Ephesians Chapter 2 Series

PREACHING THROUGH EPHESIANS

PART 2

Copyright 1987

By

Bob Marcaurelle

Bob Marcaurelle

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Ephesians-Part. 2 Sermon 1

Bob Marcaurelle Eph. 2:1-8

FROM SIN’S GRAVEYARD TO GOD’S GRACE

When we move from chapter one to chapter two we go from theology to experience. Paul’s description of Christ’s power (1:19-23) reminds him of his conversion and he breaks out in an exciting passage about salvation. The theme is so thrilling to Paul that his writing here is a nightmare of Greek construction. He begins sentences he never finishes. He is pouring out his heart, says Barclay, and the claims of grammar give way to the wonders of grace. Paul never lost the thrill of being saved and neither should we.

Here the plan of God in eternity and the purchase of Christ on Calvary becomes a reality in history. Chapter two tells us two things God does for lost sinners. Number one, He gives them life (2:1-10) and number two, He joins them together, Jew and Gentile, into one spiritual temple (2:11-21). We are taken from the graveyard of sin and placed into the throne room of glory. No wonder Paul was excited.

I. THE SIN THAT RUINS US (2:1-3).

Paul begins the good news of salvation with the bad news of sin. An old country preacher said, “The hardest thing about getting people saved is getting them lost.” He is right. We have a high view of human nature (especially our own) and have a difficult time seeing ourselves as horrible sinners. Paul uses “you” here for the Gentiles and “we” for the Jews and shows that whether we grow up in the respectability of religion or the shame of paganism we are sinners who need salvation.

The reason the Bible is down on human nature is twofold. The first is because it is true. God is like a doctor with a frown on His face telling us what He knows about us. The second reason is so we will seek help and be delivered. In a famous museum there is a display on flies. It shows flies going from a dead dog to a baby’s hand, from a pile of manure to a spoon on the table. At the center of the exhibit is a giant replica of a fly, portrayed with all its hideous ugliness. People see this and then run out and buy the best fly swatter money can buy. They patch the holes in the screens. They kill every fly on sight, It is for the same reason that Paul shows us the ugly horrors of the sin that ruins us. First he gives. . .

1. The Definitions (2:1). “As for you, you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (2:1). In verse one he uses two general words for sin, and combined, they tell us what sin is. 1) To Miss the Mark. The first word, translated “sins” is hamartia and it means literally “to miss the mark.” The picture if that of an arrow that fails to hit the target. We are rebels against God and become twisted perversions of what we were meant to be. We miss the mark of true humanity. Whatever else we say about man, said C.S. Lewis, he is not what he should be. Bertrand Russell said that if there was life on other planets then they must be using ours for their insane asylum.

The concept of missing the mark captures and condemns us all. It is easy to think of drunks and adulterers and murderers as sinners but we are too respectable for such a label. But do we live up to our potential as husband? as wives? as parents? as sons and daughters? as neighbors? Sin means to miss the mark and we are all guilty. Sin is not something the theologians have invented. It is something that soaks and saturates our lives through and through. It keeps us from reaching our own standards, from being what even we know we ought to be. 2) To Miss the Way. The second word for sin, translated “trespasses” is the word “paraptoma.” It literally means “to sleep” or “to fall” and was often used for those who fell away from the right and wound up traveling on the wrong road. We do not fall short (hamartia) reaching for the good. We are on the wrong road altogether. We are headed in the wrong direction. We miss the mark because we are shooting at the wrong things in life. It is not that we try and fail but that we fail to try.

2. The Descriptions. Sin cannot be fully defined with Greek and Hebrew words. We need to look at the awful descriptions of its results. Paul mentions four: 1) Death (2:1). “As for you, you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (2:1). Paul describes sin as living death. What does he mean? The sentence of spiritual death fell on Adam and Eve and the human race when they rebelled against God (Gen. 3, Rom. 5:12).