The Miracle of Salvation (Ephesians 2:1-10)

My target audience is University students in my Cru ministry (generally nominal 2nd generation Christians, busy with own priorities of academic achievements, fulfilling social life and personal enjoyment, responding to God mostly out of duty)

——————————————————————-

(SLIDE 1)

Hello friends 😊 It’s my joy to share God’s word with us today. Let’s first go to Him in prayer.

Dear heavenly Father, thank you for loving us with an everlasting love, and for your precious words of life. Please open our minds to scripture, that we may understand your truths and live by them. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 2)

Have you ever struggled to stand firm in a good decision you had made? Maybe you wanted to break your habit of revenge sleep, or work on a building a better relationship with your parents, or actually finish reading the Bible in one year. But most likely, challenges and distractions came, as they always do, and threatened to throw your good decision out the window. Did you give up on it, or did you hang on?

(CLICK TO SLIDE 3)

If you hung on, what helped you stay grounded? (pause)

(CLICK TO SLIDE 4)

I’ve been happily married to Shawn for 10 years! It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. But when we were dating, I struggled to stand firm in my decision of being with him! Because in the first year of dating him, I came to learn that Shawn was a painfully honest person. He would tell me “i can’t say i missed you because i was too busy to think of you today”. He was a boring homebody. He would rather read books or exercise together for a date instead of going out for movies. And Shawn always wanted to eat at hawker centers on our dates because it was cheapest. As you can imagine, I felt quite sad and dissatisfied in our relationship fairly often. But 2 things helped to keep me grounded:

(CLICK TO SLIDE 5)

One, remembering what I saw in Shawn at first: a deep love for Jesus that I found really inspiring and attractive; and two, learning to appreciate that his traits of being painfully honest means I can always trust what he says. That being a homebody shows he would likely be a very present husband and father. And that eating cheap proves he is a frugal person who will make wise financial decisions for the family. Remembering and appreciating my relationship kept me hanging on until we eventually got married. And I’ve been enjoying the fruits of my good decision since then.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 6)

Now, when Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesian church, they were also struggling to stay grounded in the good decision they had made to follow Jesus.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 7)

Many of them came to faith after experiencing miraculous works by Paul, including healings and exorcisms through even aprons and handkerchiefs that had touched Paul’s skin. Many who practiced magic burned their sorcery books publicly as a sign of repentance. During those years that Paul preached there, Scripture records that “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord” and “the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily”. It was an amazing time of spiritual growth.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 8)

But by the time of this letter some 8-10 years later, the spiritual fervour for Christianity was over, and the Ephesian church faced many problems. There was disunity between Jewish and Gentile believers threatening to tear the church up from within. There were false teachers in the church teaching deceitful doctrines that were confusing believers big time. And there was also constant spiritual warfare because Ephesus was a center of pagan worship, and the society was steeped in immorality. Imagine being a Christian under those circumstances. Wouldn’t it be difficult to stay grounded in the good but unpopular decision to follow Jesus?

(CLICK TO SLIDE 9)

And actually, doesn’t the Ephesian church’s predicament sound quite similar to ours today? Some of us may have witnessed terrible fallouts among church leaders and members. There are still false teachings being preached today like the prosperity gospel, hypergrace, or the denial of hell. Our world, society and campuses are also centers of pagan worship: of success, wealth, achievements and popularity. We are surrounded by so much immorality in songs and shows and social trends that we’ve become desensitised to their harms and how much they detract us from God’s holiness. And when we do try to live out our godly values, we sometimes get called narrow-minded, outdated or bigoted. Being a Christian today is no easier than it was in biblical Ephesus times.

So, I want you to imagine yourself as a member of the Ephesian church, and take counsel from Paul’s letter of encouragement to you.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 10)

To ground you in your faith in these troubled times, Paul helps you to remember and appreciate the miracle of your salvation. And he does this by reminding you what you were saved from, saved to, saved by, and saved for.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 11)

First, Paul makes the point that you were saved from an unimaginably desperate state.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 12)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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. (Eph 2:1-3)

This was your old life without Christ. Led by the prince of the power of the air, the devil Satan, you were marked by trespasses, sins and worldly passions of the flesh. Maybe you’re thinking, naurrr I’m not that bad. Maybe let’s look at a list of these sins and acts of the flesh, that Paul wrote in an earlier letter to the Galatians:

(CLICK TO SLIDE 13)

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal 5:19-21)

Ok hand to heart, can you tell me that none of these things relate to you? (pause)

You can’t, I can’t, nobody can. We all carry out the desires of our sinful body and mind in one or more of these ways. And the truth is, these things often do bring great pleasure or benefits for a short time, but they also leave us with feelings of emptiness, insecurity and even pain once the episode is over. And when that happens, we find ourselves wanting to do the same thing again to keep experiencing that rush of happiness, or to maintain the benefits from before. What happens is we are trapped in a toxic cycle of sin that we realise we can’t afford to break out of or we’re helplessly unable to break away from.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 14)

This is just one of the things that contributes to wretched state that unbelievers are in, which Paul in fact said that you. were dead in. Not a physical death, but something more significant: it’s spiritual death, which is eternal alienation from the most important factor in life, God. Not only that, but you were doomed to face his wrath, the dreadful judgment of the most holy and powerful God, destined for a frightening place, which elsewhere the Bible calls hell.

Such was the unimaginably desperate state that you were trapped in previously...

(CLICK TO SLIDE 15)

until God broke in and saved you to an incredibly undeserved place of honour.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 16)

But God… even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… 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. (Eph 2:4-7)

God did a reversal of epic proportions. Before, you were dead in your trespasses and sins and were children of God’s wrath, but now, you are alive together with Christ, raised up with him and seated with him as citizens in the heavenly places! You were lifted from the deepest hell to the highest heaven. You are completely forgiven of all the sinful and shameful things you have ever done, and your penalty of sin is totally removed. This. is every believer’s new present and permanent reality. Because your life and identity are now in Christ, whatever is His becomes yours automatically. Like Jesus, you not only have a place in, but a right to the kingdom of God. You can anticipate this glory, and be indescribably happy and secure in the possession of this salvation, and in your fellowship with Jesus.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 17)

And as if this wasn’t good enough, in the future, God will continue to display the exceeding riches of His grace to you. He’ll keep showing overflowing kindness to you, again and again.

Are you beginning to realise how wondrous your salvation actually is? You were saved from an unimaginably desperate state and saved to an undeserved place of honour.

But there’s more.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 18)

Paul wants you to be clear that you were saved by an unwarranted act of love.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 19)

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…  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. (Eph 2:4-5, 8-9)

We have been taught that there’s no free meal in the world. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. With these mindsets ingrained in fallen humanity, we may be tempted to think that God saved us because he couldn’t bear to live without us, or because we earned it through our good deeds or religious piety, or because we are inherently lovable. That’s why Paul made it super clear: bruh, sis, it was nothing of your doing. It was all.God. Paul took pains to keep highlighting this.

First he said God was rich in mercy, which means he did not give us the heavy penalty we deserved. Then Paul said God loved us with a great love. And it was because of this love that he made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses.

Did you catch that? This is when God started loving us, when we were dead in our trespasses. He didn’t wait until we were lovable, grateful or useful. He loved us even when we provided nothing beneficial to Him.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 20)

Then Paul reminds us, twice, “by grace you have been saved”. He mercifully, lovingly, graciously gave you a gift you didn’t ask for, but which He knew you would desperately need, that would bring you the greatest joy you could ever experience, which is spiritual life, eternal fellowship with Him.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 21)

Finally, Paul wants you to know that you were saved for an unreserved life of giving through doing good works.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 22)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)

When God saved you, he was not only saving you from his wrath. He saved you to make something beautiful of you, to transform you into an active agent of good works, the giving of your time, energy, gifts and resources, just like God himself always does.

For many people of other faith backgrounds, good works is something they do because their salvation is at stake. But the reality is they would never know whether they have done enough good works to tilt the salvation scale in their favour, because they know their sins are also many.

Imagine how unsettling it is to not know whether you’ve done enough to earn the mercy of your god, and to never be confident of where you’ll end up after you die. But praise God, because you as a believer don’t have these burdens. Christians don’t do good works to gain salvation. We do good works because we have been saved, and so we have the freedom to bless unreservedly, knowing that our good works are never weighed on a judgment scale, and confident that we won’t fall into lack ourselves after giving our time and money, because we are loved and sustained by a generous God. What a precious gift of peace, freedom and joy we have, to give unreservedly to others through good works.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 22)

Guys, do you see the miracle of your salvation? That you were saved from an unimaginably desperate state, to an incredibly undeserved place of honour, by an unwarranted act of love, for an unreserved life of giving?

The best thing we can do to honour God for our amazing miracle of salvation is by not being ashamed of him or our Christian identity in the face of oppositions in our classrooms and social circles. By turning away from our sins, carrying our cross and trusting him enough to walk down unexpected paths. And by taking the initiative to tell others about him so that this amazing miracle of salvation can be theirs as well.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 24)

Charles Spurgeon said, “Many of God’s people do not believe that he can make them what he means to make them, or, at least, they act as if they did not believe that he can. They are not, apparently, conscious of what their privileges really are, and are living far below where they might live in the happy enjoyment of peace and power and usefulness.”

Is that you? (pause)

If you fail to grasp the miracle of your salvation, and lose the firm grounding in your faith, this will be you. And that would be a terribly foolish thing to do.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 25)

So what can you do to stay grounded firmly in your good decision to follow Jesus? Just 2 things.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 26)

Remember and appreciate.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 27)

Remember. Just as Paul did in his letter to the Ephesian Christians, help your brothers and sisters in Christ to remember the miracle of our salvation, because we are all prone to forget and lose heart. Let’s make it our priority to show genuine care for how one another is doing spiritually, give godly counsel, rebuke gently where needed, pray together, remind each other of our treasures in Christ, and patiently journey together back to Jesus’ sheep pen.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 28)

Appreciate. Reflect on your actions often and think about God’s love often. Strengthen your relationship with the lover of your soul by not neglecting the most basic but timeless and powerful spiritual disciplines, such as chewing thoughtfully on the Word a little bit every day. Don’t give up meeting regularly with fellow believers no matter how busy or tired you get. And pray for God to open your spiritual eyes to see your true condition. As Jesus said of the sinful woman, she was forgiven much, therefore she loved much. The more you recognise the depth of your sins, the more you’ll treasure God’s forgiveness, and the more you will fall in love with Jesus.

(CLICK TO SLIDE 29)

Doing these faithfully will ground you in your good decision of following Jesus, until the day you meet him face to face, and fully enjoy the fruits of your good decision. Let’s pray.

Thank you heavenly Father for all you’ve done for us. Help us Lord to turn away from our temptations to sin, to be grounded in our faith and to live as proud citizens of your kingdom. Amen.

Sermon Slides: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGjEojKLK8/-Vwfbbq9_Uxg27hNLDow7A/edit

Response song: Jesus Paid It All