvation is a GIFT.

You RECEIVE a gift, you don’t EARN a gift! You get a gift because someone cared about you enough to give you one.

Out of all the birthday and Christmas gifts I’ve ever gotten, I’ve never had to work for them to pay them back for it - because it was freely given. They were kind enough to give me the gift.

To go along with that, don’t think of the Christian life as “paying God back for saving me” - you can’t do that. God wants your loyalty and faith, not just you feeling obligated.

And God also wants you to remember that your salvation is not your doing in any single way shape or form!

2 Ways of looking at “I need to earn it” or that “We can earn salvation”...

If we think its our doing we will beat ourselves to death thinking “I haven’t done enough” - and you’d be right, we can never do enough. What in the world could we possibly do to MERIT inheriting ALL blessings from God through Christ? You can’t. Because it was a gift.

The other view of those that think that they have earned it, saying “I did everything I was told to do, I followed the steps, look at my faith and how good it is”...we boast and say “I’ve done so much good, I’m very religious, I’m always at Church” - you think that EARNED you a spot in God’s family? NO!

God wants you to understand this is not your doing, it’s His, so receive it with gratitude - that’s all you can do with a gift, is accept it with thankfulness.

BUT, you do have to accept it. And you have enduring faith, commitment, and loyalty. That’s how you accept it gratefully.

V.10

Workmanship = poiema (where we get our English word poem)

Workmanship is the end result of someone’s activity.

A Christian is no small feat, not something that is half-hazardly thrown together, and certainly not junk.

The end result of the gospel that Jesus died for and brought is the Christian life. more beautiful than any poem.

You are the people of God, we are His Kingdom He’s established, we are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 1:5), we are a Holy and special people!...but not for nothing. We now have purpose.

And guess what, even the “good works” that we do aren’t from our own brains or ideas, we don’t even get to take credit for helping widows and orphans, for feeding the hungry, giving supplies to those affected by the storms, loving our enemies, being at peace with one another - all those and more are not our ideas, and we must do them as Christians but not because you were good enough to think of it, but because His design and planning was for a good people to do good things.

Know, that when you’re living and doing good works, they are a response of salvation that God has gifted us in Christ. Not to pay back or earn.

We do what we do as a response of faith, believing that its true that Jesus is victorious and that we have victory in Him. If we believe that, then we walk in the way he calls us to.