Ephesians 2:1-7 | The Good News of a Father

Me: Do you remember when you discovered you were not perfect?

Me: Do you remember when you discovered you were not perfect?

I remember being about seven when I snuck out of school with some friends to go to the convenience store to do what is commonly referred to as the five finger discount on some candy bars.

How cool was I?

I was so cool that I decided to let my older brother know, and then he decided to let my Mom know, and she didn’t think I was very cool.

She handled the situation well… she took me to the store and had me pay them back and apologize.

That was definitely not the first time I had made the wrong call and it definitely has not been the last, but that memory sticks out to me because I was aware that I was not perfect, that I had made a bad choice… coupled with the fact that I also became away of how imperfect my brother was for ratting on me!

You:

We know that none of us are perfect, yet what if we don’t understand how dire our situation really is?

Imagine you went to the Dr because you weren’t feeling well, you got medicine and you keep going on with life.

In our culture, most people would say they believe they are generally good people.

But if that’s the case, what do any of us really need to be saved from? Maybe you feel lonely, struggle with an addiction, or don’t feel loveable… so your need for a savior only extends as far as your struggles.

Jesus becomes the doctor who you only go to when there is a felt need.

But now imagine if you went to the Dr because you weren’t feeling well, but instead the coroner came in and instead of giving you medicine he handed you a death certificate for yourself, and informed you that she ran all the tests and sure enough no heart beat, no blood flow. You are a zombie!

What you would need isn’t medicine to make you feel better but resurrection to return you to life.

What if our natural condition is worse off than we know?

What I believe God has for us to discover tonight is simply this truth:

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

If you want to flip open your Bibles with me we are in .

God: We recently took a five week break from our series on the book of Ephesians, so just to give a quick recap of where we have gone…

Through , the Apostle Paul began his letter with an explosion of affection both for God and for them. He had cared deeply for this church and that care had not worn off, and again and again he continually reminds them of the Gospel, speaking of the adoption into Sonship. As Paul began to transition he writes a prayer and a eulogy to remember what God has done.

Now in , Paul begins to give additional clarity to the Gospel as a reminder of their desperate need for Jesus.

Why does the Gospel matter?

1 – He immediately begins by informing them of their natural condition, dead. This death immediately brings us back to the original sin and trespass of mankind.

To trespass is to cross a line. In the Garden God gave a single line, to abstain from eating one type of tree fruit, God told them that if they trespassed then they would surely die. Humanity has the choice to trespass or to follow in obedience.

Our condition is worse than we knew, according to Paul we don’t have spiritual sniffles, we are spiritually dead.

2 – The implications of this spiritual death play out in our everyday lives apart from Jesus. Our default is to walk dead in the wrong direction.

It was common in ancient writings to use the word walk to describe the way that you are living. In other words, we are naturally now predisposed to walk down the wrong path without question in our daily lives.

How?

Following the path of this broken world. Apart from Jesus we follow the value system of our culture, including the habits, the lifestyles, and the worldviews of the world.

There is no culture that naturally defaults to God’s divine ideal for human flourishing. So this is not like, if we just got back to some golden age of American or human history. Every culture has spaces of beauty and spaces of brokenness.

3 – But our enemy is not culture, instead there is spiritual realities at play that we live unaware of. According to Scripture, we have an enemy that hates life, light, and freedom. He desires bondage for us. He lays bait and apart from Jesus we take it.

Lastly, we follow the path of our own broken desires. We naturally desire to set the standard for ourselves. We desire to live according to what we see as true. What we can control.

Apart from Jesus this is the path we wander. Where the path leads is bleak.

We are naturally “children of wrath.” We are rebellious orphans. We want freedom our way, but where that ultimately leads us is toward death not life. Eternal separation from God.

Death. Bondage. Hopelessness.

According to Scripture, this is naturally the past, present, and future reality of humanity.

Not exactly words of encouragement so far… but before you walk out in loathing and misery…

4 – If you have ever been to a jewelry store you have seen beautiful diamonds probably against a black backdrop… the reason for the black backdrop is it helps extenuate the natural beauty of the diamond.

Paul is the coroner who came in with the death certificate, saying that they were all once dead. He paints the picture of despair and by doing so helps give greater significance to the beauty of the Gospel!

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

But God. These are the sweetest two words that could be discovered within the Bible. Our world was bleak BUT GOD. He changes the trajectory. He reverses course down the path of death, bondage and hopelessness.

He is by His character rich in mercy. The debt that is to be paid is a steep one, but the riches of His mercy overpays for our brokenness.

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

5 – If you have been around Gospel preaching churches for very long you have probably heard that we are saved by God’s grace not our own work…

But sometimes that can feel like a bait and switch… Yes Jesus saves now I need to act right. Or maybe it was like 99% God, 1% me…

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

― Jonathan Edwards

That is good news!!! Because you cannot earn it, in fact you didn’t even have the ability on your own to respond to it. Even when you were spiritually dead, God went after you!

In we saw the symbolism of our Sonship that we have been adopted into the forever family of God, and that is good news because we all want to belong. But it is so much better than just that because God chose a corpse and said that is my son that is my daughter!

He is like the Father in Jesus story of the Prodigal Son. The son lived wrecklessly and rebelliously. He had sold his birthright. He was bankrupt and lost… and when he was a long way off the Father came running after Him, throwing a feast and giving him the full rights of Sonship!

And when his jealous brother couldn’t stand the sight of the celebration because he was the good one, the Father explained… “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

6 – Remember how Paul explained how we all once walked apart from God’s divine ideal for our lives? Going down a path of death, deception, and hopelessness?

So what does the Gospel call us into? Living a life of better performance… It is so much greater than that… We very existence and identities are now forever tied to Jesus HIMSELF!

The word that is used here in Greek for “raised us up with” is the synergeiren which is where we get our word “synchronize” or sync. Think about the days before you had apple music or spotify and you had music on your computer so to get it on your iPhone 4 or 4s you would connect your phone to your computer to sync your music with your phone…

We have been synced with Christ. What God did for Christ, He did at the same time for all of His adopted Kids! When Jesus got out of the tomb 2,000 years ago, Danny Conner got up with Him!

He raised us up with HIM and seated us with HIM… Notice who didn’t do that work, you and me. This is not our work, it is totally HIS work.

We walked a path of uncertainty and now He has placed us on His throne of stability.

In a very real sense, we have inherited the rights of Sonship from our Dad! It is His throne, not ours. But we are seated with Him and have power to overcome. The Spirit of God is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it!

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

7 – This is where we finally find out why God has done all this for us. Because soon one day, God will show off in the best way imaginable for our benefit.

What is He showing? “His immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness”

Jeff Bezos started Amazon a couple decades ago as an online bookstore, he has now become the richest person on earth.

120 Billion… 120,000 million

Average Lifetime American Income = between 1-2 million

90,000 lifetimes of income = Jeff Bezos Net-Worth

Not bad for a guy who started a bookstore!

Immeasurable riches…

Grace in Kindness

Now think of the kindest person you can imagine… Mother Teresa? Mr Rogers? Harriet Tubman?

God’s rich grace in kindness= Jeff Bezos’ Net-worth of Mother Theresa/Mr Rogers/Harriet Tubman kindness times Infinity

This is our future and it is meant to break into present… that we would experience God more fully in the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness.

Main Idea: The depths of our brokenness is outmatched by the riches of the Father’s love

You: We talk about it all the time but we are a forgetful people. Notice that Paul is not writing to those who are outside of the family of God, He is writing this reminder to Christians that they would remember how beautiful the diamond of the Gospel is by remembering the darkness of the backdrop of their past.

If you are here tonight and you are not a Follower of Jesus. The riches of the Father’s love is for you! He desires to wrap you in His arms. He desires to bring you from death to life.

When you come alive, not everything changes at once, but you do wake up for the first time in your life. We have some elders and deacons across the hall who would love to pray for you and with you if you would like to learn more about what it would look like to begin following Jesus.

For all of us who are followers of Jesus, our call is simple. Live as loved. You are not unloved, you are not unknown, you are not unimportant. The God of the Universe has pursued you and called you significance…

I have had a really rough last week that left me insecure, worn out, and feeling like a punching bag.

I need to be reminded of the beauty of the Gospel. So do you.

If you are struggling to love God or love others. I would encourage you to spend time reading over this passage this week.

Remind yourself and one another of the beauty of the diamond that we have in Jesus.

Us: Imagine what would happen at Walt Disney World if we lived as loved. If we loved others out of the overflow of love we have received?