What’s so Amazing about Grace?

Imagine for a moment you are pulled from a lake after being underwater for several minutes. When they you to shore, there is no breathing. No pulse. Completely unresponsive.

People gathered, emergency crews arrived, and they immediately started CPR. Chest compressions. Rescue breaths. Over and over again.

Here’s what’s striking: at no point did anyone look at you and say, “Come on, help us out. Meet us halfway. Do your part.”

Why? Because you couldn’t.

You’re not weak—you’re lifeless.

The only hope you had was if someone else stepped in and did for you what you could not do for yourself. And after several intense minutes, something happened—a gasp. Then another. Your heart begins to beat.

You didn’t revive yourself. You were revived.

Transition:

That’s the picture Paul is giving us in Ephesians 2—not that we were struggling…not that we needed a boost…but that we were spiritually dead.

And, if we’re ever going to understand how amazing grace really is, we have to start there, because grace doesn’t just improve us—it brings us from death to life.

Grace Looked on our Pitiful Condition (vv.1-3)

Tony Merida mentions three words that describe us in our natural state: dead, disobedient, and doomed. Let’s pause on each of these for a moment.

First, we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked. We typically talk about being spiritually dead as being separated from God. This is true. But, it means that because we are spiritually dead, we are incapable of doing any spiritual good. Isaiah 64:6 “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Now, I’m not saying you can’t do good things if you’re not a Jesus follower. Atheists can absolutely do things that are benevolent and benefit the good of others. But what I am saying is that God does not put those things in a “righteous account” for us. They are still stained with sin.

Actually, the idea of being “dead” really does sum it up well. Think about it: what can a dead person do? The answer is…nothing. Dead bodies do not get up and live and move and have any type of being. They’re…dead.

Why is this the case? Paul says it’s because of our “trespasses and sins,” saying that’s how we “once walked.” He’s telling us that it was our habit in life to break God’s Word and rebel against Him, constantly falling short of His perfect standard. So we were dead.

However, we were also disobedient. Instead of following God’s will, we followed “the course of this world, following the prince” of this world.

Instead of turning to God and His Word, instead of being led by His Spirit to honor Him in all that we say and do, we used to get our playbook from the world around us. Our value system was adopted from the culture around us. We didn’t look to God to get our sense of right and wrong, good and bad.

And who does this world take their cues from? “The prince of the power of the air.” That’s Paul giving Satan a new name. Remember, he’s the chief rebel, and he’s been leading mankind in rebellion since the book of Genesis. He’s not saying that unbelievers are possessed by the enemy, but he’s very much saying that their actions are absolutely influenced by him. And, we used to be numbered among them! Believers have been given a new name. They’ve been adopted and now they’re called sons of God. But, they used to have old names: sons of disobedience.

As disobedient sons, we carried out “the desires of the flesh.” Later, Paul will dig into this a little more and even provide us with a list: sexual immorality, impurity, greed…foolish talk. That’s the desires of the flesh. Those are the things that once ruled us. Sin, disobedience, and the flesh were the forces shaping our lives.

Because we were dead and disobedient, we were also doomed. Notice that he says we were “by nature children of wrath.” The natural outcome of being dead in trespasses and sin, of walking in a course of disobedient rebellion, is to be under the wrath of God. Just as crime naturally cries out to be punished, sin cries out and demands God’s just wrath.

That’s what makes grace so amazing. It isn’t earned. God didn’t look at us and say, “Oh, they’re mostly good, so I’ll give them a little grace to get them the rest of the way.” Instead, He looked at us and said every part of them is touched and stained by sin. They’re not mostly good; they’re all the way bad. So, grace steps in and meets us in the middle of our broken and messy rebellion. While we were trying our hardest to stiff arm God to the sideline, grace broke through and made the tackle, so to say. That’s why grace is amazing. It looked on us and our pitiful condition and called us to faith in Christ anyway.

Grace Saved us and Seated us in Christ (vv.4-7)

Verse 4…first two words…two words that will always resonate deep in the recesses, way down in the deep parts of the heart and soul of every believer: “But God.” There is a reality, a pitiful condition that all people are born into, but grace reaches down and meets us, so that we can boldly and humbly say, “But God.”

Notice how He is described: “rich in mercy.” Mercy means that God withholds from us what we deserve. Verse three told us what we deserve: wrath. But God, being rich in mercy, restrains His wrath. And, it’s not that He shows us mercy, but He’s characterized by His mercy and He has it in abundance. We were talking this past Sunday night—He’s not the God of second chances, but the God of many chances! This amazing grace spares us what we deserve, and He spares us over and over again.

I love what Paul is doing here. He’s building excitement. Verses 1-3 built the tension of our previous life and how grace broke through and looked on our sad condition. Now, he continues to build the drama. He’s rich in mercy, and “because of the great love with which He loved us…”

Again, God’s mercy, God’s grace…God’s love, they’re not passive ideas. They are God acting on our behalf, for us and toward us, and in spite of us. Notice how verse 5 starts: “even when we were dead in our trespasses.” When Paul writes to the church at Rome, he says that God demonstrates His love for us “while we were still sinners.” That means God was active showing His love toward us while we still didn’t want to have anything to do with Him.

So the tension builds: we were dead and bound in our sin and rebellion, but God was busy in the business of loving people who didn’t deserve it. That’s the tension that’s being built when Paul finally unleashes his first verb: God “made us alive together with Christ.” By the way, that’s one word in the Greek. He made us alive or “co-alived” us in Christ. This is the good news that tears away all the bad of our previous condition. Like the prodigal son, we’ve gone from death to life. Amazing grace, that made alive a dead sinner like me!

The second “co” is that we were co-raised with Jesus. You remember when we talked about the power of God? How it raised Christ from the dead? Well, when we were united with Christ in salvation, we were co-raised to life with Him! In some profound and mysterious way, when Jesus walked out of that tomb 2,000 years ago, I walked out with Him! The grave no longer has a hold on me!!!

This is God’s gracious love toward us, right? Remember our previous condition? Dead, sinful trespassers, still about that life of sin. But, “by grace you have been saved!” It’s not our merit. It’s because God is rich in mercy, loving us with a love that is remarkable and extraordinary and beyond compare.

Since we’ve been made alive, we’ve been co-raised, and we’ve also been “seated with” or “co-seated” with Him. Paul is still dwelling on the truth of His prayer. Jesus was raised from the dead? So are we. Jesus was seated at the Father’s hand, given a place of victorious authority? So were we! Those traps that the enemy puts in our path? Those temptations so subtly set before us? We don’t have to fall for them! We don’t have to obey the treacherous rule of the prince of this world any longer. We are co-seated with Christ, and we have a place of authority because we’re united to Him. Remember, being united in Christ means that everything that is His becomes ours. Our lives are transformed and redirected because we are united with Jesus.

That’s what makes grace so amazing. God took us and made us alive and resurrected us and seated us in Jesus, “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). Our salvation is a crown of grace that will forever be on display. As the saved from every age and from all four corners of the earth gather to glorify the Holy God, they will sing the songs of the immeasurable worth of God’s mercy and love and yes, His amazing grace!

Grace Recreated us for Good Works in Christ (vv.8-10)

In case we’ve forgotten it, Paul reminds us once again: it is by grace we have been saved, through faith. When our eyes are awakened to the truth of the gospel, when we hear the word of truth, the Good News of our salvation, we respond in faith. If grace—salvation—is the gift, faith is the means by which we receive it. It’s not a way to earn salvation, but a response to God’s work. We hear that Jesus’ death and resurrection redeem us, we take God at His word, and we give our lives to Him. His work saves us, our lives respond.

And, notice what Paul says about it all: “it is the gift of God.” How do we respond in faith? We’ve been made alive by God. Spiritually dead things can only lie in the grave. We’ve been made spiritually alive, co-alived with Jesus. Even our response of faith flows from God making us alive, so we joyfully give our lives to Him!

We might ask why God gives this freely—why there’s no earning it? Paul’s answer: so that “no one may boast.” If God’s grace is given so that it might be this crown jewel of worship that is magnified throughout the ages, then there is no room for us to take any credit. Pride is kicked out of the party, and the only right response is first humble gratitude.

At this point, some might wonder—what about righteousness and obedience? What about the kind of life God requires? First, remember that what belongs to Jesus also belongs to us—united with Him, right? So, His perfect righteousness becomes our perfect righteousness. Then, this new identity produces for us a new way of living.

Paul says that this new life we have in Christ is meant to show itself in obedient works. When we get to verse 10, he brings the entire thing full-circle. We once walked in trespasses and sins, but now we’ve been “created in Christ Jesus for good works…that we should walk in them.” There was an old pattern of life, set on its course by our spiritual death, with guardrails shaped by the world under the direction of the chief enemy. Now, there’s a new pattern of living, set on its course by the life-giving work of God, with guard rails put in place by God Himself who prepares these works beforehand for us to walk in!

Our new instinct is to do good, to let others see our love for God and our thankfulness for His grace in the lives we live. We make it our new goal to show the world that Jesus is our absolute greatest treasure in life.

What makes grace so amazing? It’s the fact that grace saves us and gives us a pure and holy passion in life—to honor God above all else. In our homes, at our jobs, in our relationships, and everywhere and in between. It is absolutely true that grace alone saves, but we never cheapen that grace. Instead, we know that the grace that saves is never, ever alone. Obedience always follows.

Do you know this amazing grace? If not, do not harden your heart to the love of God. Surrender your life to Him today.

And if you do, will you joyfully walk in obedience to boldly proclaim Jesus is your greatest treasure?

Responsive Reading

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

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—

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

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—

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

by grace you have been saved— 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.

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

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.

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

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