Well, good morning.
So last March. Remember, remember back that far?
I did some stuff in Ephesians one. And I'd like to continue. Those thoughts into chapter 2.
So. R, remember chapter divisions and verse divisions. They're all made up.
And sometimes you have to wonder, especially in Ephesians, why did they divide it there? You know, in chapter one, they'll put a verse.
Right in the middle of a sentence And people when when they memorize. Versus they memorize a verse.
And sometimes the verse cuts off right, right in the middle of a sentence or. A new sentence will begin with a few words at the end of a verse.
So you kind of lose the thought. And chapter divisions are just as bad. So what when you're reading things when you're when your memory, especially when you're memorizing, don't memorize verses.
Memorize sentences. That way at least you get a full thought. Okay. So we're going to look at chapter 2.
This week and next week, but. I want you to go back to chapter one. Because Paul, he lists a series of thoughts.
That are important. To get in your mind before you jump into chapter 2. In chapter 2. It's kind of a reminder.
In fact, he even goes so far and and says that.
In chapter 2. Verse 11 remember Remember the past.
Verse 12, I tellicized, but remember. And so chapter 2 is a reminder.
Of the past and then consider what he's done. So back in chapter one. He goes through this list of everything that God's done for us.
So, verse 4, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Verse 5, he predestined us.
To adoption as sons. First 7, we have redemption through his blood. Verse 9, he made known to us the mystery of his will.
First 11, we have obtained an inheritance. Verse 13, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of Promise.
And then chapter 2. And you were dead in your trespasses and since. So he's reminding these guys, okay, look, look at everything that God has done for you.
But don't forget where you came from. And that's what he's going to get at here in the beginning of chapter 2.
So he says, and you were dead. In your trespasses and since.
And when we think of death, we think of a corpse.
That's not the right way to think of death. Especially here. Death if you want a definition of death I can give you a one word definition of death.
And it's separation. Okay, and it applies to every form of death. We've got physical death, we've got spiritual death, we've got eternal death, and in every case One thing is separated from another.
So with physical death. My spirit is separated from my body. And, and in fact, if you look at, I'll just give you the reference, but some 1 46 4.
His spirit departs. He returns to the earth. So you've got the body, the spirit leaves separated from the body, the body goes to the earth.
Okay, they're separate. You've got spiritual death. This is where the individual is separated from God in the here and now.
And this is, this is the death he's talking about here. You were separated from God right now.
In your trespasses and since. In Isaiah 59. Isaiah says in verses one and 2, behold the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save.
Nor is his ear so dell that it cannot hear. He's perfectly capable of of reaching out and grabbing hold of you.
He's perfectly capable of hearing. You cry out. The problem is not on his end. The problems on RN.
Verse 2, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
It's not that God can't hear, it's not that God can't reach out.
The problem is our iniquities, our sins have separated us from God.
That's spiritual death.
Now. If we take it. Into the next realm. It becomes eternal death.
And, and this is what Paul gets at in in second Thessalonians one. Versus all verse 9.
These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord.
So spiritual death. Will give way to eternal death. If the person dies without Christ. So death in however you want to use it is simply one thing separated from another.
That's all it is. So Paul's reminding the Thessalon or the the Ephesians.
You were dad you were separated from God in your trespasses and since. And then he goes on.
And he explains how this happened. It wasn't something that happened to us.
It's something we did ourselves.
Which so you're dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world.
So our trespasses and sins, we walked in them. It's, it's not something that was.
Imposed upon us.
It's not something that that happened to us. We, we chose this path. We did this willingly.
We formerly walked according to the course of this world and and later on when we, get a little bit further this morning, there, there's a different path.
That's laid out. But this is the path that was in front of us and instead of choosing some different path, oh yeah, let's let's let's walk this way.
So we formerly walked according to the course of this world. And later on in Ephesians in chapter 4, he talks about our former manner of life.
And he calls that former manner of life the old self.
Some Bibles have the old man. So when we talk about the old man, this is what I was.
Before I came to know Christ. And just as a side note. The old man is not the flesh.
I can't get rid of the flesh. The flesh is my sin nature. I'm stuck with that.
Until I die. But I can lay aside the old self. And that's what he gets at in chapter 4.
He says, lay aside the old self your former manner of life
The flesh we're stuck with. We have a new nature. We've got the Holy Spirit living in us.
But I can lay aside the old self. He says in Colossians chapter one, you were formerly alienated.
Well, there's that idea of separation again. I'm alienated from God. I'm, I'm separated from God.
Postile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. In. He goes into this whole list and very similar to what he says in Ephesians.
In fact, when you when you compare Ephesians and Colossians. Colossians is is kind of like an abbreviated Ephesians.
Any says in them you once walked when you were living in them. I lived there. I, I took up residence there.
So I walked according to the course of this world according to the prints of the power of the air.
The spirit. That is now working. In the sons of disobedience. So the Prince of the Power of the Air, Paul calls him.
The God of this world. Jesus calls him the ruler of this world. John says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
He's the deceiver. And so he. Deceives. He leads astray.
He puts thoughts into our minds. We don't have to listen.
But we choose to. So. Being lost, we, I mean, there, what other choice do we have?
Without Christ, my only other option is, is this. So we we walked according to the course of this world.
We walked according to the Prince of the Power of the Air. He's the spirit that's working in the sons of disobedience.
And Paul mentions these guys later on in chapter 5. He mentions them again in Colossians.
The sons of disobedience are lost. We at one time were sons of disobedience.
We disobeyed God. And that's why we were lost.
And then he says in verse 3, Among them, we too. Notice he changes his pronouns.
And, and he does this. Couple times. If you go back to chapter one.
The beginning of the chapter, he talks about we, we, And then in verse 13, he says in him, you also.
So we've done this. We've done this. We've done this. And you also.
Here it's the other way around. You did this, you did this, you did this, and we also.
We're no different. So you've got this, this Jew Gentile distinction going on.
And in chapter one, he's basically saying all these things that God has done for us, Jews, he's done for you Gentiles as well.
And in chapter 2, he's saying, you Gentiles did all of these things and we Jews, even though we're the, we were the chosen people of God, we were no better.
We were just as bad as you were. And you look at, for example, Israel wandering in the wilderness.
You got you got to shake your head and you know I know we would we would have been any better but you know hindsight all that.
You've got the visible presence of God. This pillar of cloud during the day, this pillar of fire by night, and then you turn around and make a golden calf?
Really? You, you do all of these things. He's feeding you with manna every morning except the Sabbath.
So on the Friday before he gives you twice as much and you keep it overnight on Friday and it doesn't spoil try and do that any other day during the week and it spoils.
He's given you water from the rock. Twice! He's fed you with quail.
And you still go against him?
Yeah. So Paul is basically kind of reminding these guys, yeah, we, we're not any better.
Yeah, you Gentiles are bad. We did the same thing. Among them, the sons of disobedience.
We too all formerly lived. In the lusts of our flesh.
We lived there. We. We took up residence there. The less of our flesh.
Was where we dwelt.
We indulged. The desires of the flesh. And of the mind. It wasn't just that we
Did these things, we were constantly thinking these things.
In in Genesis 6.
Jump back there for a minute.
You've got the corruption of mankind.
And in verse 5.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.
That every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Every thought. Every intent! Of the thoughts of his heart. Was only evil.
Continually!
Apart from NOAA? There was no one. Who had good thoughts. Every thought that passed through mankind's mind was only evil.
Continually! And here, Paul is basically saying the same thing. We indulge the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
Our thoughts like your thoughts, Gentiles. We're only evil continually. And we were by nature, just like you.
Children of Wrath. Even as the rest. So he he paints this this bleak picture. And there are other places, for example, in Romans, 7, 18, he says, I know that nothing good dwells in me.
Nothing good dwells in. The lost. Now, you gotta be careful there. You know, obviously, We can see some good in people, but our standard is really low.
If we look at it from God's perspective, he's the standard of goodness. I'm not the standard of goodness.
If I were the standard of goodness, yeah, there'd be lots of good people. I know lots of good people if I'm the standard of goodness, but I'm not the standard of goodness.
You're not the standard of goodness. God's the standard of goodness. And Paul says, there's nothing good that dwells in me.
In fact, in Romans chapter 3, he says, there's none righteous, there's none who understands there's none good.
So from God's perspective, from God's standard, there, there's nothing good in us.
And, you know, when, when we look at. The sin that we see in the world. Why would we expect anything else?
They're not capable of anything else. This is the world we're talking about here. These people are lost.
Why would I expect them to live up to some higher standard? There is no higher standard for them. So I really shouldn't be shocked.
By the things I see in the news. I should be shocked if I see anything other than what I see in the news.
So he gives this this picture by nature, children of wrath. And then he gives the contrast.
But God. Things are different now. This is what you were like. But now things are different, but God!
Just, you know, do a word search in in your Bible app. I'm sure all of you have a Bible lap.
On your phone or computer. Just do a word search on the phrase, but god. There there's a number of them.
They all offer some really good contrasts. But God being rich in mercy. So here, Paul is talking about the riches of the mercy of God.
In chapter one, he talked about the riches of the grace of God. He talks about in chapter one.
The the grace of God is freely bestowed. It's lavish. He doesn't hold it back.
He doesn't say, Jeff, you only need this much. And that's all you're going to get.
He says, Jeff. Here, take it all. I know it's more than you can handle, but just take it all.
And there's more if you need more. It's freely bestowed, it's lavish, the riches of his grace, the riches of his mercy.
Be because of his great love with which he loved us. So here's here's where you've got to think.
His mercy and his grace. Are because of his love.
So God is love. And because God is loved, therefore God loves. And because of that love We have mercy and grace.
It's like the love of God is the soil. And out of the soil. Springs Mercy.
And grace. And the fruit of mercy and grace. Are everything we enjoy, forgiveness. Justification, sanctification, redemption, reconciliation, so on and so forth.
So the soil.
Is the love of God. From that comes mercy and grace from that comes everything else that we enjoy.
God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. And you know, when you think of John 3 16.
We're so used to reciting that verse for God to love the world that he gave it. That we We don't emphasize certain things in that verse.
And. The word I think that should be emphasized the most. Is that little itty bitty word so?
I'm not even sure what part of speech it is. For God's still loved the world.
He loved the world so much. That he gave his only begotten son.
We can't even begin to fathom that kind of love. You know, you think of, I always go back to lamentations.
Chapter 3, Jeremiah. I picture Jeremiah. Sitting on the mountain of olives, looking west at the city of Jerusalem going up in flames because of the Babylonians.
Temples being destroyed. And he goes through all of this. These horrible things that are happening and right smack in the middle of that.
He talks about the loving-kindness of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies, his compassion, they never fail. He's, he's watching his beloved city.
Being leveled. By the Babylonians. And right in the middle of that, the Lord reminds him, hey.
My love never ceases in spite of everything that you're seeing happening My love never ceases. Even, even in the midst of Jerusalem being leveled.
My compassion's never fail.
The very fact that you're alive, Jeremiah. Proves that. And that's the next point Paul makes.
Even when we were dead in our transgressions. The mercy of God, the love of God, the grace of God, even when we were dead in our transgressions.
He didn't wait for us to get our acts together and then, OK, yeah, you progressed enough.
I can love you now.
Even when we were totally separated.
Even though we were alienated, hostile in mind like Paul says in Colossians, engaged in evil deeds.
He loved us. There's the riches of his mercy, the riches of his grace.
So even when we were dead in our transgressions. And here's what he did. 3 things.
He made us Alive. Together with Christ. We were dead? He made us alive.
The same life. That Christ has. Our life. We are alive together with him.
This is the whole idea of regeneration. Being born again. To a living hope. Like Peter says, we've been.
Made alive. And then he adds parenthetically, by grace you've been saved.
You didn't deserve it. Yes, certainly didn't earn it.
It's by grace that freely bestowed lavish. Rich grace he talked about in chapter one.
So he made us alive. And raised us up with him.
That's an interesting thought. Okay, I'm raised up with Christ. Now notice what he doesn't say.
He doesn't say you've been made alive with him and will be raised up with him.
He says, you've been made alive with him. And raised up with him.
It's, it's already done.
And again, this isn't from my perspective. From my perspective, I'm still here. I still deal with the flesh.
I still deal with temptation. I have to still confess my sin. But from God's perspective, it's a done deal.
I am alive. I am raised up. And seated with him. In the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
I'm already there. Were already there.
I. I have a hard time. Finding a better place. For eternal security.
We're already there. Who's going to kick us out? He's not going to do it.
We've been made alive. We've been raised up. We've been seated with him in the heavenly places.
And then he gives us the reason he did that. Verse 7. So that in the ages to come.
So when we are Finally, experiencing these things.
So from his perspective, it's already done, but I'm not experiencing this yet. Yes, I've experienced being made alive.
I'm born again. I have new life, but
I'm not raised up yet. I'm not seated from my perspective with him in the heavenly places.
From his perspective, we are. So that in the ages to come. The way he sees things then becomes a reality for me.
In the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness.
Toward us in Christ Jesus. Show it to who?
I guess you can look at it a couple different ways. One way is. From my perspective. That surpassing riches of his grace and kindness isn't going to stop.
When I'm there. It's going to keep on going.
I'm going to see more and more. He's going to show me more and more of his grace and kindness every moment.
If we can use that terminology in eternity. But every moment of every day for all eternity.
I'm going to see it. He's going to show it to me. Or you could look at it from the perspective.
Of you and me.
You're gonna see it in me. I'm gonna see it in you. We're gonna see in one another the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness.
So, that's what we're going to. We're going to look at one another and see each other.
As objects of his grace.
You know, we may come upon. Individuals in glory like, oh. You're here. Or hmm, how did you make it?
That's the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness.
And then he reminds them. This grace I've been talking about. This riches of his mercy, by grace you've been saved, the surpassing riches of his grace.
That's how you were saved. For by grace. You have been saved.
It is purely. Only. By the grace of God that we've been saved through faith. There there is nothing else.
We certainly didn't earn it. And we certainly don't deserve it. It is by grace you've been saved through faith.
And that, now the question is, what is the that? And that, not of yourselves. And this is where we get into all sorts of theological debates.
You know, what's the that? I would suggest at least dramatically.
That the that Okay. Well, getting ahead of myself. We have 3 options here. We've got grace.
We've got saved. And we've got phase. That goes back to one of those 3.
So the question is, is that none of yourselves a reference to grace? Is that not of yourselves a reference to saved or is that not of yourselves a reference to faith?
And I would suggest this. That is a reference to Saved.
Svation is the gift.
Okay, and. For example, in Romans 3 were justified as a gift. The gift of God is eternal life.
So our salvation is the gift. That is not of ourselves.
Grace? Is how that gift is given. Bay is how that gift is received.
We don't deserve the gift. We don't deserve salvation. We don't deserve eternal life.
We don't deserve to be justified. But God is graciously giving us the offer. Here, it's yours.
And what does John 1 12 say? As many as received him. And that word kind note. It kind of misses.
The nuance. It's not so much that we receive him. It's more that we take him.
So as many as have. Take in him. God is saying, here's the gift.
If you want it, take it. How do I take it? I take it by faith.
It's offered in grace. I take it in faith.
It's not of yourselves. And it's not the result of works. I mean, you see that throughout the New Testament.
We can't work for it. We can't earn it. And the reason is so that no one may bose.
If we could earn salvation, then you can rest assured we'd be up in heaven patting ourselves on the back.
Hey! Here's what I did to get this. What did you do? Oh, that's it.
Not going to happen. We are his workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus. For good works. Now. The works, given what he said in the.
Previous verse isn't what saves us. The works is the proof.
That were saved. This is the fruit. Not the root!
We were his workmanship were created in Christ Jesus for good works. This is pretty much what Paul gets at in.
And Philippians, for example, 1 6. He who began a good work in you? We'll complete it!
Philippians 2 13. It is God who was at work in you. We are his workmanship.
He began a work in us. He created us in Christ. 4 good works! Which he prepared beforehand.
That we would walk in them. It's it's like verse one in verse 10 Go together verse one.
He says. Or sorry, verse 2. In which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, now he wants you to walk.
In these works. We walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the Power of the Air, the spirits that that's now working in the sense of disobedience, but we've been saved from that.
We're no longer there! We no longer have to do those things. Now we sing. You're his workmanship.
He's begun a good work in you. He's going to complete it! And he's laid out before you.
All sorts of things for you to do as a believer.
Walking those things. Now later on in Ephesians, he'll he'll warn.
The Ephesians don't walk like the Gentiles. I've saved you from those things.
Don't go back there. Why would you go back there?
I've given you all of these other things this. Laid out all of these things in the path before you.
Walk in those things.
And the way he words it.
Created in Christ Jesus for good works. It's like he's put this path in front of us and he's sprinkled it with
Tens of thousands of things for us to do. We, we would never. In multiple lifetimes be able to do all of the things that he's set in front of us.
But we can do some of those things. And that's what he wants us to do. Here's everything that you can do as a believer to bring me glory.
Pick some.
And he's given us the enablement by the spirit to do that. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
For good works. I just want to close with. A verse out of Hebrews. Chapter 13
Kind of a benediction. Now may the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant.
Even Jesus our Lord. Equip you in every good thing to do his will. Working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.
Through Jesus Christ. To whom be the glory for ever and ever. Hey, man. Let's pray.
Father, thank you.
For saving us, thank you for your Rich, abundant grace and mercy. For your love, for your forgiveness.
We thank you, Father, for the salvation that we have through the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have created us in Him.
For good works. Help us father to show the fact that we belong to you by the things we do.
Help us to walk in a manner worthy of you to conduct ourselves. In a manner that is pleasing to you.
And pray, Father, for your blessing on the remainder of our day. That you would keep our hearts and our minds.
Focused on you today. We pray this in Jesus name.