ALIVE IN CHRIST

EPHESIANS 2:1-10

INTRODUCTION:

Paul has taught us what the Triune God has done for us all because of grace and all for His glory. God the Father chose us in HIm before the foundtion of the world, predestined us to the adoption of sons, and accepted us in the Beloved and it to the praise of His glory. God the Son had redeemed us by HIs blood, forgiven our sins, and given us an inheritance an it is to the praise of His glory. God the Holy Spirit has sealed us and is the gurantee of our inheritance and it is to the praise of His glory.

The power of God is the power to save. The power of God is the power to raise Christ from the dead. It is resurrection power that Paul has just prayed that the believer would know. Paul desired that believers know that the power you have is the power that raised Christ from the dead.

Now Paul is goign to affect them with the sense of the wonderful change that has taken place due to what divine grace has done. Paul sets forth our state prior to salvation to place emphasis on the magnitude of both the power of God and the mercy of God they had experienced.

In this passage God defines for us our past, our present, and our future.

Our Past: And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. GRAVEYARD

Our Present: 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus GRACE

Our Future: 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. GLORY

OUR PAST: DEAD IN SIN (2:1-3)

Here Paul describes what were like before we met Christ. And Paul is telling the truth. Paul says that there are three things that describe us apart from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ: We were dead, disobedient, and doomed.

First Paul says we were dead (2:1).

Paul begins this discourse telling us we were “dead in trespasses and sin.” Without Christ, man is dead, spritually dead.

The unsaved man is not handicapped; he is dead. The unsaved man is not sick; he is dead. He is not alive to spiritual things because he is spiritual dead. The unsaved man is dead: destitute of the life of God.

The idea of deadness suggests alienation from God, the source of life, and emphasizes the sinner’s helplessness to save himself. The manifestations of this death are seen in the moral decay, the spiritual blindness, and the indifference to the things of God that characterize the unregenerate.

Without Christ you may physically alive but you are spiritually dead.

Matthew Henry “Sinners are dead in state, being destitute of the principles, and powers of spiritual life; and cut off from God, the fountain of life: and they are dead in law, as a condemned malefactor is said to be a dead man.”

If you do not know Christ as your Savior, your spiritual senses are dead. If you hear God’s word, it does not speak to you. You cannot understand the things of God. They are spiritually discerned and you are spiritually dead.

Second, Paul says we were disobedient. (2:2)

Paul refers to “the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.” We conduct ourselves apart from Christ “according to the course of this world.”

If you have never trusted Christ as Savior; you’ve heard the call of salvation and refused to follow; YOU ARE A REBEL.

He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And he has commanded men, not suggested, not even invited, commanded men everywhere to repent. And this means if you say, I refuse to repent, I refuse to bow down to Jesus Christ, then my friend, you're a rebel.

Why is it easier for people to do wrong than to do right? Because they walk “according to the course of this world.”

Trench states “all that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any current time in the world which may be at times impossible to define but which constitutes a most real and effective power-being the moral or immoral atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again to inevitably exhale.”

The “course of this world” is “the influence of the period of time in which you're living. This world exerts an influence upon people. And the unsaved man just goes along with the world. Whatever songs the world is singing, that's what he sings. He has no heavenly song. Whatever sins the world is committing, that's what he commits. Whatever standards the world is upholding, that's what he upholds. He just drifts along with the world.”

So we are dealing with the world, the flesh and the devil.

Thirdly, Paul says we are doomed (2:3)

We “were by nature the children of wrath even as others.” Just a brief explanation here:

“Children of wrath” is an example of a very common scriptural usage where a “son” or “child” of anything means one exposed to a danger of a particular kind. “Children of wrath” means those who are exposed to the wrath of God.

John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who believes not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” CONDEMNED ALREADY.

We are not innocent awaiting trial to discover our guilt. We stand before God guilty.

So, with man being dead, disobedient, and doomed what does he need? Paul says he needs resurrection.

“And you has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin.” Lloyd-Jones states “Quickening is regeneration and nothing else. You has He regenerated. Given new life; born again, partakers of the divine nature. Regeneration is the act of God by which a principle of new life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy.”

What does man need? Exactly what God gives: a new nature, new life. a quickening.

OUR PRESENT: THE GRACE OF GOD. (2:4-6)

Our present begins with two words: BUT GOD!

You see, man cannot save himself, and man cannot change himself, and man cannot legislate himself, and man cannot reform himself, and man cannot do anything to lift himself out of this death he is in.

The only answer: But God

We have been made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin. And Paul tells us who did it: GOD. He tells us what He did, how He did it, and why He did it.

WHO DID IT: GOD:

God is the one who quickened us; raised us up from the dead.

WHAT HE DID: Verse 4 says that God quickened us: to be made alive. Then He raised us up: He got us up out of the grave and kept raising us up till we got to the heavenlies. Then He seated us in heavenly places.

HOW HE DID IT: God did it through Christ. Do you see the word “together” in verse 5. “made us alive together with Christ.” God “raised us up together-made us to sit together…in Christ.”

In the orginial language it literally means “witih Christ”. The meaning here is the same as Paul used in Romans 6 that when Christ died, I died with Him and when He was buried I was buried with HIm and when He was raised from the dead, I was raised with Him. Whereever Christ is I am with Him.

“Made us share with Him in diginity and dominion so that even now and in foretaste of our future exaltation our life and thoughts are raised to the heavenlies where He reigns.”

Transition:

We were dead in sin with no ability to resurrect ourselves and God quickened us; brought us to life. But God: we can trust Him. If we trust Him, He will save us.

THE FUTURE: THE GLORY OF GOD (2:7)

This is seen in verse 7: in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in HIs kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

“If Jesus Christ comes today and calls His Church home, He'll take us to glory and in the ages to come, age upon age, throughout all eternity, world without end, we're going to be on display. And the angels are going to say, here is a demonstration of God's grace.”

What does this mean? That in the ages to come you and I are going to have a ministry magnifying the grace of God.

The angels can testify to the power of God becuase they saw Him speak this world into being. They will testify and learn of the grace of God by watching the church.

CONCLUSION

Let’s come back to our present. Verses 8-10 tells us that all this is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary.

It is by grace through faith.

It is the gift of God.

And this makes us His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Created for good works; not saved by good works.