DONE 211024 Ephesians: Unified Life in Christ

Title

BLANK SLIDE

Before we begin, just briefly here is the test for this week out of the book of Ephesians… This is an open Bible test, go ahead and turn to Ephesians for the question. I will give one hint… The answer is not in chapters 1, 3 or 5 and you will have one minute to write your answer at the bottom of the page.

SLIDE What did Jesus give to His Church…? And why?

APOSTLES, PROPHETS, EVANGELISTS, AND PASTORS AND TEACHERS

FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WORK OF SERVICE/MINISTRY TO THE BUILDING UP OF THE BODY OF CHRIST

OPENING SLIDE

A common question asked by 3 and 4 years old is, “why?”

Eat your vegetables… “Why?” Be kind to the cat … (GESTURE) “why?”

“Why should I? Why should I clean my room or stop hitting my sister… PAUSE I don’t want to, so why should I?”

A lot of the “why’s” are born out of a curiosity, like “why’s the sky blue?” But some are also the product of a certain pugnacious ignorance. Children want what they want and they don’t always want what's good. They don’t understand the “why” and they don’t really want to know.

As we grow older we begin to understand some of the why’s… “If I punch my big brother when he’s not looking he’s going to punch me back… harder” That’s a reason why not to be mean but it somehow is not a very compelling reason to be kind… Its not a reason to be good

Why be good? “For goodness sake,” are you kidding me? Is that why we should be good?

Why be humble? Why be patient and gentle? Why is it important to show tolerance for each other in love? Why is it important to preserve unity and peace? Why are these things important and why should we want them?

Modern philosophy cannot supply humanity with a reason why they should do these things… REALLY “the common good? No, thank you, I’ll have what I want at your expense everyday and twice on Sunday.”

Modern philosophy leaves mankind empty and devoid of a compelling reason not only to do good but also a reason to exist.

Being kind, loving, gentle, peaceable, they are all good things… so that in itself might be reason to do them, but its not a very compelling reason - just because they are good. When it really boils down to it unless you have a underlying reason to do good, these things being kind, humble, gentle, they just get in the way, they are inconvenience...

To be kind, to be loving, to be gentle… to preserve peace that sounds pretty virtuous, moral, right, but its not very persuasive in and of itself which is probably one of the reasons why many people today are unkind, unloving, not gentle… They don’t know why.

I have found in teaching, preaching, educating and training that knowing the “why” matters. And just like in parenting I am going to need to be able to do better than just “because I said so,” or “its good for you.” That is rarely enough for children and certainly never enough for adults.

Thankfully, there is a reason and its a fundamental one and its not just because of self preservation or a desire to avoid punishment.

We are going to talk about fundamentals today and it should change our understanding of why we should do good works, why we should be kind, why we should be peaceable and humble. INTRODUCTION

Today, we are going to be in the book of Ephesians. You can open your Bibles to Ephesians now if you havent already... The book of Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul to provide clarity to the believers there.

His letter contains some of the most elemental basics of why things are the way they are at a cosmic level. It answers many of the “why’s” that Christian struggle with.

Why are some people saved and why do some people reject the Good News of Jesus Christ. It answers the fundamental question about whether man is basically good or not. It answers the question about how salvation is acquired and how to to get it. It answers the reason why Christians should do good works…

These are some pretty big “why’s” and happy is the Christian that reads and understands the “why’s.” Not only happy, but the Christian that understands these crucial and essential realities and acts on them will also mature and grow in their understanding of God.

SLIDE

Today’s sermon has a point but in keeping with establishing the basics first I want to clearly communicate this sermon in three points. The first point is describing the problem, the second point is describing the solution, and the third point is describing the purpose.

MAIN POINT 1

So, here’s the issue. People have a problem, they are spiritually dead and cannot do anything at all to change that… ever. We cannot do anything at all to make ourselves not spiritually dead. Just like a corpse three years in the grave cannot spontaneously revive neither can we. That’s the problem, we are dead and cannot do anything about it. MAIN POINT 2

But there’s a solution. God has chosen to display His incredible wealth of love and mercy by freely choosing some to make alive and right with Him.

Some of us are simply satisfied with knowing that there is a solution… we are content with that but after a while we want to know… “why?” What’s the purpose, the reason, the “why?” MAIN POINT 3

Here is the reason why… God has set this whole plan in motion to ultimately glorify Himself and so that we who are saved might do good works as well.

BLANK SLIDE

Let’s go to prayer, before we dive in, and ask Him to reveal to us His divine plan and purpose.

PRAYER

Father, Creator of all good things, Author of life, we are so glad for the opportunity to hear from Your Word today. To hear about the “why’s,” to gain understanding of Your fundamental purpose and the means by which You have chosen to achieve it.

We are glad to hear that You made us for a purpose. We are amazed at Your goodness, Your mercy, Your love. We are amazed at Your incredible generosity. Truly, You deserve all of our honor because Your Word clarifies for us who You are. May Your Holy Spirit be effective in us today. May He deftly use His sword to separate confusion away and may we see clearly Your Son and what He has achieved for us. Be honored, be praised and be glorified today, I pray because of Jesus, amen.

SERMON

Let’s very briefly chat context so we can understand how this letter came to be.

CONTEXT

The letter to the church in Ephesus was not sent to one individual church in Ephesus but also to the “Church” the body of believers in Ephesus. Ephesus was not a Podunk town but was the third largest city in the Roman empire. MAP SLIDE Ephesus was located at the mouth of the Cayster River on the Aegean coast and it was a major religious and trade hub. The population in Ephesus was estimated to be somewhere around 250K. There were Jews there and Greeks there. If you recall from Acts, Ephesus was known for its trade in silver religious paraphernalia. When Paul traveled there in on his third missionary journey he spent three years there. CONTEXT

In AD 53, twenty years after Jesus was raised from the dead, Acts 19 records how God was performing many extraordinary miracles through Paul in Ephesus. Evil was being scoured away, people were being healed and big things were happening. People were burning their pagan magic books - that were worth an approximate value of nearly half a million dollars.

After these three years Paul continued His travels and was eventually arrested in Jerusalem and was ultimately transported to Rome where he was imprisoned. It is now AD 60 and Paul is writing to the “Church” in Ephesus, not just one group of believers but many, and he is doing it for the purpose of describing the big picture, the overarching themes of reality, why people are the way they are, what God’s plan entails and why...

We are going to be in Ephesians 2 and we are going to start with describing the problem - All people are spiritually dead and we earned this death through our own disobedience. Ephesians 2:1 SLIDE

I. All People are Spiritually Dead Problem

A. Our death was earned through disobedience (2:1)

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

Spiritual acts of war against God carry with it the penalty of spiritual death, no wiggle room here. If I have sinned, and I have, I deserve the death penalty. Romans 6:23a says that the wages of sin, the payout, the reward and recompense of sin is death… I deserve, you deserve, we deserve the justice of God. Our sin demands it because our rebellion is an affront to His righteousness, His perfection, His purity.

I want to break this verse down. Again Paul is writing to the “Church” in Ephesus and the “You” here is plural, he is not writing to an individual… if we were in the South we could say “y’all.” Y’all were dead in your trespasses and sins. This death is νεκρός, the absence of spiritual life… lifeless because we killed ourselves by means of our trespasses and sins.

Qualitatively, there is no difference in the result of these two offenses: trespasses and sins, both made us dead. Spiritually lifeless, unable to please God, unable to make Him happy, unable to change our status, immobilized. You know, dead! Verse 2 tells us that this was because the devil was at work in our life… We have a problem SLIDE

B. Disobedience is the devil's domain (2:2)

2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

The problem is actually worse than verse one would suggest... Not only were we spiritually dead, as if there is anything worse than that… but the prince of the power of the air was at work in our life… who is that?

That is satan, the devil, the evil spirit given dominion over those who are dead. He is at work in the sons of disobedience.

People have a problem! Not only are they dead. Not only can they do nothing to change that. But satan is at work in their life and they are not doing what is good. They produce disobedience, rebellion, antipathy towards God and are spiritually dead as a result.

Colossians 1:13 says that this realm of satan is a dominion of darkness...

Disobedience, death, darkness, the devil, these are very big problems!

What is probably even worse is that nothing, absolutely nothing can be done to change that. Nothing can undo this situation… PAUSE

Why? PAUSE Dead people don’t do anything. Lifeless people cannot do anything to make themselves alive… They cannot decide to be alive, they cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make themselves obedient.

And verse 3 tells us that this problem is a universal condition. If you are human this is us, but for the believer this was a past condition. SLIDE

C. For the believer, this was our former state (2:3)

3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Formerly, meaning this used to be the way believers were. Everyone is like this at one point in time, but some are changed. Some are not spiritually dead. Some are not like the rest of everyone else. Some are no longer enslaved to satan. Some are no longer going to be recipients of God’s just wrath, His ὀργῆς, His long building anger because of their trespasses and sins. Some are not going to experience destruction because they were indulging the lusts of their flesh and their mind.

What changed? Did we of our own volition, our own choosing decide that death, disobedience and the devil were no longer interesting and we don’t want it anymore? Highly unlikely....

What can a dead person do? We already answered it earlier. Dead people cannot do anything on their own. They cannot decide to be alive.

Something outside ourselves must change us because dead people don’t do anything. If some of us are now different, if some of us are now spiritually alive it is not because we decided we didn’t want to be dead, this change is only the result of God making a change in us.

So humanity’s problem, in summary, is that all people, everywhere, at all times are spiritually dead… Because the devil was at work in them, they disobeyed God and became dead and as a result are dedicated to destruction. Humanity has a problem and is in need of a solution and miracle of miracles there is a solution. Verse 4 “But God” SLIDE

II. But God…

A. Because of His abundant mercy and love (2:4)

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

ὁ δὲ θεὸς, But God… such sweet words. God being rich in mercy, great in love… so great in fact that He loved the unlovable, the dead, the disobedient, the ones that hated Him, the ones in which the devil was at work in them. But God, His love is so infinite, His mercy so expansive that He could love even us. Not because we were lovable. Not because we were nice, not because we were deserving.... No, none of that. Only because God’s own abundant mercy and love made a change in us. What can we contribute toward our own salvation? Nothing, dead people cannot do anything! What can we contribute to our salvation, nothing except the very sin that made it necessary.

God allowed this problem to take place, because it is only through this problem that the reality of His Holy love and mercy can be truly seen.

Saying God is loving or God is merciful is qualitatively different than seeing Him change someone from the inside out. Taking a dead person that is disobedient, lifeless, angry and rebellious, one whom satan is at work in their life and seeing Him love that person, showing mercy to them.

Humanity was created in God’s image, unique amongst all His creation with the capacity to recognize the wonder of God’s love, unique in our ability to understand and appreciate the fact that we deserve wrath, but He has chosen to save some to demonstrate His goodness and grace.

How did God do this? How did God demonstrate His love and mercy? What are the means by which some no longer are dead, by which are made alive? How did God do this? He did this through uniting us with His own Son. Verse 5 SLIDE

B. Granted the believer union with His Son (2:5-6)

5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

The only reason why spiritually dead people become dead is because God had mercy upon us. It is only because God has unlimited love, so much so that He decided to love some people and make them alive.

He made us alive by allowing us to be unified with His Son. That’s wonderful! That’s astonishing but even more astonishing is that we are seated with His Son in the heavenly places.

When we realize that we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary and that God’s love, mercy and grace are so unparalleled that He actually seated us with Christ, at His own right hand we gain a new appreciation for just how vast His care for us really is.

There is no one as loving, gracious, kind and wonderful as our God. SLIDE

Colossians 1:21-22 “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His (Christ’s) fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—”

Believer, Christian, do you understand that in Christ you are perfect in God’s eyes? Unblemished, without any stain of sin… and now elevated, made to share in His glory, honored, celebrated… Do you have a greater appreciation for the mercy and grace of God now?!? Absolutely, God loved us when were were dead in our transgressions, when we were alienated, apart from Him, angry with Him, engaged in evil deeds. God loved us even while we were disobedient. He loved us when we could do nothing about our own sin.

Why would He ever do such a thing? Again, it is for the purpose of demonstrating that no one is as good and gracious, merciful and loving as He is. Verse 7SLIDE

C. For the purpose of demonstrating His grace (2:7)

7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Forever into eternity, we who were changed, we who were made alive, will continue to receive God’s kindness. God’s well of love and grace will never run dry because we have been brought in, we have been incorporated into His own Son. We only have life because we have been brought into Christ.

We don’t have life because we think its a better alternative to death. We don’t have life because of nice things we have done. We don’t have eternal life because we are republicans or are honest on our taxes. None of that can take the dead, rebellious, angry, hateful corpse and make it right with God…

God’s wrath is just as infinite as His love and corpses cannot do anything to avoid it. It had to be God doing something about our condition to alter our eternal destination. It actually took Jesus dying on the cross for all of our sins, past present and future to make us right with God.

So that begs an interesting question, why are some people allowed to continue in sin and spend eternity in hell and why are some graciously brought into Christ? Seems kind of unfair of God to do that, why not save everyone...

Romans 9 tells us that God did it this way, saving some and allowing others to receive what they fully deserve so that both His power and wrath could be demonstrated as well as His love and mercy. It is impossible to understand these without the contrast of the other. We need both to understand God’s capacity for both and this is the method He has chosen to reveal it.

Does that seem unfair? Does it seem unequal of God to do things this way… Ummm, yes, we don’t want God to be fair. If God was fair we would remain dead and dedicated to destruction. We want God’s grace and because of His great love He has chosen to freely offer it to those whom He has caused to believe. This is why we are going to glorify Him, this is why we are going to praise Him forever and ever. He was not fair, His infinite wrath was poured out upon His own Son and we were allowed to receive His infinite grace. PAUSE

We already covered our problem… All people are spiritually dead. We just finished covering the solution, “But God...” and now we are going to cover the purpose, the reason why He has been gracious to us who believe and there are a couple of reasons and the first is to deliver those who believe Verse 8 SLIDE

III. Freely Offered Grace to Those Who Believe

A. To deliver those who believe (2:8)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Our salvation is never because we decided to be saved, remember, dead people can never make themselves undead… we are only saved from the destruction that our sin demanded because of God’s gift.

If you stare at this text long enough you will realize that three different elements are in play. Grace, Salvation and Faith. Which is the gift. Is it God’s grace… Is it salvation… is it the faith to believe the Gospel… what is the gift. Which of the three is it? I won’t drag it out… the “it” is all three. God’s gift is grace and salvation and saving faith. None of that is self generated. None of it comes out of the corpse. It is a gift from outside of the dead person making them spiritually alive.

I was fascinated to learn more about this word, translated “gift,” and I would like to add nuance to our understanding. We hear the word gift and we think, Christmas presents, birthday presents. We think of an idealistic box with wrapping paper and a bow. A nice gesture, thoughtful even, small, not to ostentatious. I mean a really big present would be a Lexus or a nice house. Those are big gifts...

But somehow those ideas fail to communicate the idea correctly. One of the reasons is because Christmas, birthdays those are conventions where the gift is expected, WRY SMILE and in some cases demanded…

That is not the idea of this word gift. In the Greek the word is δῶρον which means not only “gift” but also “offering.”

Offering, like sacrificial offering. When the Jews would bring offerings to the altar to be burned it wasn’t a box with a little red bow. It was a sacrifice.

God’s gift was not a present like we think of a gift it was an offering. It cost more than we can ever understand. His gift, His offering cost the life of His only begotten Son.

This gift, this offering is how we can be saved. We must believe and that faith is not because we think it sounds better than death but because He caused us to believe. We contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary.

God offered this gift to deliver those whom He has caused to believe for the purpose of bringing Himself honor and credit. He manifests His love and grace so it can be recognized in all its astonishing magnificence SLIDE

B. So that He will get the glory (2:9)

9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The only thing we add to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary. Our salvation can never be earned. Our depravity is so vast that only an infinite God could ever pay the debt that we owed.

No one has bragging rights here. No one here has earned their salvation. That is not a popular belief. It is culturally acceptable to believe that God grades on a curve… If you are better than the average person God will allow you to share space with His holiness… Nothing could be further from the truth and this is just another example of the devil at work in the sons of disobedience...

Former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is quoted as saying the following SLIDE

He said in 2014, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed,” “I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

He is not alone in this sentiment. Most people that are deceived by satan if they give a thought to eternity believe this. They are deceived. They are disobedient and they are dead, such were we too... but God!

Salvation, grace, faith is not the result of works… no one is going to have bragging rights in eternity except our Holy and Gracious God. PAUSE

But He did have another reason why He did this… and this will be the focus of our application point. SLIDE

He did this not only to magnify His graciousness but also so that we can do good.

C. And so that we can do good (2:10)

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The point of this was so that we could be delivered from bondage to satan, so that God would get the glory and so that we can do good works.

Believers are not saved because they do good works, they are saved to do good works. Salvation is not a result of anything except God’s own grace but He has a part for us to play. He desire that we do good works… SLIDE

What are these good works? If the God that saved us, redeemed us, made us alive even when were His enemies, even when we were alienated and apart, utterly depraved in our sin and without hope… If God has something that He would like me to do, I am more than happy to reciprocate His infinite love by doing the work that He has pre-planned for me to do.

What is the good work that God has for me to do? Flip over to Chapter 4… Paul in prison tells this group of believers some 1,200 miles away what it is to do the works of God...

Verse 1

Ephesians 4:1-3 “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

You were saved, I was saved, we were saved not to remain in trespasses and sins, no we were saved to do good works. We were saved to be gentle, patient, loving, tolerant, unified together in the Spirit and peaceable.

I return to my introduction… Why should we be good? Why should we do good things? Why should we be humble? Why should we be gentle? Patient, tolerant, loving, diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit, why should we be peaceable?

It is only because we understand, we know our own depravity and God’s goodness to us and that He has prepared us, He has saved us in order to demonstrate good works.

Immature children do not know the why. That is why they ask the “why’s.” We now know the “why’s.” We are to do good in reciprocation and gratitude to God. SLIDE

One final application point, a test. Are these elements in our life? Are we peaceable or angry, are we loving or hostile, are we gentle and humble? The proof is in what we produce. If we produce what the world produces we need to really consider whether or not God’s Holy Spirit is actually at work in us...

The good works are calling cards of the Holy Spirit’s work in us. And His work is not just a one time thing, it continues until we physically die. That’s the test. Consider what we produce…

It is in this way that we understand that we are truly God’s children. 2nd Peter 1 tells us if these things are ours and are increasing we are neither useless to God nor unfruitful. Being diligent to increase in these things shows us that we truly were called and chosen. This is how we know we are redeemed and that assurance is so good. SLIDE

As I begin to wind down this message. I’d like to review some of the main points. Humanity has a problem. They are dead in sins and they cannot do anything about it. But God freely offered up His own Son to pay the penalty for all our sins and rescue some from satan’s domain.

He causes the spiritually dead to come to spiritual life in Christ Jesus to demonstrate His own goodness and grace. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

He also did it so that we would understand and demonstrate that understanding by doing good works. Good works are a product of salvation, not the source.

Friends, God sent His Son, to live perfectly, dying willingly for my sin and yours. He raised His Son from death to life and did the unimaginable by unifying us with His Son. We who have received God’s grace now are alive and are as perfect, pure and clean as God’s own Son.

If we understand this, if this is us, if we are recipients of God’s grace and mercy we will demonstrate the good works of gentleness, humility, love and unity.

Please rise and I will close in prayer. SLIDE

PRAYER

A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians Ephesians 2:10

These works are the consequence of salvation, not the basis for it

we now have a new way of life contrasted with what was said in verse 2

A test

if we love the world and the things of the world the love of the Father is not in us

1 John 2:15 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

VERSE SLIDE

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APPLICATION POINT

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CONCLUSION

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PAUSE

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POP QUIZ:

The seal referenced in chapter 1 refers to _________ THE HOLY SPIRIT

The gracious gift of faith is not the ultimate end unto itself. Believers were redeemed for the purpose of good works; which don’t establish salvation but confirm it

This answers the fundamental question of if people are basically good. No, all people, everywhere, everyone is not basically good, they are all evil and deserving of wrath… Sounds pretty harsh, huh?

Everyone is evil? What about that nice little old lady down the street? What about the kid that mows my lawn? Evil, sounds like an overstatement. I’ll tell you why it isn’t. These people, may manifest good things. They may do nice things but their nic