By Grace Through Faith Series

By Grace Through Faith

Ephesians 2:1-10

Rev. Brian Bill

January 27-28, 2024

Last weekend, we were in the Chicago suburbs to witness our grandson Mack’s baby dedication while you heard Pastor Chris do a superb job preaching on the sanctity of life with both conviction and compassion!

On Saturday, we pulled into a drive-through, and I placed our order. When I came to the first window, I used my debit card to pay the cashier. For some reason, the line didn’t move for about five minutes (imagine that). I found myself getting frustrated, so I tried to focus on other things. When we finally got to the second window, I handed my debit card to the worker. She looked at me quizzically and said it was already paid for. I asked her who paid for it. We naturally assumed that someone in front of us blessed us, so we started waving to them and mouthing our thankfulness.

When I looked back inside the window, several employees were huddled up, pointing at me, and then looking at the screen. When the worker came back, she told me the person in front didn’t pay for our order. I was totally confused and then I realized that I had already paid for it at the first window!

It’s easy for me to get distracted and end up forgetting important details, especially as I get older. I submit that as we get older as Christians, it’s easy to forget the essential truth of the gospel that everything has already been paid for by Christ.

The passage we’ll be studying today contains the essence of the grace of the gospel and has been used by God to bring many to salvation. I pray that some of you will be saved today.

Please stand and let’s read Ephesians 2:1-10 together.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Here’s a summary of the sermon in one sentence: God saves dead sinners by His grace for His glory, leading us to deeds of service.

This passage begins with our condition apart from Christ.

1. Our plight: We were dead in sin. Listen again to verse 1 and the first part of verse 2: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…” The word “dead” literally means a “corpse.” Ray Pritchard writes, “When God looks down from heaven, the whole world looks like a cemetery to Him. All He sees are dead people. Above every corpse is a three-word epitaph: ‘DEAD THROUGH SIN.’”

This is an absolute and universal statement, not a figure of speech. Life without Christ is a living death. One commentator remarked, “Paul’s use of the metaphor of death is significant, as it allows for no middle ground; a person is either dead or alive.”

The word “trespasses” refers to wrongdoing and was used of “slipping and falling,” like many of us have done this winter. The term “sins” refers to “missing the mark.” The Puritans called this, “the exceeding sinfulness of sin.”

Notice these terms are in the plural, which means we fall short repeatedly and continuously. In fact, we once “walked” or lived in our trespasses and sins, leading to death. In Genesis 2:17, God gave a warning to Adam to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death…”

According to verses 2-3, we were controlled by three enemy forces.

• The world. We followed “the course of this world…” Kent Hughes writes, “Those without Christ are captive to the social and value system of this present age, which is hostile to Christ.”