"Under New Management"

Under New Management

Ephesians 2:1-10

I. Consider Your Past 2:1-2:3

A. You WERE Dead 2:1

B. You WERE Unrighteous 2:2-2:3a

C. You WERE Objects of Wrath 2:3b

II. Celebrate Your Present 2:4-2:6; 2:8-2:10

A. BY GRACE you ARE Saved 2:4-5; 2:8-9

B. BY GRACE you ARE Raised 2:6

C. BY GRACE you ARE Recreated 2:10

III. Rejoice in your Future 2:7

Introduction:

Once upon a time... There was a young illerate couple named Dave and Carol. Dave and Carol had recently confessed faith in Jesus Christ and were baptised. And wanting to be more involved in the activities of the church, they regularly attended the Sunday School class for young married couples. And they learned that in this particular Sunday school class, the men all had the same shirts which they would often wear during certain group activities. Wanting to be part of the group, Dave was eager to get HIS matching shirt, so Carol made one for her husband. But after the next meeting, Dave came home with a look of disappointment on his face. He had his shirt, but at the meeting he noticed that all the men had little emblems on their shirts--Dave’s was plain. So Carol, undaunted by her inability to read, sewed three words which she copied from a sign in a store window across the street. Dave wore it at the next meeting. But this time he came home bubbling with joy. He said all the men really liked the inscription that Carol had put on his shirt. They said it so aptly described the wonderful change they had seen in his life. It turned out that his wife had written, "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT."

You see, we all enter this world under management. We all live our lives under management. And we all die under management. Sadly, too many people are living their lives--and too many people are dying--with the same management under which they were born.

The Bible says that we were all born in sin--that we have from birth a nature that is sinful. So many people around us are living and dying in that sin. But the Bible also says that you don’t have to live in sin... and you don’t have to die in sin.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you are no longer under the old management. Through what Jesus did on the cross you have a new nature, and you have been placed under new management. In ephesians 2:1-10, the Apostle Paul provides encouragement for the believer, he gats at the very heart of who we WERE, who we ARE, and who we WILL BE.

I. Consider Your Past 2:1-2:3

A. You WERE Dead 2:1

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

Now, Paul is not speaking about physical death. John Calvin insisted that Paul is speaking of a "real and present death." Ephesians 4:18 says: "Being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart."

Sin places a body of death upon us. In Romans 7:24 Paul describes the effects of sin. "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" This term to which Paul alludes is descriptive of a shocking execution that was employed by the Romans. A cadaver would be fastened to the condemned person so that he could not be released from the corpse. every move he made was accompanied by the deceased. the decaying flesh of this cadaver would spawn disease and infection upon the condemned individual. Eventually... he would die a slow, painful, and emotionally horrifying death.

Many years ago there was a popular movie entitled "The Way We Were." The characters in the movie spent most of their time taking a sentimental look at the past. That is the way most of want to remember the past. After all, they were "The good ol’ days!" Paul is saying here that the "good old days" were not at all good. He said, "You WERE Dead." The operative word here is not the word "dead" but the qualifier..."WERE" "You WERE Dead." As we reflect on our past we must keep in mind that we are believers in Jesus Christ, we WERE Dead in sin, but by His marvelous Grace, we are NO LONGER dead in sin.

Paul does not simply stop at this point. He goes further to say that we were not only dead in our sin, we were unrighteous.

B. You WERE Unrighteous 2:2-2:3a

2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,