You Are Alive
Text: Eph. 2:1-10
Introduction
1. Illustration: A few years ago, when archaeologists began excavating in the courtyard of a medieval monastery, they found seeds that had been dormant for more than 400 years that had begun to grow. King Henry VIII had closed the monastery in 1539, and herbs tended by the monks died. But they sprouted to life again after the archaeologists disturbed the earth.
2. In our text today, Paul makes it clear that once we were spiritually dead, but God disturbed the earth of our hearts and we came to life.
3. There are three key words or phrases in this part of Paul’s letter:
a. Once
b. But God
c. Saved You by His Grace
4. Read Eph. 2:1-10
Proposition: Once we were spiritually dead, but new we are alive because of the gift of God’s grace.
Transition: First Paul talks about…
I. Once (1-3).
A. Once You Were Dead
1. At the end of the last chapter Paul talked about the resurrection power that believers have in Christ. Now he’s going to talk about why they have that power.
2. Here in v. 1, Paul begins by saying, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.”
a. These believers were dead before they believed and accepted Jesus as their savior.
b. This doesn’t refer only to the physical death of the sinner or to their eternal spiritual death; it also refers to a state of death here and now.
c. Paul views life without Christ as one that is meaningless and not worth living.
d. As we are spiritually dead before our conversion, we are separated from God and unable to experience the full life that God has for us.
e. While we may be physically alive, we are spiritually dead and in need of new life.
3. Now, in order to avoid saying these people were more evil than anybody else, Paul says in vv. 2-3, “You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. “
a. Paul indicates here that we are all in the same boat. He says they used to live in sin just like the rest of the world.
b. Next, he says that used to live by obeying the devil. The Bible pictures Satan as an evil tyrant with a certain power in the world in which we live.
c. Paul refers to the devil as “the commander of the powers of the unseen world,” referring to the space around the world which is the devil’s sphere of influence.
d. Even though his influence on unbelievers is powerful, it is also limited because of Christ’s victory on the cross. He cannot separate us from God.
e. The devil is also “the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.”
f. Because they have not surrendered to God, they are subject to Satan’s evil influence, and this can be seen in the things they do and say and in the things they value.
4. Again, Paul emphasizes the fact at one time we were all like this and we lived not to please God but to please ourselves.
a. He talks about things like our “passionate desires,” and the “inclinations of our sinful nature.”
b. These are legitimate human needs that become distorted and perverted to serve our selfish sinful nature.
c. Paul’s focus here is on the mind. In our lives before Christ our minds were centered on a misguided way of thinking that causes people to do what their sinful nature tells them to do.
d. The mind is Satan’s playground, and before the Holy Spirit starts working in our lives this is how Satan controls us.
5. Paul also says that because of this we were “by our very nature subject to God wrath.”
a. The anger that Paul is talking about here is not a personal emotional outburst, but rather one where God is constant displeasure and reaction against sin.
b. It is not people that God is angry with, but rather it is sin that is the object of God’s wrath.
c. But even still, God sees value in us, and sees us as someone worth saving. That is why God took action to bring us back to himself.
B. All Have Sinned
1. Illustration: Some folks think they are good really good people. Let’s suppose that a person on sins 3 times a day. A sin in the morning, a sin during the day and a sin at night. Sounds like a pretty good person! Let’s think for a moment. If that person is saved at 10 years old and dies at 80 years old that person will commit 76,650 sins in their lifetime! Imagine nearly 80,000 sins and this is from the life of a "good person." The truth is that all have sinned (more than we would really like to know) and all need Jesus.
2. The Bible is clear, we have all sinned, and because of this we deserve death.
a. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Rom. 3:23, NLT).
b. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23, NLT).
c. On account of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden, when they sinned against God, we were all born with an inherent nature bent towards sin.
d. On top of that, we have all willingly sinned against God by not keeping his commandments and living by his Word.
e. You don’t have to be a murderer, an adulterer, a thief or a swindler to not be right with God.
f. Any one sin, despite if we think It severe or not, is enough to keep us separated from God.
g. And there is nothing you can do; no act of charity or righteousness that you can do to change that fact.
h. We are all guilty as charged before a righteous and holy God. And we all deserve both physical and spiritual death.
i. As Jonathan Edward put it, we are “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”
Transition: That all seems pretty bleak, but Paul has good news for us…
II. But God (4-7).
A. So Rich In Mercy
1. This section begins with what I consider the two most important words in the Bible: “But God!” Look at what Paul says in v. 4, “But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much...”
a. The picture in the first three verses was pretty bleak.
b. We were enslaved by sin and our own selfish nature and unable to do anything about it, but God acted because of his love and mercy towards us.
c. The word mercy means “to show kindness or concern for someone in serious need.” (Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996).
d. We were in serious need and God acted to save us. Without God’s mercy we are without hope in the world.
e. God also acted on behalf of humanity because he loved us so very much.
f. The Greek word for love, agape, is used. It means the selfless love that seeks the best for others.
g. While God could have simply destroyed all people because of their sin, he chose instead to show mercy and love.
2. Paul then continues this marvelous thought in v. 5 with, “that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)
a. Once we were dead in our sins, but now God has made us alive, and he did this when he rose Jesus from the dead.
b. The only way spiritually dead people can be made alive is if God acts on our behalf and does something about it.
c. He did this by sending his only Son to die for us the cross and then raising him from the dead.
d. The verb have been saved refers to a past event, which was accomplished by Christ because of God’s grace, with current and ongoing results.
e. Salvation is not something you have to wait for but something that has already been given to us.
3. Then in v. 6 Paul says, “For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.”
a. The point here is that when God raised and exalted Jesus, he raised and exalted us too!
b. Not only have we been given new life, but also because of Jesus resurrection we have also been given the promise of resurrection.
c. And not only resurrection when Christ returns, but we are also able to partake in the risen life from the moment we believe.
d. But it gets better! Since Jesus has been exalted, we have been exalted with him.
e. We have been seated with him at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly realms.
f. If you remember, last week we talked about Jesus being at the right hand of the Father, a place of honor and authority.
g. But Paul tells us here that because of God’s grace we are sitting there too!
4. The purpose of God’s action in saving us is to show people in ages to come the richness of his grace; in intervening for us he shows what kind of character has. In v. 7 Paul writes, “ So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.”
a. God wants to point to us as examples of his amazing grace. God wants quite simply to point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness.
b. The Greek word for “point to” comes from legal terminology. God closes the case by presenting the astounding evidence of his church, his people.
c. The church could only exist by God’s love; the fact of its existence, the fact that people have been offered salvation, reveals the abundance of God’s favor and kindness (Barton, 810).
B. Made You Alive
1. Illustration: Henry David Thoreau, in his classic book, Walden, told of a powerful custom of the Mucclasse Indians. Once each year, they had a village clean up called a "busk." First, they would make new clothes for themselves as well as furniture and cooking utensils. They would keep all of these new things in a building outside of the village. When everything was ready, they would begin their annual spring cleaning. Every corner of every house was scrubbed. Every stick of furniture was thrown out. Every child's toy went to the garbage heap. The dirt paths were swept, and the weeds were plucked up. Even the food left over from winter was thrown out. All of the refuse in the village was gathered together into a pile in the center of the village. Then the chief set it on fire. As they watched it burn, they took off their clothes and tossed them into the fire as well. They tended the fire carefully and made sure that every last piece of garbage was burned.
On the fourth morning, they washed and bathed, and dressed in their new clothes. They then gathered again at the heart of the village. The chief started a new fire and from the flames each family took burning sticks home to start their own fires. The old was gone, life was beginning again!
2. Once we were dead because of our many sins, but God made us alive again in Christ.
a. “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14, NLT).
b. Once we were dead in sin, but God made us alive by raising Jesus from the dead.
c. Once we were lost in sin, but God found us and gave us new life.
d. Once we were without hope, but God gave us real hope by saving us.
e. Once we were blind, but God opened our eyes so we could see,
f. We deserved death, but God gave us mercy.
g. We deserved his wrath, but God gave us his great love.
h. That my friends is the good news!
Transition: The best part of all this is that we didn’t have to do anything to earn it. Because God…
III. Saved You by His Grace (8-10).
A. A Gift From God
1. Paul goes into further explanation of what he had mentioned back in v. 6, the fact that we are saved only by God’s grace. He says in v. 8, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.”
a. We should pay close attention to Paul’s wording here. We are saved by God’s grace and not by our faith.
b. However, faith is how we receive grace. It’s like when someone offers you an exceptional gift and we respond by saying, “Oh, I can’t accept this, it’s too much!”
c. It’s faith, which also comes from God, that enables us to receive his gift of salvation.
d. The point is it all comes from God. Paul makes this clear when he says, “you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.”
e. Nobody works for a gift; they simply receive it. If it’s something we earn it is a wage and not a gift.
2. Paul further illustrates this fact in v. 9 where he says, “Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
a. We can in no way take credit for our salvation, again, because it is a gift. It’s not a reward for being a good person.
b. As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one.11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Rom. 3:10-12)
c. Paul says that none of us can boast about it.
d. No one will be able to stand before God and say I deserve to be in heaven because I was such a good person. Jesus says that when that happens God will simply say, “Away from me I never knew you!”
3. Paul then concludes this section by saying, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
a. The phrase, “we are his masterpiece,” could easily be translated “we are the result of God’s activity.”
b. Salvation and new life are the result of God’s work, and the only thing we can do is receive it.
c. Furthermore, God saved us because he loved us and because he has a job for us.
d. A part of his plan in saving us is that we could “do the good things he planned for us years ago.”
e. We are not saved because of our works, but we are saved for good works. God did not save us so that we could sit on the pew on Sunday morning and be blessed.
f. No, he saved us so that we could be his ambassador’s to world; so that we could tell the world of the great things that God has done for us.
B. Amazing Grace
1. Illustration: Many of you know the story of John Newton and the song he penned "Amazing Grace." You know of his conversion to Christ and how he left the slave trade. He went on to pastor for 40 years. What you may not know that even at 82 years of age, he never ceased to marvel at the grace of God that transformed him so completely. Shortly before his death he is quoted as proclaiming with a loud voice during a message, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior!" What amazing grace! May we worship like this to our last breath!
2. We cannot do anything to make ourselves right with God, but the good news is we don’t have to because Christ has already done it for us.
a. “But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7, NLT).
b. Christian comedian Mike Warnke once said, “He had his life insurance with Jesus Christ Mutual Life, and he didn’t have to worry about the premiums because the payments had already been picked up by the agent!”
c. We have all lived lives filled with sin, but God’s amazing grace covered it all.
d. We have rebelled against a holy God, but God’s amazing grace made us right with God again.
e. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God again, but his amazing grace paid for our sins.
f. Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found. I once was blind but now I see.
Conclusion
1. In our text today, Paul makes it clear that once we were spiritually dead, but God disturbed the earth of our hearts and we came to life.
2. There are three key words or phrases in this part of Paul’s letter:
a. Once
b. But God
c. Saved You by His Grace
3. What’s the point? Once we were dead, but now we are alive because of God’s amazing grace. But there are two things we need to consider.
a. Grace is a gift from God, but we still need to receive it by faith.
b. We need to continue to live in God’s amazing grace.
