But God...From Sinners Lost to Sinners Saved by Grace
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning, Church! First and foremost, I want to say happy Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there and thank you for coming to be with us this morning.
Today, we are going to pick right back up where we left off last week here in Ephesians Chapter 2 and we’re going to be looking at one of the most familiar and richest passages in all of God’s Word! Over the last few months now, we’ve looked at Who Jesus Is, Who We Are to Be, Who We Are and today, we’re going to look at Who We Used to Be & Who God has made Us to Be!
Now, the reason we need to understand Who We Used to Be & Who God has made Us to Be, is so that when God opens a door for us to share our testimony with a lost person, we can relate to them about the state they are in!
We can say, “Hey, I know what you’re going through because I’ve been there! I’ve went through that exact same thing! Let me tell you how God brought me through my situation and how he can do the same for you!”
And this ought to be a subject that is familiar to everyone sitting here today because at one point or another, we’ve all found ourselves in that same situation, haven’t we?
At one point in our lives, we were all lost and undone in our sins with no hope of being saved in and of ourselves!
For some here today, it’s been a long time since you realized that you were lost and trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. For others, it might not have been that long. It may have only been recently, within the last few years or possibly even the last few weeks, that you understood your lost condition and did something about it!
And for some sitting here today, maybe you’re here and you haven’t the move to trust in Christ yet. You may have never realized before today that you are lost and in need of a Savior!
· Well the thing to know is this…the problem is not with being lost and not knowing it but rather the problem begins when God opens your eyes to the fact that you’re lost and you don’t do anything about it! That’s when it becomes an issue!
And my prayer here today, is that if there is someone here who is lost, that God would speak to your heart through the message today and that you would see your lost condition and be gloriously saved!
Today, I’d ask you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to the Book of Ephesians Chapter 2 and we’re going to be looking at Verses 1-10 this morning at a message I’ve entitled…But God—From Sinners Lost to Sinners Saved by Grace!
And as we work our way through this message, we’re going to look at a couple other passages as well to try and really drive home who exactly we used to be and who we are today by God’s amazing grace! Ephesians Chapter 2, if you have it would you say, Amen.
We were Dead — (Vs. 1)
We were Dead — (Vs. 1)
Notice this chapter begins here with “And you hath he quickened.” Now the phrase “hath he quickened” is italicized and for those who may not know, what that means is that it was not part of the original language but rather the translators when they translated the Bible from Hebrew & Greek to English added this part in to help us understand exactly what the writer was saying in the original language.
In the original language, these words were not needed in order for the reader to understand the message the writer was trying to convey but in our language, especially the English language, being one of the laziest of all the languages, these words help us to gain a better picture of what the writer was trying to say.
And you know, I’m thankful that the Spirit of God moved upon the hearts of these translators when they added these words in because it gives us a clearer meaning of what Paul is trying to say us here.
The word “quickened” means “to make alive w/Christ.”And if you will remember, over the last few weeks we have looked at how Paul was explaining to the Ephesian believers that they are Rich in Christ and so the chapter begins here with a continuation of that same mindset.
It reminds us believers exactly who we “are” in Christ before reminding us of who we “used to be” without him!
· In order to understand who you are, you have to know where you came from, Amen!
And as I was reading through this, something else jumped out at me in this very first part…notice who it is doing the quickening! The Bible says, “And you hath *he quickened*!
God’s the one who makes alive, Amen! And this is very significant in the fact that Paul follows it up by telling the Ephesian believers that before God had made them alive, they were “dead” in their trespasses and sins!
Listen friends, dead people don’t bring themselves back to life, Amen! If the word quickened means to make alive with Christ, then what God’s Word is trying to tell us here is that God is the one that begins the resurrection process, Amen!
Jesus said in…
John 6:44 – No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:65 – And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Warren Wiersbe – The unbeliever is not sick; he is dead! He does not need resuscitation; he needs resurrection.
The word “dead” in Greek is (nekros) and it means “spiritually dead, destitute of life & power.”
****“Destitute” – without the basic necessities of life!****
2 Corinthians 5:14 — For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
Romans 5:12 — Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Psalm 51:5 — Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Romans 6:23 — For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We were spiritually dead! And to be spiritually dead means to be separated from God and the thing that separated us from God, Paul says here, is our trespasses and sins!
Isaiah 59:2 – But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
The word “trespasses” in the Greek literally means “to fall beside or misstep.” In the New Testament when referring to sin it means “a lapse or deviation of truth: transgression; willful fault.”
Then Paul adds in the word “sin” alongside it and in the Greek, this word means “to miss the mark, to wander from the path of uprightness, to do wrong!”
James 4:17 – Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Herein is where the problem lies…when we were lost, the Spirit of God did not reside within us and therefore we didn’t have anything to guide us and convict us that what we were doing was wrong!
Romans 7:18 — For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Romans 8:7-8 — 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
So, in Verse 1 Paul tells us that we used to be dead in our trespasses and sins and then he elaborates in Verses 2-3 by explaining to us how not only were we dead but we were also deceived!
We were Deceived — (Vs. 2-3)
We were Deceived — (Vs. 2-3)
2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.
3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.
Vs. 2 — Paul says here that when we were dead in our trespasses and sins we were “walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.”
He’s talking about Satan here. The Bible says in...
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 – 3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, Satan had us blinded!
He had us thinking we were ok just like we were. We were deceived and we were lost and he wanted us to stay lost and wandering because as long as we were, he didn’t have to worry about us leading anyone else to Christ!
Romans 3:10-12 — 10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
The word “unprofitable” used here in Verse 12 means “useless.” Now think about this for a second…a sheep with a spot or blemish was useless when it came to the temple sacrifice!
But when we come to know Christ, our lives are hid with him, we are made perfect as a lamb without spot and blemish in the eyes of an almighty God, our lives which once had no purpose, now have all the purpose we could ever ask for! Now, we live for Him and are become altogether useful!
2 Corinthians 5:15 — And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
We once were lost but now are found, were blind but now we see! And now we ourselves live to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with other blind, lost, wandering sheep to open their eyes and snatch as many of them from Satan’s grasp as we can!
Vs. 3 — And then Paul says here in Verse 3...
3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.
Paul said in...
Romans 7:18 — For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Romans 8:7-8 — 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
The Devil is a Deceiver!
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
We are Delivered — (Vs. 4-10)
We are Delivered — (Vs. 4-10)
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,
5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)
6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.
7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
