God's Gift

Ephesians 2:1-9

“God’s Gift”

We are living in a time of grace. It is a time where God is patiently waiting for the full number of people to be gathered by the call of His Word. God is using those of us who trust Him as witnesses to His grace. We are people who were formally numbered among the dead and dying. We are called to tell our story of how God has brought us from death to life through His Son Jesus Christ. The stories vary in the details of our former life, but they all share the common thread of God’s gift of salvation revealed to us by means of His Word. God in His love reached out to the dying race of humanity and provided the necessary gift that we could not supply for ourselves. This gift comes only through Jesus Christ. It is intended for every human being and is given to all who believe.

The first thing we need to hear from scripture is that…

Everyone needs God’s Gift

This is where verse 1 of our text begins. Talk about a reality check. Paul states clearly that “you were dead in your transgressions and sins”. The entire canon of scripture supports this sad state of affairs. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 5:12 echoes, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” Every man, woman and child is born with the infectious disease known as sin. Sin is everything that is contrary to God’s holy law and includes both inherited and actual sin. No one is immune from this. The fact is we are all infected from the point of conception. Psalm 51:5 points this out. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The Bible says that at one point all of us were dead in our sins.

Scripture goes on to say that we deserve this death. Romans 6:23 declares that the wages of sin is death. Wages are something that we earn and deserve. These wages come in the form of an inheritance that is rightfully ours. It has been passed down from Adam’s single act of disobedience. Romans 5:18 puts it this way, “The result of one trespass was condemnation for all people.” Verse 3 of our text this morning proclaims the gruesome truth of where we were with respect to our sinful nature. We were by nature objects of wrath. There are no loopholes in the law of God’s Word. The truth is every single person from infant to elderly needs God’s Gift.

The good news is…

God’s Gift delivers salvation!

Verses 4 and 5 declare to us, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions!” In light of our sinful state we were a corpse, unable to do, think, say, or react in any way. But God… God in His great love for us would not allow us to remain in that state. His Word tells us that He made us alive. And this life comes through Christ. The pirates who said, “Dead men tell no tales”, didn’t know the power of the living Word of God!

In the first chapter of John, Jesus is described as the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Where the Word is there God is also. God shows up and works through His Word. In His Word to us He tells us that salvation by grace through faith is His gift to us. Ephesians 2:8,9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.” Salvation comes to us because of God’s grace. His grace is delivered by means of faith. And according to these verses faith is a gift that we can not supply. Neither you nor I nor anyone else can supply it.

2 Corinthians 4:4 explains that, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Every one of us at some point was an unbeliever. God’s Word here clearly tells us that in that state we cannot see the light of the gospel. Like a person neck deep in quick sand, we need to be rescued. Thanks be to God, that’s exactly what happens! God comes to all people in the same way. He comes to supply us with His Gift of faith that enables us to believe and trust Jesus for our salvation.