Short Eph 2:1-10

Eph 2:1-10

This week we will talk about what it means to be really alive.

Life from Death (I got some bad news and I got some good news what do you want to hear first??) (Eph. 2:1-10) -I got a lot of help for this message from the Bible Knowledge commentary.

A fundamental fact about death is that death separates relationships with the living. That is why loosing someone is so sad even if we know that they are with the Lord. Spiritual death also results in eternal separation from a relationship with the living God. The fact about life and death is that they are absolutes. You are either dead or you are alive, there is no middle ground. So also in a spiritual sense, there is no middle ground. A person is either spiritually dead or spiritually alive. God is the only one who can make a dead person alive again. He is the only one who can take people spiritually dead and lost in sin and make them alive in Jesus. When believers look at the lifestyle of the world and the world’s way of thinking, we should never be envious. They are dead! The perceived happiness and indulgence in selfish pleasure only ends in destruction and punishment.There is no life and hope for those apart from Christ!

v1. Paul says the same thing to the church in Ephesus. “You were dead in your sin”. This is the condition of all people apart from Christ. This condition of death results from the “transgression and sins” which we all commit. While both of those words have a slightly different meaning, they both convey a rebellion against God and a failure to measure up to God’s standard of holiness. A lifestyle of sin and transgression leads to death and is the characteristic of the spiritually dead person apart from God. Notice as well that the words transgressions and sins are plural showing how repetitive breaking of God’s law results in further severance from a relationship with the living God and into a state of spiritual death.

v2.Just as a physical dead person has no power or control themselves, the spiritually dead person is chained to follow after the destructive pattern of sin and selfishness that the world pursues. Even our good willed sweet grandma or kind hearted community workers ultimately are slaves to sin and seek after the dead and destructive lifestyle of the world. Even though he didn’t create the world, Satan makes claim over this world as the Prince of the power of the air. This figure of speech may come from some popular beliefs held by the people of this time but it gives the image of Satan trying to stake his claim over the world as it is now. The lifestyle of a “son of disobedience” is characterized by rebellion, disobedience, death, and destruction. Even though they are chained, enslaved, and are doomed to destruction, sons of disobedience love it! They love their perceived freedom and selfish lifestyle even as they slowly or not so slowly rot away into death. We wonder how anyone would want to stay that way, but some people do because of their perceived freedoms while they inch closer and closer to death each day. We know that it is only by the power and grace of God that we are not in their same condition.

V3. Verse 3 brings a rude awakening to the reader. It says that WE were ALL like this at one point. Dead! Enslaved and hopeless to our burden of sin and lawlessness. May we never feel like we have climbed so high and come so far as to forget the pool of death and evil God pulled us from. All of us were rebels from God! Dead in our sin! We did as our minds and desires lead us to. Just like the wicked people during the time of Noah, we did what was right in our own eyes. Even our thinking was corrupted. We see this now all over the world when injustice, hate, greed, and selfishness drive people to do wicked things and we shake our heads wondering how those evil thoughts even entered their minds. Paul says it here. All mankind apart from Christ follows the evil way’s of Satan and the world in an endless cycle of sadness and death. We ALL were a part of this way of living. We “like the rest of mankind” deserve God’s just judgement and punishment of us. We deserve to bear and endure the full and unbridled wrath of God upon us. We must remember too, God’s wrath is not a temper tantrum or an outburst of selfish anger. God’s wrath is the holy intolerance of sin and the deserved punishment of rebels against His perfect will. Our identity apart from Christ is wrath. DEAD and separated eternally from God! The passage calls us, “children of wrath”. Children have a distinctive identity with their parent and belong to them. So, by calling us a child of wrath, we are identified as closely related to sin and to the object of God’s wrath.

I want out of that family fast!

Anybody depressed yet…? Well, the good news is coming with a pivotal two words…but God! The story does not end with God’s wrath. Just as all mankind is under the condemnation of God for their rebellion, God has made a way to be reconciled with Him and to be called HIS child.

v4. We first see God and His character demonstrated in verse 4. He is “rich in mercy” and “great” in His love. We have nothing to offer to God. We are dead in our sin. However, God is rich or abundant in His ability to give love and forgiveness to those who rightly deserve punishment. Mercy is only God’s to give.

The only way that we as spiritually dead people can have interaction with God is for the one who is eternal and who conquered death to make us alive in and through Him He is the one who pulled us out of the pit of death and gives us life. Jesus is the one who conquered death, so when we are “alive together with Christ” we share in His resurrection power that destroys death and brings life to the believer. What does v 5 say as to when we were made alive? When we were dead! Rom 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” It was the very time when you were dead, sinful, and hopeless which God showed His love for you in sending Jesus to die to pay your sin debt. God shows His love to us in multiple ways. First, He saved us. We are saved from our sin debt and punishment through putting our faith in Jesus. Next, raised us up. We are raised up from spiritual death to eternal life by dying to sin and being raised with Christ through the power of His resurrection. Finally, He put us in a place of honor as we are seated with Him forever in our home in Heaven. Is any of this love and life a result of our own good works or to our credit?? Of course not! It is as verse 6 says, it is in Christ Jesus. Jesus is our champion and the source of our life and our position before God the Father.

Verses 5 and 6 speak to the believers condition. Where we were formally dead and hopeless, now we are alive and are seated with Christ. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so believers are risen to new spiritual life through Jesus. God’s grace is the means by which believers are saved. A new life demands a new way of living. Rather than following the pattern of the world and the path to destruction, believers are to realize that they are now alive in Jesus and as such, must think and live in a way that will now bring honor and glory to the one who made them alive and set them free. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). Just as Jesus proves the physical realities of the resurrection in his resurrected body and His ascended body siting at the right hand of God, so believers will prove the spiritual reality of being raised to life from being dead in sin and we are seated with Christ in Heaven due to our relationship with Christ as our Savior and Lord.

v7. The crowning work of God is redeeming His people through salvation. All creation was made to worship and glorify God. Human beings made in the image of God are best able to bring God worship through our willful offerings of praise to God. All people have rebelled against God in sin, so what God made good and perfect has been corrupted by the stain of sin. But God made a way for lost and dead people to be found and be alive. The gospel story is ALL to the praise and glory of God. This story and the redemption that it brings will be celebrated forever in Heaven. God’s grace and kindness IS his redemption of His people from death to life through Christ Jesus.

v. 8 and 9 This is one of the most quoted and memorized verses in evangelical churches and for good reason. These verses are some of the most crucial to differentiate Biblical Christianity from every other religion in the world. I would dare say that every other belief system in the world has the adherent “do, do not, or think” something to make them right or pleasing to a person or deity. By doing so, the adherent is closer to the supreme being, a better person, a more devoted follower, or more holy. Verses 8 and 9 are the battle cry and the joy of the believer to bring hope for each day. Sinful man is saved by a great and loving God.

An important truth from these verses is that God is the author of and the giver of salvation through faith and not through the work of any person. There is not one thing that we can do as people to please God more to or motivate Him more to save us. Salvation is God’s plan from the beginning of time. Salvation is God’s gift alone so that nobody can brag about getting it themselves but instead, so that everyone can give all the praise and all the glory to God.

v. 10 We come to the conclusion of the section. God made us all truly amazing. We are a creation of God! We are "fearfully and wonderfully made"! This is something that only God can do. Verse 10 speaks of handiwork or workmanship as the salvation for all mankind which we have received by grace through faith. Not only did He create our bodies, but God in His goodness made a plan of salvation which we have the privilege to be a part of. Since being saved is part of the work of God Himself, as a result, we are able to do good works which God has set before us to do to His praise and to His glory. Our good works do not make us any more holy, but our good works are a result of God working out His plans through His beloved children. It is our joy and pleasure to serve God and we build up His church and reach our community with the hope of the gospel.

This passage has a lot to benefit our Christian lives but I want you to take away 3 things today:

1. Look to the worldly way of life as dead and not one which you should envy or seek after. We bring the message of life and truth and leave behind our dead way of living when we died to sin with Jesus.

2. You used to be dead, but now you are alive in Christ. Preach this message of hope to yourself daily. Let the joy you have in your salvation overflow into your conversations with others as we edify believes and share this message of hope with a dead world.

3. Your life, your skills, and your story are an amazing work of the God who created you and created the world. He is working in you to make you more like Him now and He has a job for you to accomplish now.

So there we have it. God’s incredible plan of taking spiritually dead people with no hope and making them His children through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are alive in Christ, by His grace, through faith in our savior Jesus Christ. This work is not from ourselves and is not the result of our own hard work. Jesus is enough to save us! Now we have the privilege to be used by God for good works which He planned from the beginning of time for us to do to His glory and for our joy.