“New Life Individually,” Ephesians 2:1-10
Outline
I. Introduction
II. Transition
a. CIT: God recreated us in Christ for good works.
b. CIS: We are individually new creations.
III. Exposition
a. The Chaos. (v.1-3)
i. Humanity lost in its inheritance from Adam.
ii. Humans individually lost in spiritual darkness.
iii. The Enemy of our souls.
iv. Serving the flesh (base sinful desires)
v. Serving the mind (higher pride-driven desires & motives)
b. The Change. (v.4-7)
i. Grace through faith.
ii. Grace brought us back to life spiritually.
1. Dead men don’t respond. (The futility of preaching without the Holy Spirit)
2. Dean men don’t know they are dead. (The futility of moralizing unsaved people)
c. The Response. (v.8-9)
i. Not boasting.
ii. Personal accountability.
1. Alcoholic’s Anonymous, step 9.
iii. Grace is not license.
iv. Penance
1. In our misunderstanding Free Grace as Cheap Grace, we neglect the biblical doctrine of repentance.
d. The Result. (v.10)
i. James 2:17, 26, faith without works is dead.
ii. Philippians 2:12, salvation must be lived. When new life is present it will produce growing evidence.
IV. Conclusion
“New Life Individually,” Ephesians 2:1-10
Introduction
It’s funny how certain traits and happens of people seem to be somehow “built in” to all of us, even from early childhood without even having been taught them. Of late it doesn’t really matter what you confront my soon to be 4 year old son Ephram with, his sister did it. “Hey Ephram, who drew with markers all over the couch?” “Oh, Felicity did that dad. I’ll tell her not to do that next time she tries to do it. Don’t worry Dad, I’ll keep my eye on her.” It seems to be built in, inherent to the human condition, to pass the buck, not take responsibility even for our own actions, and to deny or push away individual personal accountability. However, if we would see the glory of Christ reign in our lives we must first put in the hard work of taking a personal inventory, yielding to God in repentance, and putting the words of our faith into action.
Transition
CIT: God recreated us in Christ for good works. CIS: We are individually accountable to God who transforms and empowers. Repentance is both the gift and the requirement of God. New life is both the blessing and the joy believers. God created us individually for good works and He alone empowers us for the journey and gives us guides, markers, and direction as to which way is most beneficial in the traversing of that journey.
Exposition
The Chaos. (v.1-3) The opening section in the text describes the believers condition before the power of God came into their lives and transformed them.
The text begins with the words “and you” or “as for you.” The writer is making a profoundly personal statement, even though it is a plural, to his audience. Paul is addressing his readers directly as the Holy Spirit addresses us personally now.
Humanity is lost in its inheritance from Adam. Before God took action in Christ on behalf of humanity all was lost. And remember, Christ was slain before the foundation of the earth, we discussed last week. All who are saved in the Old Testament or New Testament dispensations or eras of human history are saved in Jesus Christ. We look back to the Cross. The faithful Old Testament believer looked forward to God’s salvation though unaware of its instrument – the Cross.
The writer says that though we were alive physically, before Christ our spiritual condition was just like the physical condition of Lazarus, whom Jesus called forth from a tomb where death had reined for four days. Jesus called the dead man to life. That is what happens at conversion through repentance through faith in God according to the grace of God. We, who were dead, come back to life.
Salvation is not assent to right religious creed, dogma, or doctrine. It is not merely turning from base lusts and desires. Nor is it an intellectual pursuit.
Humans individually, personally the writer says, are all personally lost in spiritual darkness; groping around in the gloom. The Enemy of our souls, Satan, has enslaved us personally through our own turning and locking of the key as we are busy serving the flesh (our base sinful desires) and serving the mind (higher pride-driven desires & motives).
We look around and we see chaos. Among the greatest evidences of the veracity (truth) of the Bible is how perfectly accurate it is in its diagnosis of the human condition. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6 NIV84)
“The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.” (Ezekiel 18:20 NIV84)
Next week we will talk about the corporate sinfulness and redemption of humanity. Today, let’s look in the mirror. Ours is a day of escapism and scapegoat-ism. While it is true that society and family influence the decisions and choices of individuals I alone am responsible for my choices, for my sin.
The Change. (v.4-7) We are all sinking to our deaths in a pool of our own filling, sinking in the mud of our own making, dying as a result of having chosen to dink poison to our own destruction. Yet, praise be to God who, though we deserve His wrath, pours out grace upon grace through faith.
He doesn’t turn a blind eye to sin; His Grace along rescues us from the pit and brings us back to life spiritually!
When we in disobedience and rebellion were dead, having fallen off of the cliff, while fleeing from God, running with all of our might away from love for the sake of selfish pleasure and sin. Without Christ we all have plummeted to our eternal death through selfish rebellion to Him who gave us life!
We were not falling. We had fallen! You and I were spiritually dead in trespasses and sin and He called out to us through His Word into the darkness of our decaying spiritual state, awakening us to new life.
Before Christ you and I were spiritually dead. We were not misguided. We were not missing out on God’s best for our life now. We were not going to “get it together” someday and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
We were dead! Fallen! In rebellion! Enemies of God! And dead men don’t respond. Friends, Gospel preaching without the Holy Spirit’s power is futile.
Dean men don’t know they are dead. Likewise, moralizing unsaved people is a fool’s venture. There is an old German Proverb which says simply that “If you would have your lamp burn, you must pour oil into it.”
There is no spiritual growth for the unsaved. Any morality and ethics of the unsaved, which many unsaved people have to varying degrees, in fact sometimes in greater measure to many who are saved, stand on shaky ground.
The unsaved person is moral, if they are moral, because it makes sense and it is in their best interest as others will treat them better and they will likely get more out of this life and avoid pain in the process. The saved person’s morality is the consequence of the love of God filling and spilling over into the world.
The unsaved person is ethical, if they are ethical, because they have been taught, very often by a saved family member, that it is the right thing to do. However, that kinds of ethic is entirely situational and will change based on the most practical, personally beneficial choice or response in a given situation.
The saved person’s ethics are constant, rooted in the Scripture, even if it cost them their very physical life. We were dead. Now we are alive in Christ!
The Response. (v.8-9) Our response is rightly a lifestyle of accountability and grace, not boasting. We are all personally accountable for our actions. “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8 NIV84)
The tension in this text is between salvation by grace alone and our need for good works but there is really no tension at all. We need salvation because we are individually responsible for our lost spiritual condition and the right response to having been brought back to life in Christ is to put that life on display to the glory of God and the good of man!
For a time early in my pursuit of the ministry I led a “Celebrate Recovery” group at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is a very similar program to Alcoholics Anonymous only it is less anonymous and more rooted in the Scripture.
One of the key aspects of both programs is personal accountability.
In fact, step 8& 9 of the 12 steps of AA says that we “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. [We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” Grace is not license. Recovery from addictions as will all forms of bondage has a great deal to do with accountability.
The modern Church has to an almost exclusive degree forgone the biblical notions of repentance in favor of pop psychological notions of blame and self worth at any cost. We have made God out to be our servant and the good of our brother and our sister as less than consequential.
We need less prosperity and more penance! We need less comfort and more crucifixion! The most valuable being ever to be veiled in human flesh suffered and died for us and we think that’s the end of the story.
I got my ticket! What else is there? We mistake Free Grace for Cheap Grace, we neglect the biblical doctrine of repentance and our need for accountability. “Life is like a cash register in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.” (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)
The Result. (v.10) The result of salvation is found in verse 10. “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV84) We are not without a purpose.
James 2:17, 26, teaches us that faith without works is dead. Philippians 2:12, says that salvation must be lived out. When new life is present it produces evidence.
This is about more than just heaping more burdens onto the shoulders of believers. This isn’t necessarily about doing more. It might be about doing less of what matters less and more of what matters more.
I remember one fellow Marine who, upon hearing that the forklift was going to be late to unload hundreds of pounds of plates of armor arrived on a flatbed truck, said “Come on guys, let’s start unloading it…” We said, let’s wait for the forklift.
God calls us to work in accordance with His calling on our life. While that isn’t a copout to avoid helping in areas of need, it does mean that we are not supposed to be burning ourselves out with activity. We’ve got to tune into God’s plan.
Conclusion
The other day I was driving with Sebastian and Ephram in the car, taking Sebastian to his home school group program. Christina often spends the day there volunteering in various teaching and other capacities. This day Ephram and I were just dropping Sebastian off. I was surfing around the radio dial and I came across a fuzzy full of static Christian station that was playing a worship song that Sebastian really likes. He said “Dad, stop I love that song.” I think it was Lord I Lift Your Name on High or something similar. He turned up the volume and I told him that I couldn’t stand it will all of that static. He said, “Tune it in better dad! I love this song.” In the old days I would have been able to tweak it just so to get it better but now the stations on the radio are digital and you can’t really tune them just so. Friends, the lines between us and God have to be tuned in so that we can get a hold of God’s purpose for us. What has God called you to do individually? As we will see next week, what Has God called you to do in the Church together?
Desires transformed, new creations personally, individually, tuned into God’s plan, working for God out of response to His grace. That’s what new life individually looks like. Praises be to God.
