49 Preaching/Teaching: Ephesians 2:1-10

Dead Man Walking

ETS-The good news answered questions concerning the Ephesians greatest problem and their greatest purpose.

EOS- The good news gives the greatest ANSWERS!

DDS-

I had heard about the gospel throughout my life.

What is the gospel?

The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But the gospel was not essential to my life until I wrestled with this question.

On a scale of 0-100% how sure are you going to heaven when you die and why?

I had heard the good news aka the gospel but it was not essential to my life.

This question I heard brought me to a crisis point.

My answer was like most people’s answer is still today.

I was 100% sure I was going to heaven: Why?

Because I was such a great guy: [very humble]

This idea that I formed in my head is what most people and even many religions men and women still believe.

There is a God out there and if I work hard enough if I do more good than bad I am going to make it to the Promise land.

When I ask this question to people today outside of church I rarely get the right answer-

Here are the answers that I get many times.

Works + Jesus

Go over different religions

Islam

Hinduism

Many Christians-Jesus + Works

But this question changed my life.

Is the Gospel essential to your life?

Can you live without it?

Many people in America have heard about the gospel, but for most it is not the driving force in their lives.

Today we need to be reminded about why the Gospel is so essential.

And from this Ephesians passage I want to give us 3 powerful answers.

Why is the gospel so essential to life?

1. Because our problem is worse than we could ever have imagined (1-3).

What is our problem?

Ephesians 2:1 NAS

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

We were born in a mess. The last book we were in before this was Genesis. The mess started with the first humans Adam and Eve.

We have arrived spiritually DOA the day we were born

God said to Adam and Eve when they said the day you eat from the tree you will surely die-

Now no one likes to talk about bad things. Especially me. I am the kind of person who is a glass half full type person. But we need to realize that before we can get to the good news that this problem is greater than we could ever imagine.

Ephesians 2:1 (TCENB): “The unbeliever is not sick; he is dead! He does not need resuscitation; he needs resurrection. All lost sinners are dead, and the only difference between one sinner and another is the state of decay.”

Have you ever gotten yourself into a mess.

My nickname as a kid was Mr. Good boy. But don’t let it fool you.

Some of us think I am not that bad because their are people worse than me,

Others think we can hide this problem

But this problem is so great, that their is nothing you or I can do to get out of it in our own power.

This is called ORIGINAL SIN

This is why you do not have to teach a kid to be bad. We have to teach kids to be good.

Ephesians 2:2 NAS

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.

Without God:

We walk according to the world

Ephesians 2:2 (TCENB): The philosophy that seeks to eliminate God from every aspect of life dominates this lifestyle (cf. John 15:18, 23).

Isn’t this what is happing all over in our country. God is being eliminated from aspects of life.

We have eliminated God from the family. The family unit is falling apart. It is rare that a person grows up in a two parent household. Many are growing up never having any significant relationship with their father. I will never forget when I was a youth Pastor a student came into my office and he simply said never get divorced.

We have eliminated God from Schools. Many schools used to have the ten commandments up. Now you are not even supposed to pray in schools.

We are okay with abortions.

What areas are you eliminating God from in your life?

Are you walking according to the world?

Without God:

notice these are all past tense:

We walked according to the prince of the power of the air-

We walk the way Satan walked. I know that sounds so harsh but the reality is that Satan looks good. God has given Satan some temporary authority to lead this rebellion against God and non believers are walking in his ways. Or to put another way apart from God we reflect Satan instead of God.

Without God:

We are sons of disobedience

If you are not a believer in Christ you are a spiritual son of the devil. I know this sounds crazy and a lot of us have extreme views of the Devil, but he is really and he is smarter than anyone in this room. And apart from Jesus you submit to him as your father.

We have all missed the mark!

Ephesians 2:3 NAS

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.

This is not a sliding scale we have all missed.

Picture of missing the mark-Shooting a bow and arrow.

We too all-

We like to count sin on a sliding scale but this is not how God works. Without Christ this is how we all live.

Lust of our flesh-

Indulge the desire of the flesh

Indulge the desire of the mind

A payment is owed because of our sin!

God is just. His very nature is perfection and because of that there has to be a payment for our sin.

Just think about this for a second: If a man commits murder would a good judge just look over that? NO. He would say guilty. In the same way God is a just God, a good God and because of that we cannot enter into his presence because of this giant problem.

Illustration: I did not think I had a problem-Ten commandments-saw I was separated from God. I was sitting there before God-

We deserve wrath

Application:

Do you realize how serious the problem is?

Have you came to the point that you have realized that your problem is this serious?

Why is the gospel so essential to life?

2. Because it is God’s great rescue plan (4-7).

We just looked at a reality of scripture that is tough.

One I would like to bypass if we could.

Christianity is not about bad men and women becoming good it is about the dead coming to life.

We are in need RESCUE, we are in need of Resurrection.

Ephesians 2:4 NAS

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

God loved us when we were unloveable.

We see a key word in Scripture

BUT

We just saw the bad news about mankind, but now we see the great news about God.

This is such an amazing thought, that God loved us when we were unloveable. The Bible tells us that rarely will someone die for a righteous person, we may day for someone we really love, but God died for us when we were not worthy dying for.

God is rich in mercy!

Mercy-Instead of giving us what we do deserve he gave us mercy-

Definition- Undeserved kindness is what it means.

Why-Because God is love. This is who God is.

Ephesians 2:5 NASB95

even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

I want to give a picture real quick. Many religions are pictured where you are in the water drowning and the way you avoid drowning is trying to swim to the shore. You try harder to be a better person, you try harder to .... But Christianity is not like this Christianity is where you are not drowning, you are helpless. But Jesus jumps in and saves you and puts you in the boat and then teaches you how to live.

Ephesians 2:6 NASB95

and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

What else did God do:

He loved us when we were dead in our sins

He made us alive together in Jesus

He raised us up with him

he seated us with him in the heavenly places

Note that verses 1–3 describe what we were in the past, verses 4–6 what we are in the present, and verse 7 what we shall be in the future.

Constable, T. (2003).

Look how amazing this God is who allows us to be seated in the heavenly places with him.

Then he tells us why he did this

Ephesians 2:7 NAS

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

Jesus dying on the cross like he did will be celebrated forever and ever. This is an ever ending grace that we will experience and praise him for forever and ever.

The first answer and the second answer go hand in hand.

We can’t be rescued if there is nothing to be rescued from.

As my friend was taking me through the gospel he began to share the 10 commandments with me! I then realized that I needed rescue. I realized that I could not get my way to heaven but that Jesus came down to rescue me. Not only did I need rescue, but rescue is available.

Application:

Are you taking God’s great rescue plan for granted?

Is the gospel essential to your life right now?

We have looked at two answers of why the gospel needs to be essential to our lives:

Our Problem is worse than we could have ever imagined.

Because it is God’s great rescue plan.

Why is the gospel so essential to life?

3. Because God created us to be his workmanship (8-10).

Ephesians 2:8–9 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Our response Faith:

As I was sitting there in my dorm room, Ted asked me a question-

Would you like to receive God’s gift and receive Jesus into your life?

It is not enough to know about this gift, it has to be recieved.

As a 18 year old I sat their and prayed a prayer. I don’t remember the exact words: Remember God cares more about our heart than about the words. But it went something like this:

Example prayer

The gospel leads us to boasting about God.

Could you picture if you were good enough to earn your way to heaven to build a stairway to heaven you would not brag about God you would brag about yourself.

Picture at Christmas when we get a sweet gift. We don’t say man I earned this and worked so hard for it. No the giver is the one who gave it to us. We simply say thank you.

When we accept the gift of God we simply say THANK YOU GOD!

As I sat there in my dorm room, I was saying thank you God.

We are not saved by works but we are saved for works.

Ephesians 2:10 NASB95

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

We are not a masterpiece because we are such great artists. We are masterpieces because God has produced us.

God has created you to be his masterpiece.

This is so freeing because a Christ follower I do not do good works to earn or try to merit the favor of God I do good works because I already have the favor of God.

This is so freeing because what it means is: God has a plan for our life. He has a purpose and we get to live for something greater than ourselves. It means that God is working in our life in a way that is greater than ourself.

Video-

Is the Gospel essential in your life?

Today I hope the reality of the greatest message ever told will be fresh and will be the guiding point of your life.

Today the gospel is essential to my life.

This is a great passage of scripture and I needed this.

We don’t graduate from the gospel-

We need it every day to be reminded about how far off we are without God, that GOd loves us and who we are with him and we need to be reminded that God Is working in us for a purpose.

I want us to watch this video in closing: