EPHESIANS # 3
From the first part of Chapter 1, we learn these transforming truths.
“I am blessed... with every spiritual blessing!”
“I am included in God’s family by His design and will.”
“I am valued because He invests His grace in me.”
“I am at rest because I am included in Christ.”
In the second part of Chapter 1, there is a prayer for
wisdom and revelation that will lead us to know Christ better.
The prayer goes on to ask for us to see clearly the power that is ours in Christ.
It is RESURRECTION power, COMPLETED power, and RULING power.
Oh, what a letter this is. In just a few chapters, Paul who was inspired by the Holy Spirit, sums up the Gospel.
TEXT - Ephesians 2:1-10 PB 1818
This whole passage hinges on two words in v. 4 – “But, God...” With those words darkness is turned light, hopelessness is thrown aside for favor, a desperate situation is changed to one of amazing destiny!
READ
“Dead”
The universal plight of humanity is death and not the death we commonly think of with corpses, coffins, and cemeteries! The greater problem is spiritual death.
When the Bible says, “you’re dead” there is no hyperbole or allegorical intention. It means what it says. We moderns, in love with this present world as we are, work hard to convince ourselves that life goes on unending here. The fact is that this life is a prelude to an existence that stretches into eternity. As he talked with Martha, the sister of his friend, Lazurus, who had died, Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26, NIV)
There is a pre-existing fatal condition that renders us walking dead men. That condition? Sin!
The passage uses two words to define the fatal disease. First is ‘transgressions.’
These are the things we do when we wander, deluded, deceived into places forbidden by God. We don't plan to disobey God many times, but we find that we do. Romans 7 says that even when we have good intentions, we end up going wrong. "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong." (Romans 7:18-21, NLT)
Desperate, isn’t it?
The Bible secondly speaks of “sins.” As hard as it to admit, sometimes with our wills fully in function, we make the choice to do what we know is wrong. We are aware that our actions are morally inexcusable, but we choose to do what we want to do anyway.
Beyond individual choices, there are two additional causes for spiritual death, rooted in LARGER issues.
We die because we ‘walk in the ways of this world.’ We let the values and fashions of the godless shape our choices. Yes, it happens to everyone of us, no matter how non-conforming we think we are.
We die because we are controlled by the ‘ruler of the kingdom of the air.’ Evil is not just a force! It is personified. A created being of immense power and influence rules invisibly. His aim is to destroy anything and anyone God loves. He is crafty, drawing humanity to his schemes, yet hiding his diabolical intentions.
And, we die to God. We are as incapable of responding to him as a corpse is to responding to the expressions of love that spill from grieving friends and family. Why? Again because ...
we wander from God’s ways,
we willfully choose to disobey Him,
we are captivated by the values of our world, and
we are deluded by the Devil!
How widespread is this fatal disease? "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." (Ephesians 2:3, NIV)
The gavel of the Judge of Everyman comes down with a bang. The verdict- Guilty! The sentence death!
This kind of preaching is rejected by many in our tolerant time. It is frightening, some say. It devalues human beings others insist. It ignores the Gospel of Jesus, some declare. It is frightening, but the truth often is. However, the desperation of our natural state, the fact that we were guilty and deserving to be consigned to death and destructon by our Creator, makes the Gospel even more amazing!
The fatal condition has a remedy, and that is the rest of the Story!
Then comes that hinge verse. Read v. 4-5
But, God - a divine intervention- is celebrated here.
When I was much younger, we spoke often of someone ‘getting saved.’ Mockers made it a term of derision. “Saved from what,” they ask? But it is an apt description. We were adrift, as good as dead, cut off from God and life. End of story, as far as we are concerned.
But, God ... He stepped into the situation and rescued us.
Why?
This is where it gets really intriguing for us.
If I save something, it’s because there is some value in it. I retrieve something I’ve discarded because I realize I can use, or because I see a new use, or because I remember something of its past value to me. God saves you and me because of His love, mercy, grace, and kindness. In our conceit we may hope that we can add to His value or that He needs us in some way or another. This is simply not true.
Paul’s words underline that fact repeatedly! Love, mercy, grace, and kindness in the mind of God is why He intervened.
re-read v. 4-10
Grace is not a new idea for Christians, yet it one we grow familiar with and, in that familiarity, SOME of us lose the wonder of it.
ill.- I sometimes think we should start every worship gathering with a time that calls us to reflect back over the previous week - prompted to think of every impatient act, every selfish moment, every slight to someone for whom we had no consideration, every angry word we uttered when someone irritated us, every failure to respond to the Spirit’s call - and then, after we confessed those sins - we could sing “Amazing Grace,” and mean it!
This passage speaks of the ‘incomparable riches’ of God’s grace. There is just nothing on earth that illustrates His gift to us. We did not deserve it. We did not invite it. Yet, He gave it, a commitment of Himself.
And what does God’s grace do for us?
It makes those of us once as good as dead ‘alive with Christ.’ You and I are already immortal creatures. But, we are only SPIRITUALLY alive and destined for HEAVEN - if we are ‘in Christ.’ This body of mine will die at some point, but that moment will not mean the end of my existence, at all. Because I am alive with Christ, it will only be a change of address; a release from the limits of time and space into the unimaginable.
There is a phrase that we must not quickly pass by in this text. "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus," (Ephesians 2:6, NIV) Last week, I pointed out that to be seated was a way of signaling completion, the job was done. In our day to day experience, we are working out the implications of what it means to be a Christian.
We do that better on some days than others, don’t we? Our natural inclination, because of the way things work in human relationships, is to assume that God, the Father, loves us a little more on our good days. But, here the Word asks us to focus away from our performance to His work. His grace, received by faith, does a finished work in me. It is as if I’m already in Heaven!
Some people push that idea to the extreme and abuse God’s gift. They ‘sin and grin,’ not living a holy life, not walking in the Spirit as they ought to. Their lives make a mockery of grace. So, you might ask, are they still Christians? Are they saved? That’s God’s knowledge alone. But, here’s what I know - it’s a sad, miserable Christian who gains his assurance of God’s love and favor by tracking his own performance.
(In weeks to come we will read in this same book of the call to holy living!)
Right now, the spotlight is what God’s gift is and how it changes our lives.
Salvation begins with God’s gift - Grace. How does it become ours? By faith!
Faith is not the same as belief. I believe many things that I do not act upon, therefore I cannot claim FAITH.
Ill.- I believe that exercise would improve the quality of my life and help me to live longer.
But, I don’t regularly exercise.
There are millions of people who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for their sins, and that He was raised to life at the Resurrection. But, they don’t have faith. If they did, their lives would begin to align with the will of God, but they don’t! Why? Because they only believe, they do not act in faith.
James says contrasts saving faith with belief in this passage.
“Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!?” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup? Where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham made right with God by works when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works?
That the works are “works of faith?”
The full meaning of ‘believe’ in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.”
Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape, that seamless unity of believing and doing, what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”
Jas 2:14-26 The Message
Yet, let’s not get the wrong idea. We can’t save ourselves. It’s a gift, it is from God, and it is God’s plan.
The world is full of religionists who started with the focus on God and ended up congratulating themselves for being one of the good guys. It is a subtle trap.
God’s Spirit comes into our sin-dead lives and we are RAISED to NEW LIFE.
As we are ‘in Christ,’ the evidence of His life starts to show. People take note, admiring the change that has come over us. And, the temptation is to become quite the show-off. Even as we say, “O praise God. He’s really done a good thing in me,” there is sometimes this unspoken thought.... and I’m sure I am in a whole different class than you.
When that happens, and it does, let’s hit our knees in confession. “I did it again, Lord. I took credit for what You did.”
Yes, we’re alive in Him!
Given grace that saves, which we accept by faith, we enter into NEW life.
It’s a done deal, as if we’re already seated in Heaven right alongside of Jesus.
So, "No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. " (Ephesians 2:10, The Message)
God's workmanship, displaying His craftsmanship.
ill- when we lived in Massachusetts, just a couple of miles down the road, was the studio of Daniel Chester French. He was the sculptor who gave us the sitting Lincoln we see in DC's Lincoln Memorial. He crafted that likeness of Lincoln, one chip at a time, from a block of marble. Was is God making of you, one day at a time?
Amen
